90% Indian varsities have outdated curriculum: CNR Rao

New Delhi: Eminent scientist and Bharat Ratna awardee CNR Rao believes that 90 per cent of the universities and higher educational institutions in the country have outdated curriculum, keeping them from making into the top institutes of the world.

"90 per cent of the universities in our country have outdated curriculum. We talk about increasing funds, increasing infrastructure but there is no improvement in the content we are teaching in our hi-tech classrooms," Rao said during the ongoing Visitor's Conference at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

"This is one of the major reasons behind why Indian institutions don't make it to the top 100 universities in the world. There are a lot of Indian students abroad who want to study in our country and come back but there are no quality colleges to offer them the same kind of environment and education," he added.

Maintaining that Indian institutions need to improve, Rao, who is currently serving as the Head of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, also asserted that the talent search in the country is "marginal". "Talent search in our country has always been marginal.

We teach our students what Newton and Faraday did but there is no mechanism to look out for similar talent in interiors of the country," he said. Rao also called for eliminating the bureaucratic hassles in the education system. "You want to introduce a course, institute a fellowship, establish an exchange programme, utilise the already allocated funds... there are so many laws, too many bureaucratic rooms. I think that process should be simplified," he said.