Chennai: More institutions should explore introducing inter-disciplinary undergraduate course that covers liberal arts, science and engineering in one program, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has said.
Inaugurating the Moturi Satyanarayana Centre for Advanced Study in the Humanities andĀ Social Sciences at Krea University virtually from Raj Bhavan here, he said the NationalĀ Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is a visionary document that recognises the importance of liberal arts and focuses on a multidisciplinary approach in education in tune with contemporary times.
It aims at de-compartmentalising Indian education and breaking the rigid and artificialĀ barriers between ‘professional vs liberal education’, he said.
Stating that a holistic approach to education must be revived again, with an emphasis onĀ liberal arts, he said it was unfortunate that liberal arts have been relegated to a secondary position in education in recent decades.
“Liberal arts nurture the qualities of critical thinking, problem-solving and adaptabilityĀ in an individual. These attributes are in high demand in the 21st century economy, whereĀ no sector of the economy works in a silo. We must, therefore, rediscover our āparamparaāĀ in liberal arts in order to shape well-rounded individuals,” he added.
Venkaiah Naidu said in this regard, students pursuing the fields of STEM- Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics must get adequate exposure to liberal arts and social sciences in their undergraduate programmes.
Various assessments of such courses where humanities and arts are well integrated have shown an enhanced creativity and innovation, higher social and moral awareness, improved critical thinking, teamwork and communication skills among students.
Pointing out that IIT Bombay has recently introduced an interdisciplinary UG course that covers liberal arts, science and engineering in one programme, Venkaiah Naidu said this would contribute to expanding opportunities in order to open up new career pathways.
“More institutions must explore offering such interdisciplinary courses. A number of career trajectories in the coming years will require employees to have wider knowledgeĀ in diverse fields,” he said.
“We need youth who not only have an in-depth knowledge of their specialised area, butĀ also have the ability to assimilate perspectives from other areas, integrate knowledgeĀ from all disciplines and also have soft skills for good communication, informed discussion and debate. Possessing sound knowledge in multiple disciplines, apart from having expertise in specialised area will help in realizing the full potential of our demographic dividend,” the Vice-President said.
Appealing to parents to encourage and infuse in children curiosity for arts, literatureĀ and social sciences from a young age, he said in a race to make it to the top nationalĀ institutions of science and engineering, we are ignoring essential subjects in school such as languages and social sciences.
“In addition, rote learning practices will ruin the creative abilities of a child. WeĀ must rather produce engineers, doctors and scientists, who come up with innovativeĀ solutions to the challenges faced by humanity,” Naidu said.
While technical institutions should integrate arts into their curriculum, students from the arts and humanities background should be given options to gain exposure to scientificĀ disciplines such as computing, artificial intelligence and other such frontier areas.
They must be abreast with the latest technological developments and skilfully apply these advances in their own research work, the Vice-President said.