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Technical colleges lack good teachers: Krishna

By Our Staff Correspondent

MYSORE Dec. 28. The Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, today expressed concern over the scarcity of teachers of quality in engineering and medical colleges.

Laying the foundation stone for a new building of the Vidya Vikas Institute of Engineering and Technology on the outskirts of Mysore, Mr. Krishna said imparting quality education through efficient teachers had become the biggest challenge for engineering and medical colleges today.

Mr. Krishna said he recently met the scientist, U.R. Rao, on a flight to New Delhi, and the latter shared with him his concern at the deteriorating standards of technical and medical education. Although the Centre had constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Rao to go into the question, the report of the committee, submitted to the Centre sometime ago, had not been sent to States, Mr. Krishna regretted.

He called upon the Vice-Chancellors of universities and Education Ministers to do some "serious thinking'' on the matter. The quality of graduates produced by educational institutions was directly dependent on the teaching staff, he pointed out. However, technical graduates from various institutions in the country were held in high esteem in the world over, Mr. Krishna said. "The entire world looks up to us,'' he added. Mr. Krishna said that when Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister came to Bangalore on a private visit recently, he (Mr. Krishna) asked him the reason for his visit. The visiting dignitary said that he had come to Bangalore to see the city which had produced a large number of professionals for the Silicon Valley in the U.S. "One out of every three professionals in Silicon Valley claims to hail from Bangalore,'' the visitor told Mr. Krishna.

Mr. Krishna emphasised the need to maintain the quality of engineering graduates, and said no compromises could be made in this regard.

Most educational institutions had complained about a scarcity of quality teachers though they were willing to pay high salaries. "The problem is afflicting both medical and engineering colleges,'' Mr. Krishna added.

The Chairman of the Tax Reforms Committee and former Chief Minister, M. Veerappa Moily, inaugurated a website of the institution. Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar, MP, H. Vishwanath, Minister for Cooperation, M. Shivanna, Minister for Water Resources (overseeing projects in the Cauvery Basin), M. Mahadev, Minister for Sugar and Animal Husbandry, Rani Satish, Minister for Kannada and Culture, Modamani, Mayor, and Ayub Khan, Deputy Mayor, were present.

`Awaiting orders'

Mr. Krishna said today that he welcomed the law to restrict the size of ministries. Addressing presspersons here after offering puja to Goddess Chamundeshwari atop Chamundi Hills, he said every elected member wanted to be a minister, and that was not possible.

There had to be a law to restrict the size of ministries as restrictions imposed by leaders would not work, he added.

Asked whether he would downsize his Ministry, Mr. Krishna said he would decide after orders were issued in this regard.

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