Good educational model need of hour: Dr Kalam

Tirunelveli (Tamil Nadu), Sep 22: President A P J Abdul Kalam today said a good educational model is the need of the hour to ensure that the students grow to contribute towards economic growth of the nation.

Delivering the 14th Convocation Address at the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University here, Dr Kalam said special capacities like research and enquiry, creativity and innovation, use of high technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership were required to be built in the education system for nurturing the students.

''These capacities will enable the students to meet the challenges of our national mission of transforming the nation into a developed country by 2020,'' he added.

He told the students that success could only come to them by courageous devotion to the task lying in front of them. ''What we lack is perhaps courage and a driving force which takes one anywhere. We have developed an inferiority complex. What we needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit. We need a spirt of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful places under the sun.'' The President suggested that 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.'' Dr Kalam said technology was the non-linear tool available to humanity which could affect fundamental changes in the ground rules of economic competitiveness.

He complimented the role of the University in bringing out a number of research and development missions like tap palm juice, distilling ethanol from palm juice, cost effective bio-degradable materials as a replacement for non-degradable thermocol board and gum extraction from tamarind seeds. ''It is essential to manufacture these research products in a massive scales with the local entrepreneurs with quality and cost effectiveness so that this would become and employement generator for the local people'', Dr Kalam said.

Tamil Nadu Governor S S Barnala and Vice-Chancellor Cynthia Pandian were among those present on the occasion.

UNI

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