Higher education in the country extremely uneven: Shashi Tharoor

New Delhi: Minister of State (MoS) for Human Resources Development (HRD) Shashi Tharoor on Friday rued that the quality of higher education in the country was "extremely uneven" and prescribed specialised training by institutions to its recruits as one of the solutions to bridge the gap.

Speaking at the 2nd convocation of the Max Institute of Medical Excellence in New Delhi, the new MoS for HRD said there was a dearth of good and quality education in the country though brain was the biggest asset of the people.

"Our biggest asset is brain. But those minds need to be shaped, they need to be nurtured and they need to be trained. When it comes to higher education, the quality is extremely uneven. On the one hand, we have world-class institutes like IIT and IIM," he said.

Shashi Tharoor prescribed specialised training by institutions to its recruits as one of the solutions to bridge the gap.

"And on the other, we have second rate and even third rate universities which produce graduates. But most of them end up unemployed and this is the reality which we face," the former UN diplomat told students.

To bridge the gap, Tharoor's prescription is that institutions should pitch in and train their own recruits so that they make up for the lost time in their universities. He cited such institutional training by software majors Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services as examples and suggested that other institutions could also emulate them.

Degrees to future healthcare professionals were awarded at the function.

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