Supreme Court judge MM Sundresh asked students to acquire knowledge to build their character, as it will provide them with a positive attitude to be successful in their career. Sundresh delivered his first speech at Vellore Institute of Technology.

He quoted, "Acquiring knowledge is a process of discovery of one's ignorance about many things. Everyone possesses knowledge, as it is not acquired by birth. This type of knowledge is not confined only to education, but it is spread over a number of areas." Students should not despair due to failures, as they learn useful lessons from them to achieve their destination.

In his presidential address, VIT founder and chancellor G Viswanathan called on the Union government to increase the allocation for education, a concurrent list item, from the existing 3 percent of GDP to 6 percent to include more rural students under the ambit of higher education.

The education department has been allotted less than 2.5 percent of the budget of 2025-26, that is, Rs 1 lakh crore towards education from Rs 50 lakh crore budget, he asserted, and that also proved to be small. He attributed that education hasn't received a proper allocation from both Union as well as the state governments and hence piled additional burden upon the parents who admit their wards into private schools.

"Parents themselves spend around at least Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh per annum on education. As per estimates, India has a dismal 28 percent 18-23 year olds enrolled in higher education, compared to the world average of 40 percent. State-wise ranking on higher education student enrollment puts Tamil Nadu at no. 1 followed by Kerala, while Bihar is ranked last", he stated.

When comparing the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of Western nations and Southeast Asian countries with that of India, he said that developed countries like the USA, Germany, France, the UK, and South Korea have GERs of 90 percent, 75 percent, 70 percent, 60 percent, and 100 percent, respectively, whereas only 28 percent of Indian students are enrolled in higher education, although it has 1,100 universities and 59,000 colleges.

"As far as per capita expenditure on higher education is concerned, the USA expends 35,000 USD, China 2,400 USD, and India 260 USD every year. India ranks 155th among 190 nations in the world when it comes to providing higher education", he added.

R Ganesan, head of Larsen and Toubro Limited's corporate center, Sankar Viswanathan, and Sekar Viswanathan, vice-presidents at VIT, were also present on the occasion.