Acting on the direction of the Minister of State for Higher Education Dhan Singh Rawat, the universities of the State are now busy organising convocation ceremonies. In these ceremonies, prominent personalities of Uttarakhand, now serving the country in different fields, are also being felicitated.
Talking to The Pioneer, Dhan Singh Rawat said that there are 33 universities (both Government and private) in the State and the convocation ceremonies are held in most of them after four to five years.
Notably, the Doon University which had started functioning in 2006 had not hosted a single convocation ceremony. The maiden one was held on Friday. Interestingly some private universities used to organise their convocation ceremonies outside the State.
“We decided that the convocation ceremonies would be organised every year. We also directed the universities to organise them in the university campuses alone,’’ Rawat said.
The Minister added that acting on the directive of the Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, they have decided to bestow five prominent personalities of Uttarakhand who had made the people of the state proud with honorary degrees during the convocations.
On Friday, the former Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and the celebrated folk singer Narendra Singh Negi were given doctoral degrees by the Doon University during its first convocation ceremony.
Similarly, earlier this week, famous lyricist and chairperson of central board of film certification Prasoon Joshi and eminent singer Pritam Bhartwan were conferred with honorary doctoral degrees.
Rawat confided that the chief of army staff General Bipin Rawat too would be conferred with honorary doctoral degree by the Sridev Suman Uttarakhand University in its convocation ceremony which would be held soon.
The Minister added that apart from it, the State Government on the lines of the school education department has decided to honour five teachers from the colleges and universities of the State. “We have set up ‘Bhakt Darshan Singh award’ for excellence in higher education teaching after the former Garhwal MP, former Union Minister and former VC of Kanpur university Bhakt Darshan Singh. This award would encourage the teachers of colleges and universities who are excelling in their fields,’’ he said.
The Minister further claimed that the State Government has regularised academic session of the universities by strictly enforcing academic calendar in the colleges and the universities. He said that this year, the student union election in all the colleges had been held on a single day and 180 days of compulsory classroom teaching in an academic session is also being strictly enforced.
The Minister further said that the concept of 75 percent attendance has been made compulsory in all the colleges and universities and this year letters to the parents of 2300 students have been dispatched, informing them of the low attendance of their wards. “We are pulling out all the stops to revamp the education system in the State.
We have already taken some initiatives which are yielding good result. More is in the offing,” the minister affirmed.