'$100,000 a year for retired teachers': Infosys founder Narayana Murthy wants India's teachers to be paid better

Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy said that for the country to progress, teachers need to be paid better salaries. Murthy was speaking at the Infosys Prize ceremony hosted by Infosys Science Foundation.

While addressing the audience, the Infosys founder said, "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." 

The Indian IT veteran also laid out a four-step plan to accelerate the growth of the country with the help of teachers and researchers.

He said, "There are four stages in the invention and innovation lifecycle of a nation. In stage one, a nation generally does not invent and innovate. It does not even use those ideas coming from other nations to improve the lives of its citizens. In stage two, a nation generally starts producing products and services using the inventions and innovations of other nations without any improvement and makes the lives of its citizens better.”

“In stage three, a nation generally leverages higher education and research to innovate and improve on those from other nations for better productivity, quality, cost, and comfort. Stage four is when a nation becomes an inventor of new processes, products, and services. Nations progress from stage one to stage four using education and research,” he added.

Murthy said that some parts of the country are still going through stage one of the development, “We are still in stage 01 in some important areas like design of liveable cities, pollution management, traffic management, and providing clean and safe water. India must aspire to move to stage 04 in every area that affects the lives of our poorest citizens in the remotest part of the country.”

Recently, the Infosys founder’s comments were in focus when he said India’s work productivity levels are extremely low, and the country’s youth should be willing to work 70 hours a week to help improve productivity. He said this in a podcast with TV Monhandas Pai, former board member, Infosys.

Murthy also shared his take on accelerating the outcomes of the National Education Policy by involving retired teachers.

He said, “One possible way of accelerating NEP’s outcome is to invite 10,000 retired highly accomplished teachers from the developed world and from India in STEM areas to create 2500 “Train the Teacher” colleges in our 28 states & 8 union territories.”

Murthy added that these retired teachers should be paid $100,000. 

“We should pay about US$ 100,000 a year for each of these retired teachers. This 20-year program will cost us US$ 1 billion a year and US$ 20 billion for twenty years. Our nation, targeting a GDP of US$ 5 trillion soon, will not find it a big financial burden,” he noted.

The National Education Policy of India 2020 (NEP 2020), was introduced by the Union Cabinet of India on 29 July 2020. It outlines a framework for elementary education to higher as well as vocational training in both rural and urban India. The new policy replaces the previous National Policy on Education, 1986.

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