Vellore: All the people of the country have the solemn responsibility to do their part in making India shine on the world stage, President Ram Nath Kovind said today.
Addressing the 16th annual convocation of Thiruvalluvar University in Vellore, he said it was a matter of great satisfaction that India’s higher education system has expanded to reach out to serve the rural and marginalised sections.
“In the process, it has become the third largest education system in the world. However, there is no room for complacency, and we have to catch up for the lost time if we aspire to scale greater heights,” he added.
Noting that India had a rich system of education prior to the British rule, Kovind said Gandhiji described it as a ‘beautiful tree’ that was cut down by what the British rulers called reforms.
“We are yet to fully recover from those drastic changes and recover our legacy”, he said, adding, the National Education Policy-2020 was a well-planned and decisive step in that direction.
It has a holistic vision of transforming the way children and youth will be educated to make learning a part of personal development, while also serving the needs of society, the President said.
Observing that the new policy also takes into account what is needed to build a prosperous and self-reliant nation, he said for this, the higher education system must enable equity, expertise and empowerment.
“The National Education Policy seeks to achieve these objectives. As Sir C V Raman had put it, higher education institutions should lead the nation towards knowledge expansion and economic growth. That precisely is the thrust of the new policy,” Kovind said.
He was happy to note that 65 percent of the students in the university are women.