The VIT Chancellor Dr G Viswanathan urged the Government to enhance the quality in government schools or provide financial assistance to private schools so that more students will get good quality education.

In his Presidential address at the function organised to provide scholarship to students under the Universal Higher Education Trust (UHET), Vellore held at VIT campus, here on April 22, 2019 (Monday), VIT Chancellor and President of UHET Dr G Viswanathan said that the Government needs to concentrate more to provide good quality education so that lot of children will get an opportunity to pursue high quality education.

“Government provides free education but not many go to Government schools, whereas several students go to private institutions. So the government should enhance the quality and infrastructure in government schools or provide financial support to private schools so that we will be able to offer good quality to more students,” he says.

Recalling his schooling in Government school, Dr Viswanathan says that being a student of Government school made him think of enhancing the quality in Government schools. “For the past 15 years we have been working to enhance the quality in government schools across the Vellore district. If Government employees and teachers decide to educate their children in government schools, the government schools will get developed,” he said.

“We need to put our efforts together in making Vellore a model district and succeed in providing higher education to all our children so that it can became a model to the rest of the districts of the country,” he says.

Speaking about scholarships being provided under UHET, Dr Viswanathan said that a total of 5,141 needy students with poor economic background, of which 66 per cent are girls, have benefited through UHET since its beginning in 2012 and they have completed their studies and have been employed.

Pointing out that any welfare state should spend enough money on education and health as education improves not only family but also society and the country, the Chancellor said that Central Government should spend at least 6 per cent of the GDP on education.

The Chancellor also said that Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI), in which he is the President, has made a request to the Government that the age limit of 14 years for free and compulsory education should be increased to 18 years so that it would cover free and compulsory education upto class 12.

M Ethiraj, Chairman, SV Global Mill Ltd., Chennai took part in the function as chief guest and gave away the scholarship to the students.

Members of UHET,  Mailambikai Kumaraguru, J Lakshmanan, KM Devaraj, Pulavar Ve Padumanar and head of the finance committee, UHET, Dr M Venkada Subbu and project director of UHET Dr R Muthu Veeran also spoke in the function.