President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday called upon institutions of higher learning to nurture innovation for the benefit of the common man, adding that research pursuits help redefine the frontiers of a discipline.
“Our institutes of higher learning must take up issues relevant to their social and economic context for in-depth research,” the President said while speaking at 36th annual convocation of Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad.
He pointed out that ISM is located in a region rich in scarce mineral resources. “So, this Institute should concentrate on developing technologies that increases the efficiency of resource extraction,” he added.
On this occasion, degrees were conferred on 1106 students including 66 PhD, 162 M Tech., 29 M. Phil, 55 MBA, 101 M. Sc. Tech., 102 M Sc., 24 Integrated M Sc. 10 Integrated M Tech., 43 Dual Degree and 498 B Tech.
Giving a wake-up call to the students, Mukherjee said ISM should pay heed to introducing resource-conserving industrial processes as that would be a key step in the direction of sustainable development.
Welcoming the ISM’s efforts to strengthen interaction and collaboration with different higher educational institutions, including foreign institutions Mukherjee said: “I am happy to know that in recent years, ISM played a pivotal role in teaching under-graduate students of Afghanistan and in providing continuing education to a large number of government and industry professionals from countries in Asia and Africa”.
The President also stressed on the need of strengthening the higher education and its quality across the country. “Our institutes of higher learning must take up issues relevant to their social and economic context for in-depth research,” he added. Governor Syed Ahmed, Chief Minister Hemant Soren and HRD Minister Geetashree Oraon among others were also present on the occasion.
The President said that though none of the Indian institutions figure in the list of top 200 universities in the world, we have made a beginning to present the achievements of our institutions in proper perspective. He said that he was happy to find good results in the last one year or so.
“In the World University Ranking done subject-wise by the rating agency QS, two IITs - Madras and Bombay - are amongst the top 50 institutions in civil engineering, while IITs - Delhi and Bombay - are in the top 50 in electrical engineering. In the Times Higher Education 2014 survey of top 100 universities IIT Guwahati has been ranked 87th,” he said and added that he was quite confident that with this small step we are moving in the right direction.
The President mentioned that an important survey, the India Skills Report, 2014 has revealed that only 52 per cent of engineering graduates and 34 per cent of our overall skill pool are employable. “This situation must change. We must make a determined effort to enhance the quality of our graduates,” he added.
Stressing on the need of using of advanced exploration techniques Mukherjee said: “Geological formations in India are similar to those of the African and Australian continents. Use of advanced exploration techniques could lead to discoveries in India comparable to that in these continents”.
Training of manpower in exploration of deep seated deposits and their mining and extraction should be an important focus area for the ISM. This will be an essential pre-requisite for sustained industrial development of our country, President added.