Sonia stresses need for professional education to poor

Idupulapaya, Andhra Pradesh, Sep 11 (UNI) UPA Chairperson and AICC President Sonia Gandhi today underlined the need to provide higher technical education to poor people in rural areas in the country for their economic development.

Addressing students after formally inaugurating the Rajiv Gandhi Knowledge University here, she said poverty and rural background should not come in the way of access to higher technical education.

She said the vision of former Prime Minisiter late Rajiv Gandhi was to provide higher technical education to rural poor and Information Technology access to rural areas for the overall development of the country.

She said the UPA govenrment at the Centre and the Andhra Pradesh government had given priority for professiional courses. She appreciated the state government for establishing 14 universities in the state in the last four and a half years.

She said there were as many as 460 Univesities in the country with 21,000 affiliated colleges as against 20 universities set up long back with only 500 affiliated colleges.

Complimenting the Andhra Pradesh government for giving priority for higher and technical education, she said the state was developing very fast in the area of professional education.

She appealed to the university authorities to offer special courses in the university for the benefit of women members of SHGs and take steps to reduce the number of poor students dropping out in rural areas.

Earlier, she interacted with the students who urged her to establish such universities in other states also to benefit rural areas.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said the main objective of establishing the Rajiv Gandhi Knowledge University was to provide higher education to rural poor, including girls.

He said IT education would change for better the lives of poor students in rural areas.

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