, hong kong, and thailand in both quality and quantity. we must recognise urgently that there is great need to both improve the quality of our colleges and universities in terms of facilities, laboratories, libraries, and most importantly, faculty - along with significant expansion of quantity. what should be clear is that the current system will not do. although a whole host of private technical institutions have mushroomed in recent years, most of the higher education system remains government controlled and run. this was originally modeled on the british public university system but which has, over the years, become ossified in such a fashion that creativity and quality are at a premium. there is a severe shortage of resources : tuition fees are extremely low and the government is strapped for resources. moreover, there are legitimate competing claims for scarce resources for primary and secondary education, not to mention vocational education. here also we need to search for new systems of governance that can allow for diversity in delivery. while providing appropriate incentives for the achievement of excellence with the great increase in compensation levels in the private corporate sector, and the lack of even basic facilities in colleges and universities, attracting brighter students to take up teaching careers has become even more difficult than it was hitherto. there is, to my mind, some needless debate on private versus public education. no good higher educational institutions in the world are profit oriented. even in the u. s., where there is perhaps the greatest prevalence of'private'colleges and universities, the proportion of students in state run institutions form the majority. even those institutions that are labeled as private are essentially autonomous non - profit institutions. they are private in the sense that their management is autonomous of government controls, but most receive significant government grants in different ways. what is interesting about these institutions is their system of governance that attempts to ensure quality, excellence and competitiveness. once again, i would not advocate the transplantation of any foreign system into india, since each system is rooted in its own peculiar history. what i would argue for is the generation of a new excitement for higher education in the country and for a search for new resources and new forms of governance that ensure quality and aim at achieving excellence. overall, there is no way that we can sustain growth of the kind that we envisage, 8 per cent plus annual growth, unless the whole education system, primary, secondary, vocational and higher is revamped. the state must bear the responsibility for ensuring that this happens, but must organise it in

to antoine martin. developments on the financial markets and implementation of monetary policy before discussing the implementation of monetary policy, i would like briefly to review the main developments on the global financial markets. since the last monetary policy assessment, interest rates have increased worldwide on the back of robust economic data and a slower - than - expected decrease in inflation in the us. improving expectations regarding economic conditions and solid q4 2023 corporate earnings in the us supported risk assets. various us equity indices traded at all - time highs and credit spreads tightened further. in switzerland, on the other hand, interest rates have fallen slightly. the resulting widening of interest rate differentials has been weakening the swiss franc since the beginning of 2024. the swiss franc has depreciated by around 1 % on a trade - weighted basis since the last monetary policy assessment, having appreciated temporarily at year - end. the swiss franc is approximately 5 % higher relative to the beginning of 2023. let me now give you a brief overview of our monetary policy implementation, specifically in the money market. we can see that this continues to prove its worth. in an environment with high excess liquidity, the remuneration of sight deposits and the liquidity - absorbing open market operations ensure that the secured short - term swiss franc money market rates remain close to the snb policy rate. in addition, tiered remuneration creates an incentive for liquidity redistribution in the money market and thus also contributes to a solid calculation basis for saron. the snb regularly reviews the implementation of its monetary policy and adjusts it as necessary. its main goal is always the effective steering of secured short - term swiss franc money market rates. furthermore, we aim to keep the costs of implementing our monetary policy low. to this end, since 1 december 2023 we no longer remunerate sight deposits held by banks to meet the minimum reserve requirement. this adjustment has no effect on money market rates. page 5 / 6 zurich, 21 march 2024 thomas jordan, martin schlegel and antoine martin news conference page 6 / 6