Research, innovation, entrepreneurship are thrust areas for Higher Education 2.0, says top NITI Aayog official

Research, innovation, and entrepreneurship will be the focus areas in Higher Education 2.0 to make the country a developed economy by 2047 with universities having to play a key role to achieve it, said Shashank Shah, Director and Senior Specialist, NITI Aayog, on Sunday.

Speaking at the valedictory function of the 16th edition of graVITas’25, the annual international techno-management fest of the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) held at its campus here, Mr. Shah said that in the last 75 years, India has achieved great success in ensuring access to higher education with round 4.5 crore students enrolled in higher education.

“In Higher Education 2.0, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship are focus areas to convert the Indian economy into a developed one. In this endeavour, universities should become centres of research that create cutting-edge knowledge in frontier areas like Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, Internet of Things (IOT) rather than just teaching institutions,” he said. “Indian universities have to play a vital role to contribute to the economy as investment in research will increase from 0.7% of GDP to 3.5% of interest of GDP in the next 25 years,” he said.

Mr. Shah said that the contribution of innovation and entrepreneurship has been reflected in the steady rise of start-ups in the country. For example, India has grown from around 600 start-ups to 1,60,000 start-ups in the last eight years. In other words, around two percent of students, who graduate from the best of Indian universities opt for entrepreneurship and start-ups. “Today, USA and UK are benchmarks for students opting for start-ups as around 16% and 5% in these countries respectively where students opt for entrepreneurship on graduation. If the Indian higher education system is able to achieve it, students will become job creators rather than job seekers through campus placements,” he said.
 
On the occasion, Sharath Kumar Bache Gowda, MLA for Hoskote assembly constituency and Chairman, Karnataka State Electronics Department Corporation Limited (KEONICS), and Sekar Viswanathan, vice-president, VIT, were present.