Education, critical challenge for economic dev: Ahluwalia

Bangalore, Jan 15 (UNI) Describing education as one of the critical challenges for the fast economic development of the country, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said there is a need to upgrade the standards of several universities to global level.

Delivering a lecture on 'Critical Challenges for Economic Development' at the Indian Institute of Sciences here, he said India had done well in improving the quality of education at the lower end in the past several years, but neglected it at the higher level at a time when there was a huge demand for high quality skilled people to cope with the growing economy.

India had a huge potential of human resources capable of providing fast economic growth in the competitive global economy, he said, adding that India was producing enough of skilled people in the 1990s when the economy was slow.

Dr Ahluwalia said China had raised the level of its universities to global standards to produce enough skilled people, while India still lagged behind with only a few of its centres being recognised at the world level.

He said radical thinking was needed to take the present education system to global standards and it could be done by utilising public funds and asking banks to provide finance to students coming from middle income groups.

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