Hyderabad: Commemorating the National Education Day on Monday at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), scholars and students gathered to honour Maulana Azad's vision as the university hosted a lecture that explored the challenges facing higher education today.
Padma Shri Prof. Krishna Kumar, former director of NCERT, delivered the Maulana Azad Memorial Lecture on "Understanding Higher Education and its Current Predicament." He said, "Some focus on education as a concept or idea and others focus on it as a system. As a concept, education carries ideals and values and as a system it carries the weight of history and social condition."
Further, Prof. Kumar also spoke about Maulana Azad's vision. "He is one of those figures of the Indian freedom struggle who gave us a vision which no human being could have realised within a lifetime. It's a universal vision for humanity and not just change as we normally talk about in the context of great leaders," he noted.
He encouraged the academic community to reclaim the contemplative spaces that universities are meant to provide. "Today, if we were to not just lament the loss of contemplative space that the university system provides, we must exercise our right to review anything with freedom. That is the real legacy of Maulana Azad — the legacy of freedom. It is not just freedom as a struggle against foreign rule; it's also the legacy of exercising freedom in our lives."
"Like any other values, freedom also requires practice. If you don't practise freedom, you lose it. That is perhaps the best way to remember Maulana Abul Kalam Azad," Prof. Kumar added. MANUU Vice-Chancellor Prof. Syed Ainul Hasan presided over the event and shared a story from the Panchatantra. "It is very difficult to make friends and it is possible in higher education and university systems where you come across a number of people belonging to different walks of life, where you understand each other," he said.
The event began with a welcome address by Registrar Prof. Ishtiaque Ahmed. Prof. Shugufta Shaheen, Prof. Siddiqui Mohd Mahmood and. Prof. Syed Alim Ashraf Jaisi was also a part of the event. Additionally, senior journalists — Mohammed Rasheeduddin of The Siasat Urdu Daily and Wajeed Ullah Khan of UNI — were honoured with the "Sitara-e-Sahafat" Award for 2024. They were felicitated with shawls, certificates and the award in recognition of their contributions to journalism.
This event was a part of a larger ‘The Azad Day celebrations’, which began on November 7 at MANUU and concluded on Monday. The celebration's final day included a lively food festival and a mushaira.
