Venkatachalaiah talks on importance of education

Mysore, Jan 9: Former Chief Justice of India M N Venkatachalaiah said the profound task of education is the 'search of unity that underlies and connects intellect and intuition, science and spirituality, and scientific phenomena and mystic experience.' Delivering the seventh annual convocation address of the Karnataka Open University here yesterday, he said the distance education mode had a great future, with the emergence of technologies for virtual class rooms and holographic imaging.

Distance education had in a sense revolutionised higher education.

The spread was wide, but range, depth and quality need constant attention and upgrading.

Imaginative combination of courses made for synergy as subjects like earth sciences might be combined with ecology, oceanography, forestry and water resource management, he said.

Education, it used to be said, is for life and not for a 'living', but today its for both. It should bring out the best in a person and also make use of that 'best' for making the life of fellowmen better, he pointed out.

In a world of constant industrial and technological innovations, a stagnant educational system, which is not capable of rapid and intelligent response to change, might find itself pushed to a corner, Justice Venkatachalaiah said, adding thatt hough 21st century was touted as the century of China and India, forecasts say the USA would continue to retain its economic, technological and military superiority even by 2020 because universities and centres of scientific research in the West were intellectual powerhouses.

UNI