India Should Invest in Human Skills and Education to be Among Top Economies: Report
If India is able to tap the potential of human skill development and invest in higher education, it will be able to make its mark among the top three economies of the world, suggests a recently released report.
According to the latest survey, it is expected that if India invests in education and human skill development, it will be an added advantage for it to reach its objective of being regarded among the top three economies in the world in the next fifteen years. This piece of the survey was released during the Indian Management Conclave (IMC) which was conducted recently.
As indicated in the survey, if India is able to double or further maximize its GDP, as it did between 2000 and 2006, it will be able to achieve this goal. As per statistical data, the GDP doubled from 476 billion dollars to about 949 billion dollars during that period. As a result of the same, there was a strong surge in the engineering ad managing education.
Another factor is the Gross Enrolment Ratio, also referred to as the GER must be at least 35 percent by 2025 and about 50 percent by 2035, only then it will match the GER of China and reach half of the US GER. If the focus is strong on higher education, it will lead to higher skilling and employability that will ultimately make India a true services economy.
In addition to that, in order to sustain the GER growth, it is vital that the number of universities in the country grows to over 1200 as against the present 950. There should also be a dedicated focus on the enhancement of the campus programmes offered by the higher educational institutes in India and also pivoting strategies with respect to distance, continuing and online education. This approach will also fulfill the objectives of the Digital India initiative that the government is following religiously.
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One of the authors of the survey also highlighted that with the increasing rate of population in India, it is likely that it will reach 1.40 billion by 2025 and hence the requirement for colleges and universities will be more.
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Also, as per the draft of New Education Policy (NEP), it also proposes to increase the GER of 25.8 percent (current) to 35 percent (target) by the year 2025 among one of the key requirements that would contribute towards the five trillion dollar economy goal.
With inputs from NDTV