Adhere to patriotism, tolerance in education: Prez

New Delhi, Mar 15: Amid ongoing controversies in some universities, President Pranab Mukherjee today asked higher educational institutions to emphasise on inculcating core civilisational values of patriotism, compassion, honesty, tolerance and respect for women.

He was speaking at a function to honour Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Tezpur University for excellence in 'research' and 'innovation' and being the 'best university' respectively.

"To be a top higher educational institution requires one to adhere to a few basic pre-conditions. To my mind, the most critical amongst them are ensuring the quality of education and research, enhancing faculty standards and establishing collaborations and linkages with international as well as domestic organisations.

"The emphasis on academic excellence, as well as inculcating core civilizational values of patriotism, compassion, honesty, tolerance, performance of duty and respect for women as to be maintained all through," Mukherjee said.

The President presented the Visitor's Awards for research as well as innovation to Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar and the Molecular Parasitology Group of JNU respectively.

Besides, Tezpur University in Assam was given the annual Visitor's award for the best university.The President is the Visitor of central universities.

"These Awards should inspire and motivate the central universities and their academic communities to excel further. You all must work towards becoming temples of knowledge and learning," he said at the function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

PTI