The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that a degree do not really contribute to the quality of life, if educated people, especially women, do not speak up for their rights. He was addressing the 67th Annual Convocation of Punjab University, in Chandigarh today. The Governor of Punjab & the Administrator of Chandigarh, Shri V.P. Singh Badnore, the Governor of Haryana, Shri Kaptan Singh Solanki and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.
The Vice President said that a true university must be free from constriction of thoughts or imposition of ideologies. He further said that rigid conformity to particular beliefs or constraints on thinking is anathema to the spirit of academic freedom. If a person is allowed to think and work in his field without any need to restrict his ideas, he is well on the way to making tremendous headway in that field, and this is what is provided by the free university in a democratic country, he added.
The Vice President said that the time has come to address the challenges in education and there is a need to turn the system around, including aspects of curriculum and evaluation, towards critical thinking rather than borrowing. He further said that the education which does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for life, which does not bring out the strength of character, spirit of philanthropy, and the courage of a lion – is it worth the name?, asked the Vice President.
The Vice President said that the real education is not for working like machines merely, and living a jellyfish existence. He further said that the benefit of our education is lost, if we have degrees, and have a way of life which indulges in blind consumerism or outdated social practices. We must think the curriculum, or a programme of learning in the context of the twenty first century when the concerns of ecology, of human welfare and the welfare of the planet are equally imperative, he added.
