‘Viksit Bharat 2047 only a milestone not destination’

Trichy: India's economic growth should be matched by the growth of higher education for the country to achieve overall development, NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) director G Kannabiran said on Sunday.Speaking at NIT, Trichy, on the last day of the two-day conference on "Emerging Multidisciplinary Research Trends and Advanced Methodologies for Viksit Bharat 2047", Kannabiran, who also served twice as director-in-charge of NIT-T, said India is poised to become the world's third-largest economy by the end of this decade. "This needs to be matched with growth in the country's higher education system. When Prime Minister Modi returned for a third term, he said in Parliament that whatever decisions and policies taken today will have a bearing on the next 1,000 years. This means the policies and initiatives are not short-sighted but long-term oriented. That is why Viksit Bharat 2047 is only a milestone, not the destination," he said."If we look at the top 100 universities globally, a sizeable number of Indian universities should feature in that list, but only a few do. There is no stability in our institutional growth," he said, adding that the NEP 2020 and the proposed Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhisthan (VBSA) Bill, 2025, aim to ensure this quality. The VBSA Bill aims to overhaul higher education by replacing the UGC, AICTE and NCTE with a single regulatory body and is currently under consideration by a joint parliamentary committee. Only 20% of colleges and 45% of universities in India have subjected themselves to accreditation, he said. "For decades, we have regulated institutions through the UGC, AICTE and NCTE, but there has been no required transformation. That is why the NEP 2020 and the VBSA Bill focus on changing the structure, subjecting institutions to quality checks, and helping them grow," he added.