Dharmendra Pradhan calls for nurturing students as future entrepreneurs

Speaking about entrepreneurship, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday mentioned the rising number of unicorns in the country as an indicator of a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and called for preparing the students to be job givers and not only job seekers.

His remarks came at a two-day conference of Vice-Chancellors of Central Universities and Directors of Institutions of National Importance has concluded on Wednesday. The President of India Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated the conference yesterday.

Apart from Pradhan, the conference was attended by Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar; Advisor to the Prime Minister, Amit Khare; Secretary, Higher Education Sanjay Murthy: Chairman UGC, Chairman AICTE, Chairperson, and Heads of Central Universities/Institutes of Higher Learning and senior officials from the Ministry of Education and the President Secretariat.

In his concluding remarks, Pradhan expressed gratitude to the President of India for his participation and guidance in the visitor's conference.

He said that the age of incremental change is gone and called upon higher education institutions to target exponential growth toward building a future-ready workforce.

Speaking about the challenges and opportunities in the new world propelled by technology, he said that India has shown its technological prowess in various initiatives like UPI, Direct Benefit Transfer, and Aadhar. "We must build upon this strength and make a future-ready workforce to embrace the changes arising out of the Industrial Revolution," said Pradhan.

The Education Minister also spoke about various initiatives taken by the Government in the realm of digital education and called for leveraging technology to further decolonize education.

He also called for further strengthening the alumni network and engaging efforts being taken in the area of internationalization of education in India, including the Study in India program.

In different sessions, the Conference deliberated on various topics such as - International rankings of Higher Education Institutions; collaboration between Academia-Industry and policymakers; Integrating School, Higher and Vocational education; Education and Research in emerging and disruptive technologies.

On the second day of the conference, Nunzio Quacquarelli, founder and CEO, QS ranking gave a presentation on the International rankings of Higher Education Institutions.

There were talks about Indian Universities in QS World University Rankings. It included suggestions on how Indian institutions can improve their performance and attain better world rankings. The moderation by Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director of IIT Kanpur was very evident and articulated comprehensively on how institutions in the country have been working towards the path of progress. He said that India has improved its performance in the Global rankings at an overall level.

The President is a visitor of 161 Central Institutes of Higher Education. Out of 161 institutes, 53 attended the conference physically while others were connected virtually. The President also hosted and honoured some of the donors, whose generous contribution has helped in building up a culture of 'giving back' and promoting the objective of 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat' in Central higher education Institutions.

( With inputs from ANI )

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