Govt to promote education sector to increase services' share in GDP

New Delhi: The government will work on promoting the growth of the education sector to help increase the share of overall service sector in the country's economy, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said Tuesday.

He said that the services sector currently contributes about two-third in India's gross domestic product (GDP).

"We want to increase the share of the sector in the economy, and education is an important sector in this, and we will promote it," he said while speaking at the Higher Education Summit 2018 here. He said that the government was working with different universities and institutions in this regard.

He added that as employment generation is a major challenge, promoting growth of services sector would help dealing with the issue.

In February, the Union Cabinet had decided to give focused attention to 12 champion service sectors and mandated the identified nodal ministries and departments to formulate sectoral action plans under the dedicated fund of Rs 5,000 crore.

The 12 champion service sectors includes IT, tourism and hospitality, transport, accounting, audio visual, legal, education and environment.

Prabhu also said that the educational institutes have to keep in mind the emerging challenges being faced by industries and introduce modern technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and big data. Speaking at the summit, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Sudhanshu Pandey said that there was a need for increase integration and collaboration between industry and universities.

Higher Education Secretary R Subrahmanyam said that there is a need to focus on issues like quality, research, employability and internationalisation of institutes.

He said that research is a key for higher educational institutes, and for that there was a need to attract investments and funds.