India's education scene in for a refurbish: Pitroda

Nadiad, Jan 19 (UNI) Admitting that education institutes in India lacked quality and access to education was dismal, Sam Pitroda, Chairman of the Knowledge Commission, today said that efforts were underway to restructure the system.

''Only seven per cent of our children can afford to go to college. Our goal is to increase the numbers,'' Mr Pitroda said at a function here.

He said at present, there are 350 Universities and the Commission has a target to increase it to at least 1,500 universities in the next seven years.

''We plan to restructure our libraries and Universities, We want teachers to do research and researchers to take to teaching,'' he said.

He was here to attend the felicitation of Dr H M Desai, the first Vice Chancellor of Dharmsinh Desai University here.

Today India is known for its IT, telecom skills and all credit should go to former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi. Now the country was reaping the benefits of the seeds he sowed, he added.

He also commended the vision of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who set up the Knowledge Commission to design the future infrastructure of the country. It will work in mainly five areas - access to knowledge, knowledge creation, foundation, application of knowledge and focus on to improve governance.

He said India has a very strong human resource base of 550 million people, under the age of 25. ''Our human resource will change the future of India down the years and the process has just begun,'' he observed.

UNI