84th snnual meeting of the Association of Indian Universities inaugurates

Updated on: Friday, November 13, 2009

Amritsar: The education cannot be developed with competition instead co-operation and partnership is the need of the hour. Although finance is the vital part in the development of education but commercialisation of education must be avoided. These remarks were made by Prof Sukhadeo Thorat, Chairman, University Grant Commission, New Delh.

He was delivering his key note address at the inaugural session of the 84th Annual Meeting of the Association of Indian Universities here today in the Guru Nanak Bhawan of the Guru Nanak Dev University.

This three-day conference is being hosted by Guru Nanak Dev University in collaboration with Association of Indian Universities (AIU) to discuss the issues and problems faced by higher education.

Dr MD Tiwari, Director, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad presided over the inaugural session. Prof Ajaib Singh Brar, Vice-Chancellor welcomed the chief guest and other participating Vice-Chancellors. Prof Beena Shah, Secretary General, AIU detailed about the meeting. More than 160 Vice-Chancellors from the various parts of the country are participating. This meeting would be concluded on November 14.

Prof Thorat while continuing his address said that the improvement of higher education under four facets namely access, equity aspect, quality aspect and teaching of relevant higher education is the need of hour. He said that the ban which were put on the recruitment of the faculty in the 80s and 90s in various states, has now been lifted in certain states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu after UGC brought this issue to the government.

Prof Sukhadeo Thorat said that the higher education in India has witnessed many fold increase in its insititutional capacity since Independence. He said during 1950 and 2008, the number of universities has increased from 22 to 431, colleges from 500 to 20, 677 and the teachers from 15, 000 to nearly 5 lacs. Concequently, the enrolment of students has increased from 1 lac to 116 lacs

84th snnual meeting of the Association of Indian Universities inaugurates

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