KASARGOD: President Pranab Mukherjee today said the country’s success will lie in mobilizing all the “positive forces to fight the scourges of poverty deprivation and backwardness.”
India is emerging global power, he said, adding “yet, there are many in this country in the periphery of basic needs. Success of our nation will lie in mobilising all the positive forces to fight the scourges of poverty deprivation and backwardness,” he said.
Mukherjee was delivering the maiden convocation address at the Central University of Kerala on the permanent campus at Periye in Kasargod district today.
Pointing out that the country is faced with a scarcity of good teachers in universities, he said “the challenge before us is two-fold, fill up vacant teaching positions and attract the best talent.”
“If students are the future of this nation, it is the teacher who shapes them,” he said.
Innovative measures like appointing eminent resources on short term basis from research institutions, industry or from abroad have to be adopted to reduce vacancies without dilution of standards, Mukherjee said.
“Quality of faculty has to be transformed by providing them encouragement to attend seminars and workshops, undertake collaborative research and contribute to research publications.”
“Needless to say boosting faculty standards is crucial for upgrading our higher education sector,” he said.
He said the Central University of Kerala has attained an important landmark in its journey to continuous development and “it is indeed a moment of pride, joy, satisfaction and fulfillment for the student and entire university community.”
“Convocation day should be a time for introspection about the purpose of education and its role in the development of the individual and the nation,” Mukherjee said. . Mukherjee said Indian universities are absent from the top two hundred ranks in the world.
“Though our institutions are placed in higher brackets among Asian or BRICS nation or in some specific disciplines, we are yet to convert these micro-developments to macro successes,” he said.
Academic development has to be through a multi-pronged strategy, he said, adding, due emphasis has to be laid on research activity.
To help find solutions to local problems, the focus of research has to be local but its quality should be global, Mukherjee said.
Expressing happiness on the proposed expansion of academic programs at Central University of Kerala (CUK), he said” with Malayalam language attaining the classical status in 2013, I am sure such a centre will provide a worthy platform for research in various aspects of the local language, literature and culture.”
Welcoming the proposal of CUK to set up school of medicine and public health, he said this school should be a platform for higher learning and research in all systems of medicines, with particular emphasis on community health care and affordable medical treatment.
“Despite its glorious past this region, over the past years lagged behind the rest in terms of development.” To restore its rightful place as a centre of growth befitting its legacy, one of the important initiatives was to establish the University in 2009, he said.
Kerala Governor Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy were among those spoke.
About 567 students who had completed courses in six streams of the university in the last four years, were honored at the function.
Earlier, Mukherjee, who was scheduled to travel in a helicopter from Mangalore airport to the CUK campus, came by road owing to overcast skies.
The administration put in place tight security in view of the President’s visit in and around the venue and also on the road.–PTI
