Education can help India overcome moral challenges: President Pranab Mukherjee

DOIMUKH (ARUNACHAL PRADESH): The people of the country need to make an extra effort to surmount the contemporary moral challenges, President Pranab Mukherjee today said, stressing the need to focus on education for India to be "truly developed".

"Educational institutions have a pivotal role to inculcate in our youth the core civilizational values of love for motherland, performance of duty, compassion for all, tolerance for pluralism, respect for women, honesty in life, self-restraint in conduct, responsibility in action and discipline," the President said at the 12th convocation ceremony of Rajiv Gandhi University here.

Asserting that education is the bedrock of an enlightened society, he said a good education breeds tolerance for divergent views.

"Our country has done well in terms of economic development. Yet, we cannot claim to have evolved into a truly developed society," he said.

"Development is not only about factories, dams and roads. Development, to my mind, is about people, their values and their devotion to spiritual and cultural heritage of our nation."

"At a time when we, as a nation, have to make an extra effort to surmount the contemporary moral challenges, it is holistic education that must play a definitive role in shaping our values," Mukherjee said.

The President, who was on a two-day visit to the north eastern state, expressed concerns over the declining standard of country's higher education and suggested its overhaul.

"Today, our universities lag behind the best universities in the world. According to an international survey, an Indian university or an institution is missing from the top 200 ranks. Naturally, we feel shock," he said.

"India is poised to become a world power. Not merely physical expansion is enough, we must have quality expansion. There is no dearth of quality teachers and students, what we need is quality education and an atmosphere for that," the President said.

"Why should our students go to abroad. Why can't we create reverse reaction. For that, we need to emphasise on education and research," he said.

Mukherjee said ancient universities in the country had excelled in providing education not only for one or two years but for 1,800 years, yet none of our institutes figures in list of world's top 200 such centres.

"Our ancient universities--Takshashila, Nalanda, Vikramashila, Valabhi, Somapura and Odantapuri-- were renowned seats of learning that attracted scholars from outside."

Mukherjee said country's higher academic model must undergo significant changes from the traditional pattern of delivering education.

He said every university has shortage of teachers but that cannot be overcome overnight.

Technology can play an important role for it, he said. The President also laid emphasis on conducting research activities in universities across the country.

Mukherjee asked students of the university to conduct innovative research on border trade opportunities and ways to integrate northeast economy with the national and global economies, among other, to help in the region's development.