Address at the 5th Convocation of Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

Enriching Society through Education

Learning gives creativity 
Creativity leads to thinking

I am delighted to participate in the fifth Convocation of Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur. It gives me great pleasure to be here in this University which is catering to the educational needs of the central tribal belt of Chhattisgarh. I am happy that the University is named after Guru Ghasidas who propagated the importance of the value system and unity of minds among the population of the region and promoted social equity. I take this opportunity to congratulate all the teachers, students and staff of this University and all those who have contributed in promoting good educational standards in this University during the last two decades. My greetings to all of you. Today I would like to share with you the thoughts on "Enriching the Society through Education".

Core competence of Bilaspur region

Bilaspur is a fast industrializing city in Chhattisgarh. The area is a nerve centre of trade in iron and steel, coal, aluminum, textiles, food grains, Kosa silk, cement, paper, furniture and jewellery. Bilaspur and its vicinity have a rich historical and cultural heritage. Relics, temples, statues made by various sects and dynasties are present in Bilaspur. The region is also rich in natural beauty, flora and fauna and tribal and folk culture. The university has to have an integrated perspective of the strength and needs of the region to focus the future. The University and its 130 affiliated colleges, who are offering courses in arts, commerce, education, engineering and technology, law and humanities, life sciences, management, medicine, pharmacy, should work for building the capacities among the students who can take part in the development tasks of the state using the natural resources.

Capacity Building

A good educational model is the need of the hour to ensure that the students grow to contribute towards the economic growth of a nation. Normally, research, technology and performance in the three sectors namely agriculture, manufacturing and services lead to economic growth. Can we sow the seeds of capacity building among the students? There will be continuous innovation during the learning process. To realize this, special capacities are required to be built in education system for nurturing the students. The capacities which are required to be built are research and enquiry, creativity and innovation, use of high technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership.

Research and enquiry: The 21st century is about the management of all the knowledge and information we have generated and the value addition we bring to it. We must give our students the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created and continue with life long learning. Today, we have the ability, through technology, to really and truly teach ourselves to become the life-long learners. This is required for sustained economic development

Creativity and innovation: The management of knowledge in the 21st century is beyond the capacity of a single individual. The amount of information that we have around is overwhelming. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and shift into the realm of the networked groups. The students must learn how to manage knowledge collectively. When the information is networked the power and utility of the information grows as square as stated by Metcalfe's law. Information that is static does not grow. In the new digital economy information that is circulated creates innovation and contributes to national wealth.

Capacity to use high technology: Every student in our colleges should learn to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. Universities should equip themselves with adequate computing equipment, laboratory equipment, and Internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability. In the midst of all of the technological innovations and revolutions we cannot think that the role of the teachers will be diminished. In fact the teacher will become even more important and the whole world of education will become teacher assisted and would help in ?tele-porting? the best teacher to every nook and corner of the country and propagate the knowledge.

Entrepreneurship: The aptitude for entrepreneurship should be cultivated right from the beginning and in the university environment. We must teach our students to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain, but within the ethos of good business. They should also cultivate a disposition to do things right. This capacity will enable them to take up challenging tasks later.

Moral leadership: Moral leadership involves two aspects. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. Moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do right things. In sum, inquiry, creativity, technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership are the five capacities required to be built through the education process. If we develop in all our students these five capacities, we will produce ?Autonomous Learner? a self-directed, self controlled, lifelong learner who will have the capacity to both, respect authority and at the same time is capable of questioning authority, in an appropriate manner. These are the leaders who would work together as a ?Self-organizing Network? and transform any State as a prosperous State. The most important part of the education is to imbibe the confidence among the students is the spirit of ?we can do it?. These capacities will enable the students to meet the challenges of our national mission of transforming the nation into a developed country by 2020.

Our National mission - challenges

Our nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting of 220 million people who are below the poverty line and also to give better life for many millions who are on the border line of poverty or just above the poverty line. In respect of Chhattisgarh people below poverty line are around 45%. They need decent habitat, they need work with reasonable income, they need food, they need health care, and they need education and finally resulting into a good life. Our GDP is growing at more than 8% per annum on an average. Whereas, the economists suggest that to uplift the people from below the poverty line, our economy has to grow at the rate of 10% per annum consistently, for over a decade.

Integrated action: We have the mission of transforming India into a developed nation. For this we have identified five areas where India has core competence, for integrated action: (a) agriculture and food processing; (b) education and healthcare (c) information and communication technology (d) reliable and quality electric power, surface transport and Infrastructure for all parts of the country and (e) Self reliance in critical technologies. These five areas are closely inter-related and will lead to food security, economic security and national security. The mission of the university should align with the mission of the state and the nation.

Guru Ghasidas University can provide the knowledge products to the Government and Industry for enhancing the economic prosperity of the central tribal belt of Chhattisgarh. One of the important components of development is the creation of PURAs (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) in which the University can participate.

PURA Complexes

Since Guru Ghasidas University has a multi disciplinary environment in humanities, management and professional courses, I would like to highlight how Periyar Women Engineering College in a rural area in Tamil Nadu has transformed 60 villages with one lakh population into an economically vibrant entity with physical connectivity, electronic connectivity, knowledge connectivity. I was there in September this year and I met rural citizens, the engineering college students and teachers who are implementing the project and seen a remarkable progress. What can be the mission of Guru Ghasidas University? The mission of the university has to do research, to equip the teachers and to provide education and training to the students which will boost up the employment potential in the region. Major mission of the university should be to develop the region by imparting knowledge in various forms. This is what the experience I have shared with you. Similarly, the Guru Ghasidas University with its large knowledge resource can transform the multiple districts in Chhattisgarh by studying the environment particularly the tribal environment and people?s way of life and their problems. PURA is an effective sustainable proposition, to bring together multiple villages into a coherent economic entity and provide the employment potential at least to 50% of the population of the cluster of villages with physical connectivity and electronic connectivity. It is heartening to learn that the University has opened its extension campus at Surguga to offer professional and job oriented courses to the students of Surguga region at the district headquarters itself and to formulate and implement new courses to meet the needs of the people of Surguga. Hence, I suggest the University to take up mission mode research and development and above all provide a management leadership for establishing at least 20 PURAs with unique features on the lines of Baktara PURA near Raipur, which I am inaugurating today.

Chhattisgarh Mission and PURA

The missions of Chhattisgarh should enhance the literacy rate from the existing 65% to 100%, increasing the per-capita income of the districts from the existing Rs. 17,500 to Rs. 75,000 and reducing the number of people below poverty line to near zero from the existing 45% by the year 2015. The PURA complexes established should keep this vision in mind for the various regions of the state. The University may nominate nodal colleges in each of the five districts for creation of the PURA covering 15 to 20 village clusters having a population of 30,000 to 75,000. The nodal college can workout the physical connectivity, electronic connectivity and knowledge connectivity needed in the selected village cluster for realizing economic connectivity and work with State Government, NGOs and financial institutions for establishing the PURA as a viable business proposition. For providing remunerative economic activity the nodal colleges can examine the core competence of each village and work on the ?one product ? one village? scheme presently being experimented by certain States. In essence, the Guru Ghasidas University can provide the lead by assisting in planning, providing knowledge products and assisting in implementation for the upliftment of the five tribal districts of Bilaspur division. This will become a live example of contribution of youth towards societal transformation.

Conclusion: Indomitable Spirit

Now, I would like to recall a great clarion call of indomitable spirit, which was given by Nobel Laureate Sir C.V. Raman, at the age of 82. The message is still reverberating in my mind: ?I would like to tell the young men and women before me not to lose hope and courage. Success can only come to you by courageous devotion to the task lying in front of you. I can assert without fear of contradiction that the quality of the Indian mind is equal to the quality of any Teutonic, Nordic or Anglo-Saxon mind. What we lack is perhaps courage, what we lack is perhaps driving force which takes one anywhere. We have, I think, developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit. We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit, which will recognize that we, as inheritors of a proud civilization, are entitled to a rightful place on this planet. If that indomitable spirit were to arise, nothing can hold us from achieving our rightful destiny.?

My congratulations to all the graduates who are passing out from this University today. My best wishes to all the members of Guru Ghasidas University in their mission of providing quality education and capacity building of the youth of the five districts of this central tribal belt of Chhattisgarh.

May God bless you.