Puducherry: Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Friday asked universities in the country to reform, perform and transform to become centres of excellence.
Urging the universities to evolve and change according to the need of the changing times, the Vice President also appealed to all the universities in the country to teach various subjects including science and technology in their respective mother tongues. He was addressing the students and faculty of Pondicherry University here.
All universities could teach everything in the mother toungue of the learners and all languages should be learned without any difference, said the Vice President. He urged students to master the mother language and work hard to aim high to achieve heights.
Highlighting the importance of the need for universities to evolve and change as per the needs of the changing times, he said that the government already focusing on these two aspects through programmes like "Skill India" and "Start Up India"where the universities had the onerous responsibility to create new courses and improve teaching and learning processes to make the students ready to take on the challenges.
Each institution should look into its own functioning and identify areas that require reform and those requiring transformation "in consonance with the Prime Minister's call to reform, perform and transform," he said.
Like in ancient times when India was known as "Vishwaguru", our universities must attract knowledge seeks from all over the world and to achieve this, the professional competence of teachers has to be enhanced significantly, he added.
Stressing the importance of gender sensitisation, the Vice President said that some of the recent incidents of crimes against women are shameful and a matter of serious concern.
"We all have to act collectively to raise awareness against discrimination of the girl child. There should be renewed focus on gender equality and safety of women", the vice-president said Lt Governor Kiran Bedi and Chief Minister V Narayanasamy and Pondicherry University Vice-Chancellor Gurmeet Singh, were among who were present on the occasion.
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