CHICAGO: U.S. President Barack Obama has emphasised the need for improving the U.S. education system as American students have to compete with Indian and Chinese children who spend more time in school and less time playing video games.

While America used to produce the highest number of school and college graduates, PhDs, engineers and scientists, it had fallen behind now and “is no longer head and shoulders above other countries when it [comes] to education,” he said.

“We have got to pick up the pace because the world has gotten competitive. The Chinese, the Indians are coming at us and they are coming at us hard, and they are hungry and they are really buckling down,” Mr. Obama said at a town hall meeting in neighbouring Wisconsin on Friday.

“Their [Indian and Chinese] kids watch a lot less TV than our kids do, play a lot fewer video games, they are in the classroom a lot longer,” he said.— PTI