Bhubaneswar: President Pranab Mukherjee yesterday said people enjoying the privilege of education must provide dividend to the society as their obligation for the society’s uplift.
“Whatever we are today, we are after all the products of the social investment. The society has invested in us to become lawyers, teachers, doctors etc. Therefore, the society must expect a dividend from us and we should fulfill the expectation of society by paying the dividend in making up our contribution to the uplift of the society,” Mukherjee said in his keynote address during the golden jubilee celebration of Ramadevi Mahavidyalaya here.
He said people enjoying the privilege of education must teach uneducated people in society.
Mukherjee rued that India was lagging in providing quality higher education even though about 20m students were enrolled every year and the education sector was expanding.
He said that while India has 723 universities and thousands of institutions, not one found a place in the list of the world’s top 200 institutes.
Citing examples of the ancient Nalanda and Taxila universities which produced great scholars, the president emphasised on the need to check brain drain of Indian researchers.
Mukherjee said he has expressed his disappointment on several occasions at almost every academic programme he has attended over the past few years that no Indian educational institution has been recognised internationally. IANS
