Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday said expansion of universities is crucial to improve higher education and urged these institutions to reflect on how to stop 'brain drain'. In his valedictory address at the North Zone Vice Chancellor's Meet organised by Association of Indian Universities, he stressed upon the difference between education and human resource development.
"Human Resource Development is a mere tool of education, it is not the foundation of education. It is the role and responsibility of education to ensure that our children are not considered as mere tools or instruments for the world but as thriving human beings," he said. Talking about higher education in the post-COVID and post-NEP world, Sisodia, who is also Delhi's education minister, said there are certain challenges that universities and educators alike face in the current landscape of Indian education.
"The first challenge pertained to the challenge of quantity. We introduced several missions and laws such as Right to Education. We ensured that all children attend school. We created a bumper crop of school graduates. But then the child asks - Where should I go? What should I do now? We don't have answers," he said.Sisodia urged universities to think out of the box to find solutions for the large quantities and lack of enough space for the students in higher education.
"The bottom line is that we can say that students who graduate from our universities and colleges stands at some level of achievement. We cannot decide the maximum success a child can reach, but we can decide the minimum limits for quality education. We should guarantee minimum levels of education."Talk about research. Talk about entrepreneurship in your convocation, that after graduating, our students created jobs for 2000 people. We have to celebrate our job providers," he said.
Sisodia also implored university chancellors and teachers to be mindful of 'brain drain'. "Universities play a big role in the development of a country. They identify talent and nurture it. As a nation, all of us have failed if our students are studying in universities abroad and thereafter contributing to the economy of others," he said.