Governor and Chancellor Surjit Singh Barnala awarded degrees and diplomas to over one lakh candidates, who successfully completed both on-campus and off-campus programmes, at the 78th convocation of Annamalai University held at Chidambaram on Wednesday.
A total of 6,303 candidates of regular programmes and 99,573 candidates of distance education programmes were awarded degrees, including 63 M.Phil and 152 Ph.D scholars who got the degrees in person. While 20 meritorious candidates got gold medals 120 others got cash prizes.
The Governor, in the presence of Pro-Chancellor M.A.M.Ramaswamy and Vice-Chancellor M.Ramanathan, also administered a pledge to the candidates.
The entire proceedings were conducted in Tamil as directed by the State government. Except the Governor and the chief guest, all others spoke in Tamil, including Dr. Ramanathan and the Deans who presented the candidates for the award of degrees/diplomas.
Inclusive growth
In his convocation address, Mohd.Akhtar Siddiqui, Chairperson of the National Council for Teacher Education, New Delhi, called upon the fresh graduates to take cognisance of the people's issues and pay due attention to human rights to make development inclusive.
Mr. Siddiqui said that they were fortunate enough to be among the 12 per cent of the youth of the country who got the chance to pursue higher education. But they should not miss the fact that 30 per cent of the fellow citizens were living in penury.
Mr Siddiqui said that in the context of globalisation the exploitative practices of the multinational companies had further marginalised the poor. Therefore, it was the responsibility of the fresh graduates to safeguard their rights. Owing to the vision of founder Pro-Chancellors Rajah Sir Annamalai Chettiar and Rajah Sir Muthiah Chettair and the present Pro-Chancellor the candidates belonging to the under privileged and the deprived sections were taken on board for higher education, which changed the educational landscape of the region for better, Mr Siddiqui added.
Tracing the growth of the university in his report, the Vice-Chancellor said that 152 Ph.D degrees awarded today testified the university's increased focus on research activity. Dr Ramanathan further said that the Directorate of Distance Education had enrolled lakhs of students in its 500 programmes, offered through 87 study centres and 68 information centres. The university had recently signed an agreement with the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to provide Wide Area Network Connectivity with the study centres, he added.
District Collector P.Seetharaman, District Revenue Officer S.Natarajan, Registrar M.Rathinasabapathi, Superintendent of Police Ashwin Kotnis and others participated.
