CUET English Language Comprehension Passage 9 — Flashcards

Education, particularly higher education, is the obvious but crucially important instrument for nation building. As Confucious has said: 'If you are thinking of one year, plant rice. If you are thinking of a decade, plant trees. If you are thinking of a century, educate the people.'    
When we set about the task of higher education, we should be absolutely clear in our perception of the goals of education in the specific context of our nation's development. No doubt, one of the important aims of education would be to create the required range and nature of trained manpower assessed to be needed by different sectors of national growth. The entire educational apparatus must be geared progressively to fulfill the requirements of different phases of our growth in every sector—primary, secondary and tertiary. The aim must be to ensure that our country does not experience either paucity, or a surfeit of trained manpower in any specific segment of our economy.    
The requirements of our country, as a free, democratic, secular, socialist, nation, aspiring for rapid development, entail a specific recipe for our educational institutions.    
Today's educational institutions must therefore be developed accordingly and must regulate themselves to give the country the precise nature and quantum of trained manpower as projected by the requirements of our planned economy.