Message from President
“The transition from higher secondary school to higher education is more significant to nurture young minds in the age of 18-23”
Higher education plays a significant role in human resource development of a country by creating skilled manpower, enhancing industrial productivity and improving quality of life. Furthermore, youth are the most valuable human resource in our country and they must have equitable access to higher quality education and should be able to acquire necessary skills that are needed in the labour market. Our country has the advantage of being among the youngest countries in the world with a large proportion of working population being in the age group of 15-59 years. India has a unique 20–25 years window of opportunity called the “demographic dividend” which has created a low dependency ratio providing a comparative cost advantage and competitiveness to the economy. The transition for higher secondary school to higher education is more significant to nurture young minds in the age of 18-23 who can have better participation for the development of the nation.
The economic growth of a country depends on the availability of higher education in the nation. The world is growing fast and India also has to compete with the rest of the world. The world’s average GER is 27%. Whereas, India’s average is around 25.8%, Tamil Nadu is slightly above the India’s average with 48.6%. But, we have to compete with the developed nations, where the GER ranges from 60% to 100% and I want Vellore district to compete to the developed nations like US where it is 95 per cent or Korea where it is 100 per cent.
We aim to make Vellore provide higher education to all the children and stand as a model to the rest of the 722 districts in our country. We require the support from all the citizens of our country to achieve this dream. The success of this vision will make us a developed country.
Dr. G. Viswanathan
President
Universal Higher Education Trust
