Convocation Address at University of Calicut

Purposeful University Education

I am indeed delighted to participate in the annual Convocation of the University of Calicut, which is the largest affiliating University in Kerala. I take this opportunity to congratulate the University students for their academic performance. I greet the Vice Chancellor, professors, teachers and staff for their contribution in shaping young minds to contribute to the nation in multiple fields. The University of Calicut has made significant contribution in enhancing the higher education level of the people in the region. I am happy to note that the University is paying special attention to Distance Education, Adult Education and Extension Services for improving the educational standard and vocational skill levels for continuous up-gradation of knowledge and growth of employees in various sectors.

Teaching and Research

Recently I met the Vice Chancellors of all the Central Universities. I thought of sharing with you two important results of the meeting. As you all know, research in the universities brings about quality teaching. Students and quality teaching in turn reinforce university teaching and research. The second aspect that came up was related to the standing and excellence of the university which comes out of quality teachers. "Teachers should be the best minds in the country". Quality teachers by virtue of their intellectual and moral leadership attract students for research and also they attract development programmes.

Capacities for nation building

The most important mission for the nation for which universities can contribute is creation of capacities for nation building. In the education environment it is important to dwell upon what kind of human beings we want to make of ourselves. There is a need for every individual to analyze what capacities can be cultivated in himself/herself for contributing to nation building. India transforming itself into a developed nation by 2020, is the vision of the nation for which the road map is emerging. There are five areas for simultaneous development: Agriculture and Food processing, Education and healthcare, Information and Communication Technology, Infrastructure development - including River network and self reliance in critical technologies.

For achieving the above mission, the capacities required in educational institutions are: The capacity for research or inquiry, the capacity for Creativity and Innovation, particularly the creative transfer of knowledge, the capacity to use high technology, the capacity for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the capacity for Moral Leadership.

a. Research and enquiry

The 20th century was for the generation of knowledge. The 21st century will be about the management of all the knowledge and information we have generated and give value to it. We must give our students, the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created. Today, we have the ability, through technology, to really and truly teach ourselves and to become the life-long learners that any sustained economic and political development requires.

b. Creativity and innovation

Creativity comes from beautiful minds. It can be anywhere and from any part of the country. It has got multi dimensions like inventions, discoveries and innovations. Creativity has an attitude to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it. Creativity involves a process to work hard continually to improve ideas and solutions by making gradual alterations and refinements to their works. The important aspect of creativity is: seeing the same thing as everybody else, but thinking of something different. These characteristics are required to be nurtured and promoted amongst the students.

c. Capacity to use high technology

Every student in our university should graduate to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. Universities should equip themselves with the tools like computer hardware, software, working laboratory equipment, and internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability through digital library.

d. Entrepreneurial leadership

Entrepreneurial leadership first involves identifying the problem and then finding its solution in the context of development. Entrepreneurship starts with understanding our needs and realizing that as human beings we all have similar needs. It begins with wanting to help others as we help ourselves. Secondly, there should be willingness to undertake new challenges. Entrepreneurship requires doing things differently, being bold in our thinking and this is always risky. We must teach our children how to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain. The third part involves the disposition to do things right.

e. Moral leadership

Moral leadership involves two things. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. A state of things in which human beings could be better off in the future than they are now. Secondly, where entrepreneurial leadership requires people to acquire the habit of doing things right, moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do the right thing.

Indomitable spirit

For success in any mission what we need is leaders with indomitable spirit. That should be the mission of any university. Let us study the characteristics of indomitable spirit. It has two components. The first component is that there must be a Vision leading to higher goals of achievement. I would like to recall a couplet from Thirukkural by the Poet Saint Thiruvalluvar written 2500 years ago.

Quote:

It means that whatever may be the depth of the river or lake or pond, whatever may be the condition of the water, the lily flower always comes out and blossoms. Similarly, if there is a definite determination to achieve a goal even if it is apparently impossible to achieve, the man succeeds.

Many of us have gone through large programmes, projects, technologies and scientific teachings. We would have experienced that success is not in sight and that there are many hurdles. The same poet reminds us at this point of time through another couplet:

It means successful leaders can never be defeated by problems. They become master of the situation and defeat the problems. I consider, these two Thirukkurals characterize the indomitable spirit.

Core competence for Knowledge Society

A knowledge society can be one of the foundations for a vision for the nation: Developed India. Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power. The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area through out the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. India is a nation endowed with natural and competitive advantages as also certain distinctive competencies. But these are scattered in isolated pockets and the awareness on these is inadequate. During the last century the world has undergone a change from agriculture society, where labour force was the critical factor, to industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. In the 21st century, a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. Efficient utilisation of this existing knowledge can create comprehensive wealth of the nation in the form of better health, education, infrastructure and other social indicators. Ability to create and maintain the knowledge infrastructure, develop knowledge workers and enhance their productivity through creation, growth and exploitation of new knowledge will be the key factors in deciding the prosperity of this Knowledge Society. Whether a nation attained a stage of knowledge society is judged by the way the country effectively deals with knowledge creation and knowledge deployment.

Knowledge Society Components

Knowledge Society has two very important components driven by societal transformation and wealth generation. The societal transformation is on education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. These will lead to employment generation, high productivity and rural prosperity.

Wealth generation is a very important task for the nation, which has to be woven around national competencies. The task team has identified core areas that will spearhead our march towards knowledge society. The areas are: Information Technology, bio-technology, space technology, weather forecasting, disaster management, tele-medicine and tele-education, technologies to produce native knowledge products, service sector and Infotainment which is the emerging area resulting from convergence of Information and entertainment. These core technologies, fortunately, can be interwoven by IT. IT took off only due to enterprising spirit of the young. Thus there are multiple technologies and management structure that have to work together to generate knowledge society. It has to be recognized that the difference between an IT-driven society and a knowledge-driven society is the role of multiple technology growth engines. With India carving a niche for itself in Information Technology, the country is uniquely placed to fully capitalize the opportunity to quickly transform itself into a knowledge society.

Kerala and Knowledge Society

The core competence of Kerala is well-known. It is the home of the country's Space ventures, the most literate State with private initiatives. Kerala is endowed with indomitable dedicated and educated women force. Keralites are global, as most of them are spread over all parts of the world. Kerala is also well-known for the revolution it has done in women's education and the profession of Nursing. Keralites, when they give hard work and value system to other countries, they have to contribute to rural development based on the best, what they have learned. As e-Education is the most important content of knowledge power, Kerala should enter in a business mission mode. We need to utilize the potential of Kerala for continuous progress. For a knowledge society, the most important IT related service is e-Education. In Kerala, e-Education, with the core competence of e-nursing, has great growth potential. Another area of importance is tele-medicine, and the whole kerala can be networked with other States in India.

The importance of connectivity

The Universities of one State should be connected to other universities of excellence in the country through tele-education. The students of these universities should have a collaborative tele-education network for interacting with renowned scholars in various specialisations. Tele-education will provide knowledge connectivity and will facilitate the creation of a knowledge society, leading to enhanced wealth generation for national development. In order to bring about a vibrant educational and research atmosphere, we need to initiate research programmes in collaboration with various scientific and research institutions in the country in the core competence area of the university. This networking will provide larger exposure to the students and the faculty of the university and enable enhanced employment and research opportunities.

Our core competence in ICT sector should enable creation of infrastructural software such as open standard based Operating System, database and web server leading to development of knowledge products such as e-commerce, e-banking, e-governance and e-security through a consortium of research scientists, academia, and industry and evaluation agencies. Such an approach will lead to creation of competitive Indian multi-national units in the ICT sector. The University of Calicut could open the windows for generation of human resource and expertise for propelling this concept.

Knowledge Technology and e-Learning

1. Information and communication technology has to be used to connect the faculty, who will be teaching from this university, to multiple class rooms within the state and in various states. Probably fiber optic leased line cables or a combination of Satellite line (V-SAT) can be used.

2. Today, technology is advanced to such an extent that we can even think of storing all the human knowledge in digital form. One initiative in this direction is of having a Universal Digital Library, irrespective of languages. In India there is a program to digitize 250 million pages, say about one million books in two years' time. Modern technologies and machineries are available with us to carry-out this digitizing.

3. I would like to emphasize that the priority for women education as in Kerala should continue to be given highest priority. When the women are empowered, society with stability will emerge. We have to ensure the continuity of secondary education and university education for girls. It is essential to establish connectivity between the university and secondary schools.

Conclusion

The universities generate graduates in various disciplines - some time it specializes and conducts research at Post Graduate and Doctorate levels. India has more than 250 universities and millions of graduates come out every year. The university syndicates and senates have to discuss how these graduates can be equipped when they go out of the university. Apart from their degrees, a diploma or certificate in certain professional areas such as digital library, nursing science, information mining, skills in traditional areas (biodiversity), electronics and mechanical system maintenance, the value addition techniques and technologies in the field of national natural wealth and human resource etc., should be available to the graduates.

Government jobs will be necessarily limited whereas the entrepreneurial tasks will be on the increase. It is essential that when the graduates go out of the universities, their minds should be shaped to take up the entrepreneurial work for which risk taking and innovation are very important. With the vast experience of the Calicut University, I am sure you will become a partner to the national development in creating enlightened citizens.

Wishing you all the best in your missions.