Uttarakhand Governor KK Paul on Saturday called for improvement in the standards of technical education in the State while stressing that the universities needed to undertake stricter and greater supervision of colleges affiliated to them.
Addressing the fifth convocation of Uttarakhand Technical University (UTU) as the chief guest, Dr Paul said that industry-academia interface needed to be enhanced in order to improve employability of technical graduates. “Also, the curriculum should address Uttarakhand’s specific problems like construction of roads in heavy rain-fed areas containing mountains slides, landslides and mudslides.” He said Uttarakhand’s universities must aim to include in their curriculum such areas of knowledge which are relevant to the hill state, such as prevention and mitigation of natural disasters, hill farming, harnessing energy, effective use of bio-resources, herbal medicines and infrastructural development.
“There is a need to motivate research students to work on developing warning systems and prevention of natural calamities like forest fires, earthquakes, floods and landslides.”
The Governor stressed that teachers at universities need to be more focused on students and studies. “Universities must never become places where sub-standard education is provided,” he said. Keeping a strict supervision on affiliated colleges was extremely important in the context of UTU, as it gives affiliation to a number of institutions. “The standards of some of these affiliated colleges have not brought a good name to the University. A very stringent monitoring mechanism is required.”
He called upon universities to encourage creativity and innovative efforts of students and channelise them to carry out programmes/projects of their own. “We should help develop the students to become leaders in their chosen fields. leaders are made and seeds are sown within the four walls of a class room,” he said. He also said that universities should be able to address the demands of higher education-both on its quantity as well as quality. Universities today should be able to equip the youngsters with skills and infuse confidence in them so that they can initiate ‘Start ups’ and become a part of ‘Make in India’.
Congratulating the passing out students on the occasion, he told them that they were the most powerful young generation in human history as they you had the most amazing technology at their command which no other generation had even dreamt of. “Please make sure you use this power of technology for innovating and using your ingenuity for the benefit of the society and the country.”
The Governor said, shortage of good faculty should be tackled by bringing in innovative teaching methodologies, such as technology-enabled and internet learning and collaborative information and communication technologies.
He congratulated the vice -chancellor, directors, faculty members, and non-teaching staff of the university on their achievements and wished the university to continue grooming young men and women to emerge as leaders in their chosen walks of life.