PanIIT Panch Ratnas
To usher in reforms in higher education system in India, the PanIIT Alumni team submitted a five-point agenda to the President of India, Pratibha Devisingh Patil. The white paper titled “PanIIT Panch Ratnas” recommends five action points that the Government needs to undertake in order to make India the global hub for knowledge creation and talent development by 2022.
The paper was initiated in February 2009 at the behest of the Hon’ble President for specific recommendations in the higher education sector. The PanIIT Alumni team led by Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT Ltd., and comprising globally-renowned practising educators, consultants and entrepreneurs has proposed initiatives that the Government of India should undertake to reform higher education in India.
The PanIIT Panch Ratnas are:
- Implementation of Comprehensive Reforms in Policies and Governance.
- Mandate Quality and Increase Capacity.
- Enable Quantum Improvement in Faculty Service Conditions.
- Deploy Technology for Teaching and Collaborative Research.
- Establish an Active Industry-Academia Interface.
- The white paper outlines the following goals to be achieved in India by 2022:
- India should build a 70-crore globally employable workforce, comprising 20 crore university graduates and 50 crore vocationally-skilled people.
- India should develop world-class infrastructure to become a global hub for knowledge creation, talent development, and entrepreneurial incubation.
- India should set global standards and become a large-scale provider of value-based, learner-centric education, skills development and professional educators through industry partnerships.
The paper states that though India produces some of the most talented and intelligent students and workers, questions related to quality, access, and equity still pose a hurdle to the educational planners. The current economic crisis has precipitated the need to radically reform education not just in India but in other parts of the world as well. There is an emerging consensus for the need to change the current educational paradigm to prepare youth for the global economy of the 21st century.