Governor and chancellor SC Jamir and chief minister Naveen Patnaik escort President Pranab Mukherjee at Utkal University on Thursday

Bhubaneswar, April 25: President Pranab Mukherjee today urged the teaching community to take a lead in imparting moral education to students which would help meet the “moral challenge of our times”.

Addressing Utkal University’s 45th convocation here today, the President expressed his anguish over the recent increase in cases of assault on women and child rape. He said: “These unfortunate incidents have shaken the collective conscience of the nation and underscored the urgency for our society to pause and introspect at the erosion of values and our repeated failure to ensure safety and security of our women and children. Such criminal depravity is a threat to the civilised functioning of society. It is time for the nation to reset its moral compass.”

He said: “I call upon those who educate and nurture the minds of the youth, and who wield moral authority in the society to set this process in motion. Our universities and academic institutions must help us build a modern democracy based on values of human dignity and equality.”

The President asked the Utkal University authorities to consider the undergraduate courses that have been launched at Delhi University from this academic session.

The varsity has added another year to its three-year undergraduate courses such as BA, BCom and BSc. This has been done to improve the practical skills of students though extensive training. The programme comes with exit options midway and an alternative to rejoin later to complete the course.

Expressing his concern over the lack of quality education in Indian universities, Mukherjee said the drive to expand higher education in quantitative terms must be matched by adequate efforts at quality improvement. “It is a matter of deep concern that no Indian university, according to an international survey of universities, is ranked within the top 200 universities in the world.”

Mukherjee laid importance on affordable higher education, improving standards of affiliating colleges under universities by appropriately guiding them, priority on filling of faculty vacancies and encouraging good teachers.

He said that India lagged behind the major economies in terms of innovation. Though Indians consist of one-sixth population of the world, only one in 50 patent applications in the world were filed in India.

“We do not lack the capability to innovate, but we lack the systems to encourage and generate innovation. Our academic environment must be conducive for promotion of research. Increasing the number of research fellowships, supporting inter-disciplinary and inter-university research partnerships and establishing industry incubation parks are some of the important steps that are necessary. Our system must run flexibly to attract Indian researchers working abroad to return and work on short-term projects,” he said.

At the convocation ceremony, which was attended by the governor and chancellor of the university S.C. Jamir and chief minister Naveen Patnaik, 227 scholars received PhD degrees and 97 students got gold medals. The President conferred the honorary doctorate degrees to art of living guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, neurosurgeon Sanatan Rath and former high court judge R.K. Patra. The spiritual gure, however, did not attend the function.

Vice-chancellor of the University P.K. Sahoo listed the activities and achievements of the institution.

Pranab speaks to Naveen during the convocation programme. Pictures by Sanjib Mukherjee

“University education has three sacred goals — acquisition and nurturing of knowledge, building capacity among students for the application of the knowledge acquired and fostering great ideas and ideals. The university is the only place where such goals can be guiding principles,” said Jamir.

Speaking on the occasion, Naveen said: “The university has been playing a pivotal role in building modern Odisha and has been playing a key role in giving the country efficient human resource. The pursuit of excellence is possible only in an environment marked by order, stability and discipline. The university must reform, restructure and rejuvenate to remain at the forefront and enhance the scholarly and intellectual wealth of the country.”

Event highlights

Utter mismanagement played spoilsport at the convocation, despite an event management
group taking over the proceedings. The students were disappointed with the chaos and poor facilities at the venue

Queue

Although the event was scheduled to begin at 11am, hundreds of students were seen standing in long queues from 8.30am to enter the venue. The registration of awardees, which took place at the indoor hall of the university, created a lot of confusion among the students.

Chaos

The situation at the convocation venue became chaotic with a section of students forcing their way inside. In the melee, five temporarily installed air-conditioners
fell on the ground. The incident led to a minor stampede with three girls suffering injuries.

Heat

Although the university authorities had installed air-conditioners inside the venue, most of them became defunct. The students sat in hot and humid conditions.
As a result, hundreds of students were forced to leave
the venue mid-way.

Entry passes

As entry to the venue was stopped at 10.30am, many students who were slightly late were forced to return. Still the venue was chock-a-block with people as around 3,500 passes were issued against the seating capacity of 2,000.

Fewer screens

The university authorities failed to install adequate projector screens. The indoor hall, which was the only one to have such a projector, could accommodate only 100 people. Many students tried to catch the President’s speech standing outside.

Prez on Biju

Pranab Mukherjee did not forget to pay homage to the late Biju Patnaik. Describing him as a political statesman of contemporary India, the President said that Biju Patnaik in the prime of his youth risked his life by flying an aircraft into the territory of an imperial power and
rescued two great Indonesian freedom fighters bringing them back to India.

Gold medallists

Every gold medal recipient was applauded. However, special applause was reserved for additional director general of crime branch B.K. Sharma, who received a gold medal for securing highest marks in legal jurisprudence in the LLB examination.

Naveen’s first

This was chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s first visit to the university since coming to power in 2000.

Lelin Kumar Mallick