Former Vice-Chancellor of Hindu Banaras University Lalji Singh has said Indian Universities needed to be made more autonomous and freed from the ‘clutches’ of both government and regulatory bodies.
Delivering the address of the 27th convocation ceremony of Alagappa University here on Thursday, he said extraordinary changes in university system had been seen around the world during the past two decades and the Indian universities should take note of the changes that had impacted the nature of higher education.
“Universities in India need freedom from both government and regulatory bodies,” he said, adding different universities needed to be treated differently, depending on the kind of contribution that were making.
“The differentiation should be based on quality performance irrespective of whether they were public or private,” he said. Mr Singh, also former Director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, called for creating a resource centre in each university and institution with research facilities.
Chancellor and Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah presided over the convocation and conferred degrees on as many as 33,491 students, including 19,931 girls.
Those who were conferred with the degrees included 1,129 regular students from the university departments and constituent colleges, 8,823 from affiliated colleges, 563 from collaborative programmes and 22,976 from distant education stream.
S. Kaliyamoorthy, Convenor, Vice-Chancellor’s Officiating Committee, said 216 students, including 100 Ph.D. scholars, received the degrees in person.
He said 26 gold medallists of postgraduate and undergraduate programmes of the university departments, 58 rank holders of PG and UG and M Phil programmes from the affiliated colleges and 12 rank holders from collaborative programmes also received the degrees in person.
Ms. Umayal Ramanathan, life-time member of the university Syndicate, S. Geethalakshmi and S. Karutha Pandian, members of the Syndicate, and V. Manickavasagar, Registrar, were among the others present.
