Tamil Nadu Governor-Chancellor Banwarilal Purohit on Thursday said that “it was a blot on civilization,” to see Vice Chancellors and university professors being prosecuted for corruption. The public and student community now want a university administration that is “transparent, highly-disciplined and corruption-free.”
Mr. Purohit, who inaugurated the conference for Vice Chancellors at the Raj Bhavan in Ooty, titled ‘Chancellor’s Vision 2030: Innovating Education in the Era of Industry 4.0,’ said that at the time of him being appointed Governor-Chancellor, six out of 20 state universities were “headless” with no Vice Chancellors.
“In some Universities, the post of Vice-Chancellor had remained vacant for more than a year. There were also widespread allegations in the media about the quality of the persons selected for the post of Vice-Chancellors and the process involved in the selection. The vigilance raids on two former Vice-Chancellors, the arrest of a sitting Vice-Chancellor and the suicide committed by a former Registrar in the last two years bear testimony to the condition. It worries me when I see Vice-Chancellors and professors are prosecuted for corruption,” said Mr. Purohit, who added that since he became governor, total transparency has been observed in appointments of all vice-chancellors.
“Universities and Colleges are seats of higher learning at which it is important to practice scrupulously the virtues of transparency, efficiency and honesty. Since examples have been set in the selection of Vice-Chancellors, the Vice-Chancellors, in turn, should follow this method of being totally honest and transparent when it comes to the students’ admissions, affiliation of new colleges, approval of new courses and selection of the university faculty,” he added.
Speaking about the growth of the internet and telecommunications industries over the last few decades which he termed the “fourth industrial revolution,” Mr. Purohit said that digital technologies and their capabilities of processing “ubiquitous data, unlimited connectivity and massive processing power, has led to a revolution in industry which in turn has opened many opportunities and challenges for academic institutions.”
“We have to upgrade our education system so that graduates have the correct skills to get new-age jobs in the digital era,” he said, adding that teaching methods and education curricula have to be redesigned to prepare students to understand the “demand-side transformations in today’s global context.”
It was to foster these transformations in education that the Raj Bhavan Secretariat, along with the Indian Institute of Management, Trichy had organized the two-day Vice-Chancellor’s conference, with the heads of State universities in Tamil Nadu taking part.
The Governor also went onto speak about the success of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, stating that Tamil Nadu had made considerable progress in the fight against open defecation, with all the districts being declared “open-defecation free.” He also spoke about the efforts to minimize and eliminate single-use plastics, stating that the Raj Bhavan had taken the lead in discouraging the use of single-use plastics inside the Raj Bhavan premises, much before the announcement of the State-wide ban by the government.
The Governor also called for rainwater harvesting to be taken up across the State to help in water conservation and called on State universities to make their campuses eco-friendly.
Bhimaraya Metri, Director IIM, Trichy, Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Chairman & Managing Director, Cognizant India, Professor Ramachandran, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, Richard Rekhy, Former CEO of KPMG, Professor V.K. Malhotra, Member Secretary, Indian Council of Social Science Research, Anandrao V. Patil, Secretary to Governor, Innocent Divya, District Collector, The Nilgiris and V. Sasi Mohan, Nilgiris District Superintendent of Police were in attendance at the inauguration.
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