Thaindian News

Jammu, Nov 25 (IANS) Calling for spreading education to one and all in the country, President Pratibha Patil Friday said a “comprehensive education system” must produce innovators and entrepreneurs.

Addressing a convocation of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University near Katra, about 45 km from here, the president said: “(A) nation requires a range of qualifications and professional skills.”

“A comprehensive education system must, therefore, produce people who can meet job requirements, who can become good professionals because of their aptitude, whether they are doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, researchers, scientists or managers,” she said.

“It needs to produce innovators and entrepreneurs. It needs farmers who can produce agricultural products with greater knowledge and research and development inputs, with better utilization of resources, with a greater ability to access knowledge systems and to integrate with other sectors of the economy by forging linkages for production, marketing or value addition with industry to make agriculture more remunerative,” she said.

The president is on a four-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir that began Thursday evening.

Underlining the challenge of expanding higher education, Patil said it is not “just about making room for an ever larger number of students, it is also about having these numbers flow into the right streams and sectors”.

“Moreover, education must also reach all boys and girls of every section of our society so that the aspiration to realize their full potential becomes a reality for all in our country,” she said.

Patil is the second president to visit the university. In August 2004, the then president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had visited the university.