Be lifelong learners to make it big in life: UGC Chairman

RBI Ex-Governor C. Rangarajan says country needs to clock 7% growth rate for next two decades to become developed economy

File picture of Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman of University Grants Commission (UGC) | Photo Credit: MANJUNATH HS

hyderabad

Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar has suggested that students keep learning constantly, be prepared to take risks in life/career and learn from failures to grow further, if they want to be relevant and have access to the new opportunities in the fast changing world.

Addressing students at the 13th convocation of the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education here on Friday, he said by graduating from the university they were stepping into a non-deal world that had both challenges and opportunities. The challenges ranged from unstable economic systems, climate change to gender discrimination.

At the same time, there were several opportunities before them with the country becoming the fifth-largest economy in the world and the third-largest ecosystem for start-ups, the UGC Chairman said adding that the higher education system should be ready to take advantage of these opportunities by scaling up the quality of education.

The National Education Policy 2020 had set the direction to scale up the quality of education by providing personalised, individualised and learning outcome-based education, where students could excel in multi-disciplinary education, Prof. Jagadesh Kumar said. He asked the higher education institutions to invest in academic and research excellence, and develop systems that fostered freedom to carry outstanding research to meet the local and national needs.

To make it happen, the institutions were required to create an environment to provide maximum opportunities to students and faculty. He asked the teachers to adapt to new teaching and assessment methods to be relevant to the rapidly changing education landscape.

Chancellor of the University and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India C. Rangarajan said higher education was important to build a nation. Although the country had progressed a lot in education, there was still a need to strengthen higher education by reforming it in three dimensions — access, equity and quality.

Speaking about the country’s economic journey and challenges in becoming a developed economy by 2047, Dr. Rangarajan said it needed to achieve a growth rate of 7% for the next two decades, for which Gross Fixed Capital Formation rates were required grow to 32% of GDP from 29% at present.

Vice Chancellor of ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education Prof L.S. Ganesh, presented a report on the progress made by the university during the year.

Prominent mathematician and statistician Prof C.R. Rao and Chairman of ISRO Sreedhara Panicker Somanath were conferred with doctorate honoris causa on the occasion. Mr. Somnath said the honour was a recognition of the work done by thousands of scientists and engineers at ISRO.