Patna, March 23: The concluding day of the Bihar Divas celebrations was a low-key affair owing to Holi.
Governor Ram Nath Kovind was the chief guest in the closing ceremony where more than half of the seats in the audience gallery were vacant. Speaking on the occasion, the governor talked about the rich historical, cultural and traditional significance of Bihar and appreciated the steps being taken by the state government under chief minister Nitish Kumar's seven resolves. The theme of this year's Divas were the resolves.
"Bihar has been the land of Gautam Buddha, Lord Mahavir and Guru Gobind Singh. It was from here that Emperor Chandragupta Maurya set up the vast Mauryan Empire which extended from Magadh (present day Bihar) till Afghanistan. Two of the world's oldest universities -Nalanda and Vikramshila - are in Bihar," said Kovind.
He added: "Gandhi also started his maiden Satyagraha movement from Bihar only (West Champaran) and I am glad that the state government is organising grand celebrations to mark its centenary this year. I am also happy that the state government is pursuing further development of the state with the seven resolves programme."
Education minister Ashok Choudhary said the state government has issued a letter of intent to five private universities. The five include Amity Global Business School at Bihta, Maharashtra-based Sandip Institute of Engineering and Management at Madhubani, Jogeshwari Memorial University at Muzaffarpur, Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh)-based Dr CV Raman University at Vaishali and Al Karim University at Katihar.
"We have targeted to get accreditation from National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) for all colleges and universities in the state, which would enable to get aid from the central government. As of now, only 48 institutions in the state have got the NAAC accreditation. Besides, we also want to introduce choice based credit system (CBCS) in Bihar at the earliest. This would allow students to puruse multi-disciplinary studies in higher education," said Choudhary.
According to University Grants Commission (UGC), choice based credit system not only offers opportunities and avenues to learn core subjects but also exploring additional avenues of learning beyond the core subjects for holistic development of an individual. The UGC has recently come out with guidelines for the introduction of choice based credit system in higher educational institutions for graduate, postgraduate, diploma and certificate programmes.
The education minister also talked about increasing the gross enrolment education (GER) ratio from 13 per cent to 30 per cent. GER determines the number of students enrolled in school at different grade levels like elementary, middle school and high school.
"The national average for gross enrolment education is 25 per cent but we want to achieve the target of 30 per cent for Bihar. For this we are taking a number of steps, including setting up one college and one university in every district," said Choudhary.
Education department principal secretary D.S. Gangwar claimed that all programmes organised under Bihar Divas at Gandhi Maidan, SK Memorial and Rabindra Bhavan were successful.
Around 50 stalls were set up at Gandhi Maidan, which were allotted to different departments of the state government such as tourism, education, health and rural development. Laser shows on the state's development in the past 10 years were also held on both days in the evening. Classical performances were held at SK Memorial Hall. Besides, mushaira and poetry meets were held at Rabindra Bhavan.
Starting from 2012, Bihar Divas is organised as a three-day event but this time it was reduced to two only owing to Holi falling on March 24.
