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Teaching should be high-paying, says Aamir

Last Updated 18 July 2009, 13:02 IST
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"It is a great delight to be here with Aamir Khan, who is not only a Bollywood icon but also the great advocate for education," Clinton said during a special interactive session with the students of Xavier College here in which Khan was also present.

The 140-year old Mumbai's St. Xavier's College was crawling with policemen hours ahead of Clinton's arrival.
Security personnel were positioned on top of all neighbouring buildings and were out in strength on the road outside the college.
The media was camping in full strength outside the college, which is across the road from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus -- one of the major spots under atack by the Pakistani terrorist on 26/11 last year.

The college is also right next to Cama Hospital, where top Mumbai police officials Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar were gunned down by terrorists during the terror attack.
"I am here to see how US and India can work for the common cause of education, which is the great equaliser and gateway to opportunities," Clinton said.
Khan, the brand ambassador of the education campaign Teach India, who brought to fore the need of special care to the differently-abled students with his award-winning film on autism "Taare Zameen Par", said children should be encouraged to be creative in their life and there should be less emphasis on memorisation.
"We have to tell our kids to be more caring and I think that is going to make a huge difference from 25 years onwards."
Supporting Khan's view, Clinton said, "I think the actual requirement to become successful in the world is cooperation and collaboration among people and among countries."

Teaching should be high-paying, says Aamir

Teaching should be a "high paying job” to attract the best possible talent, Bollywood star Aamir Khan declared here Saturday as he, along with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the 140-year-old St. Xavier's College here for an interactive session with its students and academics.
"Teaching should be a high paying job so that youngsters should aim at becoming teachers. I would like to see that one day in India, teaching is the most highly paid job," the actor, dressed casually in light blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a black jacket said, declaiming at length about "Teaching as a profession".
"We should give so much value to teaching as a profession that every kid that comes out of school and college should feel that he or she wants to be a teacher,” Khan maintained, adding: "We as a country should give importance to teaching as a profession. Unfortunately we don't because there are more lucrative career options like medicine and  engineering that parents want theirs kids to opt for."
Clinton couldn't agree more with Khan. “Aamir has come up with some excellent points to tell us what all is required to make education important. We have the best of educational institutes in our country but they are not for everyone. Part of our challenge is to provide education to those who don't get it easily,” Clinton said.
“Competition is part of a human's genes. I believe working in collaborations and corporations would help children to do well in life,” she explained.
According to Khan, "most of the people entering teaching today are those who don't get jobs in the professions they want to, so they end up teaching. We have brilliant and talented teachers today who genuinely know how to teach but such people are in a minority.”
"Our government should give value to teaching so that others too give it the same value. There are so many people who are interested in teaching but the pressure to become a doctor or an engineer rules out that possibility,” he added.
The actor also said that education was the foundation of any society and everyone should take the responsibility to contribute something toward it.
"The most important thing about education is that it should encourage students to think. It should create people with minds to take humanity further. Today, our educational system emphasises more on memorising,” Khan explained.

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(Published 18 July 2009, 12:59 IST)

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