‘Need liberal policy for higher education’

A non-profit group of educationists and academicians has underlined the need for a liberal government policy on education to enable students to have sufficient opportunities and financial assistance to pursue higher studies.

A resolution in this regard was adopted at the national conference on higher education with the theme ‘Scarcity to Plenty - Road Map for 2025,’ which was held under the aegis of the Educational Promotion Society of India (EPSI) at Bangalore, recently.

VIT chancellor, G Viswanathan, who is the president of EPSI, said the aim of the conference was to focus on challenges in the field of higher education.

Quoting a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Viswanathan said India had just five lakh civil engineers and 45,000 architects when the demand was nearly 40 lakh civil engineers and 3.6 lakh architects.

The survey had predicted that by 2020 the cumulative shortfall of core professionals in the construction industry would be in hundreds of lakhs.

This issue could be addressed only if opportunities were provided to more students to pursue higher studies while encouraging universities and colleges to take a liberal stand, he added.

Viswanathan said that the Governor of Karnataka, Hans Raj Bhardwaj, in his inaugural address, had stressed on the need for more universities in the country, especially in South India.