For me it is always a pleasure to be at a University and among students. Today, it gives me added pleasure to be here at the 150th anniversary celebrations of the University of Mumbai. I wish you all well on this happy occasion. May your University continue to light the lamp of education and serve the cause of national development.

Set up originally as the University of Bombay, Mumbai University is one of our oldest and greatest Universities of the modern era. Like the great universities of ancient India, Nalanda, Takshasila and Nagarjuna, the Mumbai University has played an important role in the spread of knowledge and learning in our country. It has been the alma mater of some of our greatest national leaders - like Gopala Krishna Gokhale - of eminent scholars, scientists, industrialists, administrators and professionals in all walks of life. No wonder it is rated among the top-500 universities in the world.

My young friends, you have much to be proud of about the 150-year-old legacy of your university. When you leave the portals of this University, you must always remember that you have been the beneficiaries of a unique opportunity - an opportunity of studying at the University of Mumbai.

I am happy to say that in my own academic life I came in contact with many distinguished scholars from this university. In my own discipline of economics, the Mumbai University has left a lasting imprint through the work of such great Indian economists as Prof. C.N. Vakil, Prof. P.R. Brahmananda, Prof. D.T. Lakdawala and Prof. M.L. Dantwala. They gave leadership to what came to be called the "Bombay School of Economics". They had a different worldview and contested the ideas of Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis, Prof. K.N. Raj and the Delhi School.

In other disciplines too, Mumbai University has made a mark for itself. In the popular imagination the City of Mumbai has come to represent the world of finance, business and cinema. However, let us not forget that Mumbai is also a great intellectual centre and home to some of our most important research institutions in the fields of science, technology and the social sciences. Some of our most distinguished scientists have worked here at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. I therefore salute the great contribution Mumbai has made to the world of academia and research in our country.

While we do have much to be proud of, we also have a long distance to travel in the field of higher education and research in India to attain world standards. We are at an important cusp in our developmental trajectory. We are at a point when the dynamics of our population growth can catapult us into a prolonged cycle of rapid economic growth - growth which can be the basis for eradication of the ancient scourges poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and disease. For this to happen, we need to translate this potential into reality. The reality at the moment is that around 10% of the relevant age-group is enrolled in any institute of higher education - as compared to 40-50% in most developed economies. In almost half the districts in the country, higher education enrolments are abysmally low. Less than 50% of secondary school students continue into college education in any form. Almost 2/3rd of our universities and 90% of our colleges are rated as below average on quality parameters. And most importantly, there is a nagging fear that university curricula are not synchronized with employment needs.

If we need to capitalize on our latent human potential, we need a quantum leap in our approach to higher education. We need to revamp the higher education system so that it walks on the two legs of access and excellence. On one hand, we need a massive expansion of higher education opportunities. Through this, we can expand access to knowledge to all classes of society and to all regions of the country. This is the only way that the lamp of knowledge can be taken to every door. On the other hand, we need to upgrade the quality of the higher educational institutions so that they work on the frontiers of knowledge, harnessing its immense capabilities for our common societal benefit. The higher education system must grow on these two pillars if it is to fulfill its role in nation building.

It is with this objective in mind that we had appointed the National Knowledge Commission. The Commission has come forward with many interesting ideas, giving us food for thought on the steps that are necessary to propel us into the knowledge era. A key recommendation of the Knowledge Commission is that we must undertake a massive expansion of higher education in our country. The Commission believes that by 2015, India should attain a gross enrolment ratio of at least 15% if we are to be in line with most modern societies.

Such a quantum jump in our university system has to be well planned and well funded. We need, not just financial and physical resources, but also human resources. We have to universalize our secondary school system so that we generate enough good quality students who can then seek admission to higher education. We need more and better teachers and better facilities.

Our Government has taken the task of expanding higher education seriously. As you know, we have started new national institutions in the fields of science, technology and medicine. In the last 100 years, we have had only one Indian Institute of Science. In past two years, we have sanctioned six more. We have opened new national institutes in medical sciences, engineering and management.

Today, I am happy to announce that we intend to establish 30 new Central Universities across the country. The work on the modalities for setting these up has begun and the Ministry of Human resource Development, the UGC and the Planning Commission are working to operationalize this in the next 2-3 months. This expansion is going to be a landmark in expanding access to high quality education across the country. These Universities, in my view, should focus on achieving international standards of excellence and should be rated among the top institutions in the world. They should have the best faculty, excellent physical resources, a wide range of disciplines, and most importantly, a diverse student body. They should become the launching pads for our entry into the knowledge economy.

I recognize that education is an important responsibility of State Governments and most educational activity is managed at the state level. States and local Governments must also do more to expand access to remote areas and to marginalized groups. As I had said earlier, 340 districts have extremely low college enrolments. The Central Government would work with the states to support the expansion of colleges to these 340 districts. Each of these districts should strive to have at least one good college and the Central Government is considering ways of funding their establishment.

Access to higher education has two dimensions of which expansion of supply is only one. If the latent demand for higher education is to be converted to a real one, we need to consider ways of improving the financial resources of aspiring students as well. While our Government has taken several steps to expand the scholarships available to students, including SCs, STs and minorities, we need a much larger national programme so that no one who wants to pursue further education is denied this opportunity for lack of resources. As a beneficiary of scholarships in my own education, I am deeply committed to this idea. We are working on a national system of scholarships and easily available loans so that all needy and deserving students have access to the necessary finances to fund their education. We will realize this goal in the coming year.

If the University system expands, it also needs a larger pool of school leavers. We are working on a plan to gradually universalize secondary schooling in the country. This programme will build on the success of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and will cover the entire country in 2-3 years. Further, in order to promote excellence, we are working on a programme for having one high quality school in every block of the country. These publicly funded 6000 schools will establish benchmarks for excellence in public schooling which can then be role models for the rest of the public educational system.

The Knowledge Commission has emphasized, and rightly so, that such a quantitative expansion of the university system must be accompanied by qualitative improvement. Not only should new universities be better universities, but even existing universities, including State universities, must reform and improve themselves. The reform of our existing university system should, therefore, be as much of a priority for us as its expansion.

Our university system is, in many parts, in a state of disrepair. We need better facilities, more and better teachers, a flexible approach to curriculum development to make it more relevant, more effective pedagogical and learning methods and more meaningful evaluation systems. The quality of governance of many state educational institutions is a cause for concern. I am concerned that in many States, university appointments, including that of Vice-Chancellors, have been politicized and have become subject to caste and communal considerations. There are complaints of favouritism and corruption. This is not as it should be. We should free university appointments from unnecessary interventions on the part of governments and must promote autonomy and accountability. I urge states to pay greater attention to this aspect. After all, a dysfunctional education system can only produce dysfunctional future citizens!

We also need to move away from routine approaches to overcome quality bottlenecks in our university system. We should look at alternative ways of improving the remuneration of professors, at ways of tapping into the large pool of Indian origin teaching manpower spread across the world's universities, and of linking up with the best universities across the world to promote cross-fertilization of ideas. I urge all those associated with our higher education system to think of and suggest solutions for improving quality. We are ready to listen.

I do believe our universities need and deserve better leadership and more transparent, efficient and liberal governance systems. I also believe that a university should be a community imbued by the values of liberalism, pluralism, secularism, social justice and the pursuit of excellence. Speaking at Allahabad University in 1947, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said:

"A university stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for progress, for the adventure of ideas and for the search for truth. It stands for the onward march of the human race towards even higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duty adequately, then it is well with the nation and the people. But if the temple of learning itself becomes a home of narrow bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the nation prosper or a people grow in stature?"

He further said:

"A vast responsibility rests on our universities and educational institutions and those who guide their destinies. They have to keep their lights burning and must not stray from the right path even when passion convulses the multitude and blinds many amongst those whose duty it is to set an example to others. We are not going to reach our goal through crookedness or flirting with evil in the hope that it may lead to good. The right end can never be fully achieved through wrong means."

These words of Panditji are as relevant today as they were sixty years ago.

A university is not a factory sending out batches of students on a conveyor belt into the market place. Nor is it just a training college. One must make a distinction between a university and a college or a training centre. The latter are very important places of learning, no doubt. And, a university is also a place for teaching and training. However, a university is something more. It must be a place where knowledge is imparted and acquired, contested and created. It is also a place where we instill values in our youth and offer space for the full expression of human creativity and intellectual endeavor.

My young friends, I once again wish you all well as you step out into the world of work. But the work of learning should never stop. It is necessary that we should be willing to learn till we breathe our last. Education does not end in classrooms. It merely begins there. I urge you to adopt an open mind, be willing to question and seek answers, to learn and to teach, to constantly improve oneself, and seek truth from facts, seek knowledge from experience. I wish you well. I wish the University well. May your path be blessed.