PM back in his campus to receive honourary doctorate

It was indeed a proud moment for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to be back in his campus on Tuesday, this time to receive the prestigious honorary doctorate in law. A home away from home, the Panjab University campus at Chandigarh had nurtured him as a student and he in turn served it back as an educator. Wearing the blazing red ceremonial robes, the Prime Minister was all praise for his alma mater at the specially arranged convocation and said that the university did play a major role in shaping the person that he is.

Reminding the students of the university’s towering alumni members like former PM IK Gujral, astronaut Kalpana Chawla, Nobel Laureate Prof. Hargobind Khorana and cricketer Kapil Dev, the prime minister said they were privileged to be part of such an outstanding tradition.

The Prime Minister promised the university, which is already crippling due to financial constraints that its fund would never fall short of providing salaries to teachers.

However, he was apprehensive over the deterioration in the quality of education and was worried about the ‘deficiencies and imbalances’ that has crept into the system. In his speech, the Prime Minister came out with the real picture of Indian education which lacks talent when compared with international standards. Not many institutions in the country can boast of top-class faculty level as well.

The PM said that the real crisis in the higher education sector was that only a dismal twelve percent of the students who complete their secondary education get themselves enrolled for higher education every year.

He added that nearly half of the institutions of higher learning exist in only five states of the country where as nearly seventy percent of total intake capacity for professional courses exists in another five states.

The Prime minister said the government has plans to undertake widespread reformatory measures in the education sector according to the directions of National Knowledge Commission and Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education