Date:15/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/15/stories/2008101559210300.htm

Karnataka

‘Make higher education accessible to youth’

Staff Correspondent

Manipal: MLC Ganesh Karnik said on Tuesday that higher education should be made accessible to more youth.

He was speaking as the chief guest at the valedictory of a management festival, “M-echelon 2008”, organized by the Manipal Institute of Management, here.

Mr. Karnik said that only seven per cent of youth were having access to higher education, while 15 per cent did undergraduate courses. About 35 per cent of youth studied up to matriculation while nearly 70 per cent of Indian population comprised youth aged under 35 years.

In order to create a productive human resource, it was necessary to make higher education accessible to more youth. Teachers in private schools were a demoralised lot owing to poor salaries paid to them.

India should create its own model of economic development rather following either socialism or liberalisation, blindly. It should have its own model of education, Mr. Karnik said.

Director of Manipal Institute of Management K.V.M. Varambally was present.