Tamil Nadu - Chennai

‘Higher education facing a challenge’

CHENNAI: The robust higher education system in India faces the challenge of matching depth of knowledge with breadth, said M. Anandakrishnan, chairman, Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), here on Wednesday. He was speaking at the annual convocation at the Ethiraj College for Women.

Expansion would become a compulsion for institutions of higher learning and put good institutions under enormous pressure, he added.

In the next few years, higher education would increasingly become inter-disciplinary and the depth of knowledge would have to be matched by breadth, he said.

Highlighting the paradigm shift in higher education, Prof. Anandakrishnan said institutions, while expanding to accommodate more students, would have to retain excellence and also ensure they do not become elitist. Speaking on trends in higher education, he said roughly about one lakh students from India were studying in the United States.

Nearly 30,000 students were studying in the United Kingdom, and a few thousands in Australia and China. However, the Indian system had largely failed to attract students and faculty from other countries, he said. Emphasising the major role played by educational institutions, he said a good institution would mould students to use intuition and emotion in a logical manner.

He urged students to be proactive and responsible in addressing the “absolute erosion of ethics in society and the decreasing probity in public life.”

College Principal M. Thavamani presented the examination results, and chairman of the Ethiraj College Trust Justice S. Jagadeesan administered the oath to new graduates.

Prof. Anandakrishnan gave away the degree certificates to students and university rank holders.

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