Universities must create conducive environment for students

Bangalore, Feb 15 (PTI) Universities must create anenvironment conducive for the healthy growth of students,Union Minister for Law M Veerappa Moily said here today.

Delivering the convocation address at the 46th annualconvocation of the Bangalore University, he said universitiesmust create a conducive enviroment "so that talents canblossom and students become positive individuals".

"Any attempt to divert the minds of our students tonarrower goals will convert our younger population into apattern of bonsai", he said

He advised the teaching faculty to sow the seeds ofgrowth, so that that they grow like gigantic trees. "Don''tmake students into bonsais", he said.

"A quest for learning and a questioning mind and pushingthe frontiers of knowledge will result in delving deep intosubjects, researching and innovation" was his words of adviceto the graduating students.

"As the youth, it should be your aim to becomeintellectually competent and technically skilled", he said.

"You could be the game changers", he told students.

"Unleash your creativity", he said. "The future offers hugeopportunity, go grab it. But be equipped to grab it or youwill burn yourself", he said.

He said, "Our country has caged knowledge for centuries andcenturies. We should not shy away from expansion when theUniversities in the West, China have massive student strength.

Expansion, inclusion will ultimately result in massive outputwith quality"

He said some of the apex institutions like IITs IIMs hadexpanded only one per cent for the last 45 years. But with theimplementation of the recommendation of the Oversight Committeof Government of India, they have now been expanded to theextent of 54 per cent. "Opportunities, access and high qualityof education will make the so called theme of meritirrelevant", he said.

There should be an endeavour to get into the domain of masseducation and quality education and drive away the predjudicesand also the status quoism in the field of education, hemaintained.

India should take advantage of its demographic dividendlike the US did two centuries ago and to transform India toblossom itself into a country of youth and provide leadershipto the world, he opined.

The government was targetting a three times increase inenrolement in higher education from nearly 14 million to 40million by 2020.

Earlier, Nisar Ahmed, B K Srinivasa Varma and notedresearch scholar Chidananda Murthy whose name had earlier beenrejected by the Governor H R Bhardwaj for his alleged remarkson conversion, but later cleared, were honoured with honorarydegrees at the function.