Bhubaneswar, Sep 7 (IANS): President Pranab Mukherjee Saturday called for innovative changes in India's education system to reclaim its lost glory.

"Improvement in our academic system calls for innovative changes. Our examination system must incorporate modern methods of evaluation. Top quality teachers must be recruited," the president said here while addressing the second convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bhubaneswar.

"A spirit of competition amongst universities must be infused. Academic regulation must be streamlined to create a more flexible, transparent and student-friendly educational system," he said.

The president also said the country's efforts at expanding higher education infrastructure had yielded positive results but very few academic institutions in the country can claim global rankings due to lack of quality.

"As per an international ranking, there is not a single Indian university, including the IITs, amongst the top 200 universities in the world," he pointed out.

He said the leading universities of the West and universities even in countries like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are ranked higher than any Indian institution," he said.

"In the past, for about 1,800 years beginning th sixth century BC, we had an unbeatable higher education system represented by universities like Takshashila, Nalanda, Vikramshila, Valabhi, Somapura and Odantapuri," he said.

"They were a magnet for knowledge seekers from distant places. But today, we languish behind many nations," he said.