PM Modi interacts with directors of premier tech institutions, pitches for flexible education models

He underlined the need to progress towards education models that are flexible, seamless

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked heads of top research institutes to develop a roadmap where the benefits of robotics, drones, online education technologies could be maximised and made popular.

In his first public engagement with new members of the Union Cabinet, the Prime Minister interacted with heads of centrally-funded institutions such as IITs, IISERS, IISc, Bangalore among others in the presence of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Minister of State Annapurna Devi.

The Prime Minister stressed the need to adapt higher education and technical education to keep in tune with the changing environment and emerging challenges.

“This requires the institutions to reinvent and re-evaluate themselves, develop alternative and innovative models in accordance with the present and future needs of the country and society,” he said.

Modi emphasised that Indian higher educational and technical institutions need to prepare youth for continuous disruptions and changes, keeping in mind the fourth industrial revolution.

He asked higher educational institutions to ensure that products associated with Artificial Intelligence, smart wearables, augmented reality systems, and digital assistants reach the common man.

“We should focus on affordable, personalized, and AI-driven education,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister emphasised that digitisation of higher education can play a big role in increasing Gross Enrollment Ratio, and students will have easier access to good quality and affordable education.

He also lauded the various initiatives taken by the institutions to increase digitisation such as that of online bachelor and master’s degree programmes and stressed the need to develop an ecosystem of technological education in Indian languages and translate global journals into regional languages.

Modi said the team from IISc, Bengaluru shared a presentation on their key R&D initiatives in areas such as robotics, efforts in education such as training maths/science teachers, Covid-19 work and emphasised the need to give importance to health in Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision.

The team from IIT, Madras talked about Covid mitigation efforts such as setting up modular hospitals, hotspot prediction, multi-disciplinary research and online BSc in programming and data science.