Address at the Inauguration of the 78th Annual Meeting of the Association of Indian Universities

Nation Building - The Role of Universities

I am indeed delighted to participate in the inauguration of the 78th Annual Meeting of the Association of Indian Universities. My greetings to all the Vice Chancellors for their contribution in shaping the young minds in multiple fields to contribute towards national development. I am happy to know that you are going to deliberate on the issues relating to "Threat and Opportunities in Higher Education in the context of General Agreement on Trade and Services " and "Networking among Indian Universities and credit transfer within the Universities in India" in the National Seminars as part of this annual meeting.

The Universities have a major responsibility in nation building through enriching Science, Engineering and Technology and by providing value based education to students to make them moral leaders. Hence, today I have selected the topic for my discussion as "Nation Building - The Role of Universities".

Results of deliberations - Vice Chancellors meet

A few months back I had met the Vice Chancellors of all the Central Universities. I also met the Vice Chancellors of Andhra Pradesh Universities of Hyderabad, Vice Chancellors of Universities of Bihar during my train journey from Harnaut to Patna and Vice Chancellors of Universities of J&K in Srinagar. I thought of sharing with you two important results of the meetings.

First point was on research tasks in the university. The extent of the research work undertaken by the University becomes a measure of judgment and representation for that university. Experience of research leads to quality teaching, and quality teaching imparted to the young in turn enriches the research and higher learning. Research brings transformation and development and also enhances the quality of education. This sets in a regenerative cycle of excellence.

The second point came up was about the standing and excellence of the university to build moral leadership to the student. Hence, quality of research and teaching will attract students from many parts of the country, creating new environment and base for development of the Nation.

Dynamics of development

Research today, not only has become important but is now becoming the driving force in the process of self-reliance of all cutting edge technologies. Research in certain universities has been the main contributor and the guiding force in realizing their core competence. Our road map for the next few decades will see many new frontiers in the areas of nano-science and engineering, space technology, advanced materials and composite technology, biotechnology in the fields of drugs and pharmaceuticals etc. It is imperative, that universities come together to realize the importance of these areas and the effect that they are going to have in shaping the future. There are 13 scientific organizations like ISRO, DRDO, DAE, DBT, CSIR, DST, DOD, etc. spend more than Rs.500 crores per year in sponsored research. Equal emphasis is needed in research in the areas of arts and literature, humanities, political science, law, economics, commerce, and management to promote balanced growth of the societal system preserving the civilizational heritage.

What is needed today is the appropriate networking of universities with these scientific organizations and other government departments to spearhead important research programmes in the emerging areas. The networking of the universities with the above organizations will provide the necessary inputs in realizing self-reliance in the years to come. With this in mind the DST and other departments have introduced novel schemes such as REACH (Relevance and Excellence in ACHieving new heights in educational institutes). Indian industry is working endlessly on ways and means to achieve better quality products. They look to other countries for technology transfer. Instead universities can help the industry through the research projects. In fact, the universities must take the lead in networking of multiple organizations and industries with them. Vice Chancellors need to raise to the occasion and give the most dynamic opportunity to both the students and teachers to undertake advanced research which will build most important knowledge resource and core competence. The universities will get transformed into Centres of Excellence in specific areas.

Virtual University

It is time that we should start looking at the possibility of creating a Virtual University in India through networking of all the universities and other educational institutions for imparting universal tele-education. Virtual university will have the following tasks:

a) Act as a central hub of all universities which are networked.

b) Identify experts of national/international eminence in specialized areas.

c) Coordinate, organize, schedule and broadcast the lecture of specialists at a mutually convenient time to all participants.

d) Record the live transmission of the lecture with interaction details in a data bank for easy access by participants for review learning.

e) Digitize all the university libraries and make it available for seamless access by all the universities.

f) The universities need to become learner centric.

This experiment across the country will provide a common platform for teaching Schools, Colleges and Universities and even vocational courses. This will give equal emphasis on theory and experiments in spite of the fact that it will be done in the cyberspace. Such is the power of the technology and our understanding of it. This facility would also help in expansion of telecommunication and IT services. All this would lead to synergising the strengths of different universities in promoting quality education to our students in a cost effective manner.

Partner to Developed India - Missions

Transformation of India into a developed nation will need integrated action in the following areas namely: Agriculture and Food Processing, Education and Health care, Information and Communication Technology, Infrastructure and self-reliance in critical technologies. The key elements which require immediate attention for national development are Interlinking of rivers and Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas (PURA). The core competence available at various universities will empower you for contributing in these national missions.

Interlinking of rivers is essential for flood and drought control, for availability of drinking water to all regions, for goods navigation and transportation for increased power generation, cultivation land and environmental ecology. This mission will also provide employment opportunities to the rural population. Remote sensing to survey and evolve optimum water routes, environmental mapping and afforestation requirements and Ground Information System (GIS) from satellite constellation. Above all, the interlinking will lead to enhancement of environment and national connectivity. It is an interdisciplinary task involving many specialists from various fields of Science and Technology. The universities should actively involve in the interlinking of rivers task force and be partners of this mega mission.

Outreach to Societies

a. Literacy Mission

The universities have the prime responsibilities for education, research and creating enlightened citizens. Let us look beyond the campus and see what opportunities we have to help the society. One of the possible schemes is to undertake a literacy mission to the nearby rural areas. We have nearly 300 universities and 11000 colleges, and also 583,000 villages. If the universities can reach to villages in 10 kms distance and help 10,000 adults to be educated and each college helps 1000 adults educated, we will see in a two year period 14 million adults go through education. If this process continues for a period of 10 years we will be in a position to educate almost all the adults in this country. Some universities and colleges have attempted adult literacy campaign with the help of municipalities and panchayat unions and district education centres. The survey showed that nearly 80% of the adults were very keen to learn.

Universities also can organize exhibitions and camps at villages to enable the village population to up-date themselves and become part of the development of this nation. The Education Bill passed by the Parliament makes education compulsory upto the age of 14 years. This two-pronged approach of primary and secondary education in schools and adult education led by the universities will enhance the literacy percentage to more than 85%.

b. Development of Rural Areas

For India to be a developed nation, it is essential that there is a massive scheme for development of the rural areas, as 70% of our population lives in villages. Hence the Government has announced the introduction of a scheme called PURA i.e. Providing Urban Amenities in Rural areas. PURA model envisages habitat design to improve the quality of life in rural areas and also removes urban congestion. It is essentially conceived around four types of connectivities with the aim to speed up process of achieving total rural prosperity. Physical connectivity enables high mobility to villagers so that they can interact and use common infrastructure such as school, health centres and markets. The electronic connectivity with telephones and internet facilities bring them together and interact with anyone anywhere in the world. Knowledge connectivity will transform the rural area in education, health care, application of science for crop, water and forest and management, environment protection and cooperative product marketing. The combination of all these three connectivities provides the economic connectivity with small-scale industries, agro and food processing, warehouses, micro power plants, renewable energy farms and banks. The four connectivities will bring prosperity to the villagers and improve quality of life.

Enlightened citizens

Expert teams have studied how India can be transformed into a developed nation. National development, is a collective process, and has to be accomplished through the constructive efforts of enlightened citizens. The evolution of enlightened human beings is indeed a big challenge for the world community. I was asking myself, what will be the components of such a mission? There are three components to that. The first component is education with value system, second is religions graduating into spiritual forces to bring universal brotherhood and the third is poverty eradication by attaining economic prosperity through a national vision.

Another important mission for the nation for which you can contribute is creation of capacities for nation building. In the education environment we want to give our youth the capacity for contributing to economic development and nation building. What kind of nation does India want to build? India transforming into a developed nation by 2020, is the vision of the nation.

For realizing the above vision, 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 youth, 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

We can best teach ourselves by teaching others. The management of knowledge in 21st century is beyond the capacity of individuals. The amount of information that we have is overwhelming and has exceeded the capacity of individuals. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and into the realm of the society. We must learn how to manage knowledge collectively. In other words we must not only teach ourselves, but teach others.

c. Capacity to use of high technology

Every student in our colleges should graduate to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. Colleges should equip themselves with adequate computing equipment, laboratory equipments, Internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability.

d.Entrepreneurship

When a student goes out of the College/University campus after graduation, he or she should have the confidence to start enterprise individually or jointly. Entrepreneurship development should become a part of university education. The entrepreneurial leadership has three parts. First, statement of the problem and its solution in the context of development. In second part, the entrepreneurs should have the willingness to take risk and be bold to do things differently. We must teach our graduates to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain. The third part is the disposition to do things right. This capacity will enable them to take up national tasks.

e. Moral leadership

Moral leadership involves two aspects. 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 When the students complete the course in the university and enter into the world of opportunities he or she should have the confidence with indomitable spirit acquired from their teachers teaching. If people thing big, a nation becomes great. Particularly the young population of India definitely has self esteem and confidence. The challenge in the missions of the developed India calls for an important, cohesive and focused efforts of the young. For success in any mission what we need is indomitable spirit. 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 2200 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 lilly flower always comes out and blossoms. Similarly, if there is a definite determination to achieve a goal, even against insurmountable problems, he or she will succeed.

The second component is the ability to overcome all hurdles coming in the way of mission accomplishment. Many of us have gone through large programmes and projects. We would have experienced that success is not in sight and 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 Thirukkural characterize the indomitable spirit. I am sure all of you who have assembled here will rise to the occasion and develop leaders enlightened citizens.

Conclusion

The twenty-first century belongs to knowledge society and it has opened up tremendous opportunities in every field. The universities have a vital role to utilize this opportunity and become incubators of knowledge creation and innovation. It is essential to enrich research tasks in multiple areas and build R&D infrastructure for world-class research, in order to make the universities as institutions of higher learning. Each university must strive to have its own core competence and 'brand' for itself. The universities have also the responsibility to shape the students as enlightened citizens. They need to spread their wings in societal missions in the nearby rural areas. The universities will thus become partners in the Developed India Vision 2020. That is the India, which will be beautiful, prosperous and safe. Let us all work together towards this endeavor for which we will be remembered by our future generations.