Education system in our country needs to be moulded in such a manner that we are available to the students every day, every hour of the year, said Governor Shekhar Dutt addressing a conference of chancellors of central zone of the state. Around 40 chancellors participated in the conference.
It is the first time that Association of Indian Universities (AIU) has organised a meeting of chancellors in this zone. Directing the chancellors, Dutt said that special efforts have to be put in teaching and learning methodology. Teachers who clear exams like M.Phil, Ph.D, NET must be valued and should be groomed with regular training sessions. This will ensure maximum utilisation of their skills which will benefit the students, he said.
“When our focus will shift to quality, students will automatically excel in academics and secure good jobs or become responsible entrepreneurs,” the Governor said. “We need to extract elements from both western education system and Gurukul culture,” he said in the two-day conference that began on Wednesday in Pt Ravishankar Shukla University.
The conference titled “Are we on the right trackIJ” was held in the university on the year of its 50th anniversary. Talking about the challenges ahead, Dutt said though we have succeeded in pulling enrolment percentage in schools from 20 percent during independence era to over 90 percent in the current times, our job is still incomplete. less than 20 percent of the students in our country today go for higher education after passing Class 8, 10 or 12, he said. “It was like driving on a pothole-ridden road on first gear. But we are now ready to switch to the next gear.”
Dutt said though we have excelled in fields like space science, missile technology, helicopter engineering and have brought home laurels like nobel prizes in several area, we still have a tough journey ahead. “Not only we must eradicate illiteracy from every city and village, we also need to ensure quality higher education to students,” he said.
Besides professional and technical education, Dutt also emphasised on subjects like fine arts, liberal arts, language science and anthropology. Presiding over the function, general secretary of AIU and chancellor of JlA University, Mathura, Prof DS Chouhan said universities cannot provide quality if the budget allocation is inadequate. “Rs 300 grant that an IIT gets is very less when compared to the grants given to a single wing of NASA,” said Chouhan.
He said that with meagre resources provided to the universities, delivering as per high expectations is not possible. The concluding day of the conference will be held on Thursday in Pt Ravishankar Shukla University.