Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Parliamentary Affairs V. Muraleedharan said here on Thursday that the country required vibrant multi-disciplinary institutions of high quality that increased the capacity of higher education and ensured equitable access.
Delivering the 38th convocation address at Mangalore University, the Minister said that it was highly justifiable to introduce liberal education at the undergraduate level for preparing students for future employment scenarios and professional roles.
“Simply tailoring people into jobs that exist today, but that are likely to change or disappear after some years, is suboptimal and even counterproductive,” the Minister said.
He said that the New Education Policy 2019, which was in its draft stage now, has made an earnest attempt to seek relevance as a cardinal value for the education system. It provided for multiple exit and entry options for students, starting with the secondary education stage and going all the way up to undergraduate and postgraduate education and research.
The Minister also said that there was a need to make the country’s education system relevant by re-inventing it in line with India’s ancient knowledge. The ancient Indians paid utmost attention to making the education system relevant to their times, he said.
“Everyone of the 64 Vidyas (streams) taught at the ancient Takshashila was useful to society. Today, we need to make our education system relevant to our times by re-inventing it in line with our ancient knowledge and our current priorities and challenges,” he added.
“Our youth, holding the brilliant promise of demographic dividend, must acquire domain-specific application-oriented knowledge, requisite skill-mix, positive mental attitude, constructive learning habits and progressive result-oriented values. Knowledge without character, ‘Vidya without Vinaya’, will do more damage than any good. It is needless to say that values that we pass on to our children touch their destinies much more than the valuables that we may bequeath upon them,” Mr. Muraleedharan said. The Minister told the graduates that “Indians should be proud that all of us belonged to a country which had a stellar heritage”.
The honorary doctorate was presented to K.C. Naik, a city realtor.
Vice-Chancellor P.S. Yadapadithaya presented the degrees and certificates. A.M. Khan, Registrar (administration), and V. Ravindrachary, Registrar (Evaluation), were present.