India needs cadre of skilled youth: Kalam

Staff Reporter
— FILE Photo: PTI

Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Bangalore: “No Indian youth should be without either a world class higher education or without world class skill sets,” former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said here on Sunday.
Interacting with students and faculty at the Oxford Educational Institutions, he said that India needs a large number of talented youth with higher education “for the task of knowledge acquisition, knowledge imparting, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing”.
A large segment of India's population — 540 million people — is under the age of 25, he added.
India's university education system contributes three million graduates and post-graduates every year and the country's schools educate seven million a year.
“Educational systems should create two cadres of personnel — a global cadre of skilled youth… and another cadre of youth with higher education,” he said.
These cadres will be needed “not only for powering the manufacturing and services sectors of India but also… to [fulfil] the human resource requirements of various countries in specialised areas in science, technology, humanities and management,” said Prof. Kalam.
“The university system will have to work towards increasing the output of the higher education system from the existing 11 per cent to 15 per cent by 2015, 20 per cent by 2020 and 30 per cent by 2030,” he said.
In his inimitable style, Prof. Kalam charmed his young audience with his inspirational messages, some that he exhorted the students to repeat after him.
“Defeat the problem and succeed” was the central theme of his address, which he illustrated with examples from history and contemporary personalities.
It was his creative streak that helped Mario Capecchi overcome acute adversity and win the Nobel Prize, he said. Likewise, initial failure did not deter the genius A.K. Ramanujan, he added.
The former President acknowledged the work of H. Sudarshan, founder of Vivekananda Girijana Kalyan Kendra, at BR Hills.
“In the present circumstances and environment, it was inspiring to see how a MBBS doctor has put all his dreams in mainstreaming the tribal citizens of Karnataka for the last 25 years,” he said.
Potential
Addressing students of the Presidency Group of Institutions at an interactive session at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium, Prof. Kalam said that India has all the resources to become a developed nation by 2020 but lack of confidence among its youth was increasingly becoming a hindrance to make this dream a reality.
He said that India has made progress in various sectors, including agriculture and manufacturing, and it is leading the information technology revolution.
“We have everything to become a developed nation. However, the confidence level of our youth is a worry,” he said.
For students, it was a special class by “Kalam Sir” and they welcomed him with a huge applause, and some of them presented flowers too.
They were eagerly waiting to hear his speech and “Kalam Sir” did not disappoint them.

http://hindu.com/2010/08/30/stories/2010083060010400.htm
He taught them how to have “wings to fly” and urged them to “dream big”.