When Hillary heaped praise on Aamir

Bollywood actor Aamir Khan on Saturday came in for special praise from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for his acting pursuits and also his involvement with education campaigns.

"It is a great delight to be here with Aamir Khan, who is not only a Bollywood icon but also the great advocate for education," Clinton said during a special interactive session with the students of Xavier College in Mumbai in which Khan was also present.

"I am here to see how US and India can work for the common cause of education, which is the great equaliser and gateway to opportunities," Clinton said.

Khan, the brand ambassador of the education campaign Teach India, who brought fore the need of special care to the differently-abled students with his award-winning film on autism Taare Zameen Par, said children should be encouraged to be creative in their life and there should be less emphasis on memorisation.

"We have to tell our kids to be more caring and I think that is going to make a huge difference from 25 years onwards."

Supporting Khan's view, Clinton said, "I think the actual requirement to become successful in the world is cooperation and collaboration among people and among countries."

Clinton said that it was important to reach out to those children who fall behind and don't have equal opportunities in life to make education effective.

"I want the government and educational institutions to narrow the gap between talent and opportunities to give every child a chance to fulfill his or her god-given potential," she said.

According to the former First Lady of the US, the technological advances presented India with a better opportunity to reach out to many people.

Khan, on the other hand, rued that not many bright people come forward to take up teaching as a profession. "I would like to see that we people give top priority to the kind of value education deserves, we are still a little away from that. I would like to see that one day the top jobs are in the field of teaching. Majority of people who are into teaching today are people who are not able to get jobs elsewhere," he claimed.