Narayana Murthy Calls For Setting Up 2,500 ‘Train The Teacher’ Colleges Across India

The Infosys founder was speaking at a press conference where the Infosys Science Foundation announced the Infosys Prize 2023 in six categories.

Narayana Murthy Calls For Setting Up 2,500 ‘Train The Teacher’ Colleges Across India (Representational Image)

Software icon and Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy has called on to pacify the outcomes of the National Education Policy by inviting a pool of 1,000 retired and highly accomplished teachers from India and abroad in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), to come up with 2,500, “Train The Teacher” colleges across the country. Narayan Murthy further said that this course is not only sufficient by itself. 

"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 honour them. They are role models for our youngsters. That is why we instituted the Infosys Prize in 2009. It is our small contribution to further the cause of research in India," Narayana Murthy was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. 

Speaking at a press conference where the Infosys Science Foundation announced the Infosys Prize 2023 in six categories, he further underlined that "Train the Teacher" should have an ‘year-long’ duration. "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," the Infosys founder was reported as saying. The teachers trained through the programme would themselves become trainers over a period of five years.

"We should pay about USD 100,000 a year for each of these retired teachers. This 20-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 not find it a big financial burden," Murthy said. If you think this is expensive, you may recall the words of Derek Bok, a former President of Harvard University, who said, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance," Narayana Murthy added. 

(With inputs from PTI)