Liberalise education completely: Infosys Chief

Chennai, Dec 15 (UNI) Education in India should be completely liberalised at least at the primary level, Infosys Chief Mentor Narayana Murthy said today.

Talking to newspersons after the launch of 'Centre of Excellence for Infrastructure', a joint initiative by the MARG and Great Lake Institute of Management, he said, ''education must function as an industry in a free-market environment with appropriate regulatory mechanisms.'' New educational institutions could come up without the government's permission, he said, adding that the government should allow anyone to start universities.

Mr Murthy said, ''we have to address the needs of the poor people and at the same time, we need to bring competition into the education system''.

Only the rich and influential would get opportunities for quality education, if the licensing regime continued in the educational sector, he argued.

''We should also create more job opportunities for the students, who passed out from universities'', he said.

On women empowerment, Mr Murthy highlighted that about 34 per cent of women were employed in Infosys.

''Out of the total 28,000 engineers in Infosys, 34 per cent are women,'' he said, adding, this figure was raising every year.

Mr Murthy said Infosys had a seperate women's network, which was working out various plans to have better working environment for them.

UNI