VIJAYAWADA: Prof Jandhyala BG Tilak of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration has stressed the need for improving the quality of higher education to build world-class universities in the country.
He also felt that the Indian government is more interested in building world- class universities rather than improving the quality of higher education.
Addressing the students at a seminar on ‘Global Rankings, World-class Universities and Dilemma in Higher Education Policy in India’, organised as part of the Krishna University’s public lecture series at KBN College here Monday, he spoke on several issues regarding world-class universities and the parameters involved in global rankings of the universities. He said that no Indian university or institution of higher education had figured among the top 200 institutions in the world, according to the global rankings and pointed out that this had become a serious concern for the Indian policy-makers.
Prof Tilak said that the president, the prime minister, the minister for human resources development (HRD) and many others had expressed their unhappiness over not a single Indian institution being in the list of top 100 institutions in the world.
He said with increase in the focus on audit culture, international rankings had become very popular and added that there were several positive aspects to rankings. He, however, pointed out that there had been a considerable criticism on the methodology, quality and reliability of the data, choice of indicators and weights assigned to each of the parameters.
“While most of the countries recognise the need to have top-ranking world-class universities essentially to improve their global standing in the rankings, a few in the era of globalisation seem to acknowledge the need for their national development, though it can be argued that such universities might serve both purposes at the same time,” he added.
Krishna University vice-chancellor Vunnam Venkaiah said the university had planned such events in order to bring about awareness on several themes which would help the society and expressed concern over the quality of education in Indian universities. He also said that the students must utilise the opportunity in taking wise decisions about their future and later showered encomiums on Prof Tilak for his research and immense knowledge on higher education.
Secretary and correspondent of KBN College SVSM Rajith Kumar said the youth should play a key role in development of the country.
Prof Tilak was felicitated by the KBN College faculty. Later, a booklet on Krishna University was released. KBN college vice-principal V Narayana Rao, members of the faculty and the students attended the seminar.