Tirunelveli: Manonmaniam Sundaranar University here conferred degrees on 699 graduates at its 24th convocation on Wednesday.
Governor and Chancellor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao gave away the certificates to the candidates, in the presence of Minister for Higher Education and Pro-Chancellor K.P. Anbalagan, Vice-Chancellor of MSU K. Baskar, and Vikram Kumar, Emeritus Professor, Centre for Applied Research in Electronics, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
Among those graduates, 613 received Ph.D. and 86 were medal winners.
In his convocation address, Mr. Vikram Kumar said today the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) of seven per cent is considered low for India and the population growth rate has also come down to about 1.7 per cent.
Hence, the per capita rise now is about seven per cent. When per capita income doubled, a huge change would take place.
Dr. Basakar in his address said that planning for scientific research, effective teaching and providing a learning milieu would be the vital role of any higher education institution.
Towards this direction, the MSU took a decisive action on achieving excellence in diverse areas such as teaching, research and extension activities.
Currently, there are 27 university departments and 73 colleges affiliated to MSU with an enrolment of 26,127 male students and 66,749 female students pursuing diverse courses. At present, over 66 academic programmes were offered through university departments and distance education mode. Five-year integrated course in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Environmental Science was started in 2016-17.
He said for the first time, an extra credit course was offered by a foreign faculty in cryptography, which immensely contributed to students in terms of improving their knowledge and assisting in their placements.
More importantly, the MSU also signed MoU with the ‘Software Technological Park of India for developing a software incubation park on the campus to benefit the students.
Mr. Anbalagan said Tamil Nadu stood high among other States in research programmes with a total of 18,535 scholars in Ph.D. and 15,304 scholars pursuing M.Phil. In terms of scholars pursuing Ph.D. programme, New Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were after Tamil Nadu, he said.
Earlier, the Governor planted saplings on the premises of MSU.
