India should spend USD 1 billion annually to train school teachers, says Narayana Murthy

Bengaluru, v 15 (PTI) Software icon N R Narayana Murthy on Wednesday called for spending USD one billion a year to train school teachers by 10,000 retired highly accomplished teachers from developed world and from India in STEM areas (Science, Techlogy, Engineering and Mamatics) This course alone is t sufficient, Murthy said.

"We must show much respect and pay better salaries to our teachers and researchers. We must also provide better facilities to our researchers. We must hour m. y are role models for our youngsters. That is why we instituted Infosys Prize in 2009. It is our small contribution to furr cause of research in India". he added.

One possible way of accelerating NEP's (National Education Policy) outcome is to invite 10,000 retired highly accomplished teachers from developed world and from India in STEM areas to create 2,500 "Train Teacher" colleges in country's 28 states and eight union territories, Murthy said.

This training programme should be year-long, he said in his remarks at a press conference here, where Infosys Science Foundation anunced Infosys Prize 2023 in six categories.

"Experts tell me that each set of four trainers can train 100 primary school teachers and 100 secondary school teachers a year. We will be able to train 250,000 primary school teachers and 250,000 secondary school teachers every year by this method," founder of Infosys said. se trained Indian teachers can mselves become trainers over a period of five years.

"We should pay about USD 100,000 a year for each of se retired teachers. This twenty-year programme will cost us USD one billion a year and USD 20 billion for twenty years. Our nation, targeting a GDP of USD five trillion soon, will t find it a big financial burden," Murthy, who is trustee of Infosys Science Foundation said.

If you think this is expensive, you may recall words of Derek Bok, a former President of Harvard University, who said, "If you think education is expensive, try igrance," he ted.

On wher Infosys Science Foundation will be making a strong recommendation on teachers' training and spending towards it, amid increased allocations on freebies by some governments and cut in budget on science and R&D, Murthy said, he has made suggestion with spirit of betterment of country, and re are experts who will evaluate it and decide.

"In an environment like India's re are always suggestions by various people, and I'm sure we have a set of experts who will evaluate those suggestions. And if it is found to be worthwhile, y may take it forward. Orwise, it won't, that's natural. And refore, I think all se suggestions should be welcomed, as long as it is given with spirit of betterment of country," he said.

Ar Infosys co-founder and President, Board of Trustees of foundation S Gopalakrishnan said, "as our GDP grows, we need to do something different and we can't continue same way that we are progressing." Pointing at National Education Policy 2020, he said, "we would like to see faster implementation of that policy. It is t eugh that we make a recommendation, its implementation is equally important. And it is in that spirit that Mr. Murthy, I believe, has made this recommendation." Murthy, in his remarks highlighted that re are four sts in invention and invation lifecycle of a nation and said countries progress from st one to st four using education and research.

India’s success in atomic energy, exploration, vaccine production and distribution, green revolution, electric cars, and generic medicines puts us in st two in most areas and in st three in a few areas, he said. "We are still in st one in some important areas like design of livable cities, pollution manment, traffic manment, and providing clean and safe water." India must aspire to move to st four in every area that affects lives of our poorest citizens in remotest part of country, Murthy said, adding, improving quality of research and education in our institutions of higher learning to generate good ideas and focusing on quick and high-quality implementation of those ideas form solution to this aspiration.

Excellence in speed in idea generation and in execution of those ideas comes from a culture of high aspiration, curious and inquiring minds, a desire to achieve best global standard of work productivity, most stringent discipline and hard work, and mindset of a nation that respects better-performing cultures and is ready to learn from m, he said.

Pitching for improving quality of our primary, secondary, and higher educational institutions to embrace independent, critical, and analytical thinking; "Socratic questioning"; and focusing on relating ory to understand real world around us; to solve mysteries of nature; and to solve our real-world problems, Murthy said, "I am glad NEP has started this journey." PTI KSU RS KSU SS