Bengaluru: There will be no progress without making the necessary investment in research and innovation segments in the country, said President Pranab Mukherjee.
“Research and innovations are not happening in industrial and financial segments in the country. For too long, academia and industry have neglected research. Unless we make investment in basic research, we cannot make further progress,’’ Pranab Mukherjee said while addressing the annual convocation of the Indian Institute of Science here on Wednesday.
The President warned that the advantages that India possessed during the early days of the Information Technology growth was diminishing, while challenges of global competition were increasing. “We require excellent teachers, bright students, conducive atmosphere…good laboratories that keep pace with rapidly-changing technology,” he said.
Quality of education was a recurring theme of his speech, as he said unless we skill the youth, the country’s demographic dividend – in which, by 2020, more than 50% of the population will be below the age of 25 years – will turn into demographic liability.
He was in the city for the convocation ceremony of IISc on Wednesday during which 625 students were given degrees and 52 awarded medals for their academic performance.
Through his speech, Mukherjee drew his connections to the country’s premier science institution. He told the students that when he was entering the teaching profession, one of his inspirations was J.C. Ghosh, who after a stint as the IISc Director was the first director of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
He even ended his speech with an apology to the IISc Director Anurag Kumar for having deviated from his written speech and was against the practice in the convocation.
Earlier, Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala said students needed to take inspiration from the scientific successes of small nations, including North Korea. “We should take inspiration from ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), from Israel, from Japan and any other nation, including North Korea which is progressing in Atomic Energy,” he said.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said one of the biggest challenges that our education system is facing today is the paucity of good teachers. “But, we must first ask: Who is a good teacher? Is he or she the one who passes on every conceivable bit of information and ideas to the students? Surely not, for then there would be no difference between a teacher and a computer!’’ Siddaramaiah said.
He said a good teacher is one who realizes the enormous responsibility of shaping the live of students, and not merely intellectually. “The teacher is one who will help his or her students learn how to think and also shape their belief system. But, being a good teacher is not easy. Students, being impressionable, need to be nurtured with care and affection, and a good teacher is one who has enormous patience, courage and integrity,’’ he said.
