'Gift your children with education, not Gold this Akshaya Tritiya'

Education has better return on investment than investment in Gold, says the UGC additional secretary. UGC plans to promote University Social responsibility

In an awareness programme to promote the importance of education in all classes of society, UGC additional secretary Pankaj Mittal urged parents of children to give them the gift of education, instead of investing in Gold this Akshaya Tritiya.

She also said that investing in education would have better returns rather than Gold. Comparing the monetary support that the Union Government gives to a student, Mittal said that the organisation keeps aside Rs 3 lakh for students from the Central University, while it spends Rs 3,000 for students in state university. She further added, "Of the Rs 10,000 crore Union Budget for higher education, Rs 6,000 crore goes to 47 central varsities. The rest of the Rs 4,000 crore is distributed among 800 universities and 47,000 affiliated colleges. However, state universities do get additional funding from the state governments and also under RUSA (Rashtr-iya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan)."

Going ahead, she also said proposed the formation of University Social Responsibil-ity (USR) system, under which varsities can help local communities and help in the betterment of their lives. She also said that UGC was planning to promote community-university partnerships among universities, for which it has kept aside Rs 2.5 crore for a period of 3 years.