Relevance driven excellence & strong connect to Society, Industry should be corner stone of Higher Education
A brain storming meet
with focus on Higher Education’s quality, relevance and Development in North
East regions was held in Imphal recently and many issues impacting the
education set up there were highlighted while the association of Indian
Universities (AIU) laid stress on maintenance of peace and harmony in corridors
of universities to pave way for healthy environs for higher education.
AIU President Prof PB Sharma in his Presidential address at the meet minced no words to articulate his views on higher education scenario and said the agenda for higher education has to be focus on relevance driven Excellence and a Strong connect to Society and industry.
“Integration of
human values with education need be given a renewed emphasis in the campuses of
our universities as we cannot afford to pay a heavy price of loss of human
values in an enlightened and specialized work force in a country like ours
where loss of values has created unprecedented rise of lust, greed and anguish.
We need to echo peace and harmony in the corridors of our universities and
discuss the value and worth of civic sense and responsible citizenship in our
class rooms and in discussion forums”.
The East Zone VCs’ meet was attended by over 50 vice Chancellors of East Zone Universities, Past Presidents of AIU Dr SM Puri and Dr Simhadri, members of faculty and large number of students of Central University Manipur among others.The valedictory function was attended by Mr T. Radhe Shyam Singh, Manipur’s Minister of Education. Prof Sharma hoped that the synergy of mind created at the meet would present a road map of development of higher education in North East as also to revitalize higher education in our Indian universities to meet and greet the current challenges and to shape India’s higher education landscape to make India a world leader in education and research.
He recalled words of Dr S.Radhakrishanan-“The end-product of education should be a free creative man, who can battle against historical circumstances and adversities of nature. For this the universities should attract the best minds for its teaching faculty”.
He said these words of wisdom of Dr Radhakrishnan, former President of AIU (1943-44) are more relevant today than ever before as the 21st Century bestows upon the universities in India a great responsibility to provide to the nation the inspired and ignited minds of graduates and post graduates and scholars of eminence to fuel unprecedented growth and development to wipe out poverty, hunger, disease, unemployment, enormous pollution(air, water and soil), and advance the frontiers of knowledge, shrink the boundaries of ignorance and create the bliss and happiness all around. And that too by nurturing creativity and innovativeness in abundance to manifest the fullest of human potential yet protecting the interest of man and Mother Nature together.
Prof Sharma, Currently VC of Amity International University, Gurguram, said The AIU Meet of the East Zone Vice Chancellors at Manipur University hold a special significance as we are witnessing the rise of east to glory at the global levels. In fact 21st Century is being christened as the Century of the East as great promise lies ahead for growth and development of the eastern economy and due to the great economic boom being registered by the eastern countries in the last one decade.
He advised the VCs to be highly excited and firmly committed to take the fullest of advantage of the great opportunities that lie ahead for the universities in India, more so in the eastern zone to the realization of the Act East policy of the Indian government.
According to him, the universities in the eastern region of India are blessed with 16 central universities, 18 Institutions of National Importance in addition of 65 state universities and 50 private universities. He said they have the glory of the ancient in Nalanda, the pride of the orient in Shantiniketan and fragrance of the modernity in IIT Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati, NEHU and the NIRIST.
He asked the fellow Vice Chancellors to take the leadership in assuring highest levels of quality of education, relevance of research, innovation driven growth of startups and enterprises and be a great force in supporting the resolve of making a New India.
According to him, the need of the hour is to nurture interdisciplinary education, engage in cutting edge research and foster creativity and innovations and take them to the level of commercially viable technologies and products of vital value to make India a world leader in quality education and research. He called upon them to collaborate and cooperate between our universities in India, create regional and national network of Indian universities and pool together your capabilities and transform our universities as world leaders in higher education and research and make Mother India proud of its universities.
Education, especially higher education, is to be fountain head of a developed, prosperous and enlightened human society contributing to peace, prosperity and happiness all around. This is of course a tall order, but then who other than universities, the repositories of tremendous wisdom of our enlightened and inspired minds and the torchbearers of the faith of people could deliver this promise, he said.
According to him, This calls for a sustained focus on Quality, Relevance and Excellence so that universities in India become, in true sense, a partner in progress of national development and meet the global aspirations of human excellence.
He said care and concern for the society, catering for local and global needs and service to society and Mother Nature should find an important space in the curriculum and should become an important aspect of higher education and research. India’s higher education has registered an impressive growth during the last 70 years of independent India. It has provided to India and the advanced nations of the world some of the finest inspired minds of graduates and postgraduates who brought high recognition to India’s higher education.
He observed the rise of the IISc, IITs and a few selected central and state universities such as University of Delhi, JNU, University of Hyderabad, MS university Baroda, University of Mumbai, University of Madras, Calcutta University, University of Allahabd, Punjab University Chandigarh, AIIMS and PGI Chandigarh, a few engineering colleges and institutions including Delhi College of Engineering, DCE now, Delhi Technological University, DTU, Punjab Engineering College, PEC now PEC University, Jadavpur University, Bengal Engineering College that became Bengal University of S&T and now Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, IIEST Shibpur, Guindy College of Engineering, now Anna University, VJTI Mumbai, HBTI Kanpur, and some of the RECs now NITs in the government funded sector and BITs Pilani, Amity University, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Technology, Manipal University,SRM University, Thapar University, Patiala, SASTRA University, Thanjavur, Sharda University and lately Shiv Nadar and Ashoka University to name a few in the self- financed sector are some of the finest examples of India success story in field of higher education.
They produced the Nobel Laureates Dr Hargovind Khurana( Punjab University), Dr Amaratya Sen( Presidency College Calcutta), Dr Venkat Ramakrisha( MS University of Baroda), Kailash Satyarthy( SATI Vidisha), Chip Craft of the World Vinod Dham ( DCE) who designed the Pentium Chip, NASA Astronaut Kalpana Chawla (PEC) , Founder of Infosys Narayan Murthy (IIT Kanpur ), Founder of NIIT Rajendra Pawar (IIT Delhi), the DRDO Chief, now a Member of NITI Aayog Dr V K Saraswat (MITS Gwalior and IISc Bangalore), Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India VK Chaturvedi (SATI Vidisha 1965 and BARC,Trombay), and above all Bharat Ratna, India’s topmost defense technologist and former President of India Hon’ble Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (MIT Madras).
These and many more ignited minds of higher education fraternity of India made us all feel immensely proud of the vibrancy and global eminence of India’s higher education. Likewise, the accelerated growth of Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, IISERs, National Law Universities, establishment of new AIIMS, new IITs, NITs, NITTRs, new Central Universities, specialized universities to promote education and research in traditional medicine, physical education, music and culture all make a highly impressive reading of India’s higher education landscape.
But then the way ahead is equally challenging. On one hand the higher education in India is reeling under the crisis of low employability, on the other it has a great promise in stores for accelerating society and industry relevant research and innovations, given the innovative and creative potential of the young India.
He added for this to make a phenomenal success, the higher education system in India has to align itself to the relevance and excellence that shall make higher education a powerful vehicle to fuel the growth of startups in plenty and meet the challenges of higher education of tomorrow driven by mind boggling advancements on the scientific and technological fronts. (The Meet was held on Nov 17 & 18, 2017)
Dear Sir.: based on the current socio political system, from the bottom of my heart I really appreciate the deyermination with which you are mobilizing the leaders of Academicia to take up initiatives both physical and mental to bring back the academics on track especially the higher education. Pranam sir. That is what inspires us and keeps us motivated. Its a privilege to be closely associated with you at AUH.
ReplyDeleteThe Indian higher education is at cross roads, it needs a thorough overhauling, and the role of a Vice Chancellor is quite significant in revamping the old colonial structure of Indian universities.
ReplyDeleteKudos to Prof P B Sharma who has been raising his concern to uplift the standard of the Indian universities. It is true that there are innumerous challenges before the Indian higher education. But the Indian universities cannot afford to stay untouched from the wind of
Change that is bringing sweeping reforms in the field of education.