Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu exhorted students to join the national effort to make education more inclusive by taking it to the underprivileged and needier sections of society. He pointed out that the Government is making every effort to change the educational landscape of the country and to make it more equitable, inclusive and accessible.
Naidu added that “we should be mindful of the fact that we cannot afford to let any section of society fall behind when it comes to education and socio-economic development.” He made these observations while addressing the students and staff of The Lawrence School at Lovedale in the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu on his visit to the school.
He observed that India today stands poised on the threshold of becoming one of the front-ranking nations in the world. Referring to the rich demographic dividend which India boasts of, he underscored the need to leverage it to our advantage mentioning the fact that more than 65% of India’s population is under 35 years of age.
“Harnessed to their full potential, the talent and creative energies of our young minds will power India into the league of the strongest nations on world stage”, Shri Naidu said.
He pointed out that NEP spells out the way forward giving us a clear path for engaging educational institutions directly in national development. Elaborating further, the Vice President added that “an important dimension of NEP is that it seeks to restructure our educational institutions and orient them towards the challenges of the knowledge economy.”
Recalling the great tradition of higher learning in ancient India, the Vice President said that the colonial rule not only exploited our economy, but also destroyed our education system, and called for breaking away from the colonial mindset still prevailing among some people. Stressing the need to build upon our ancient education tradition and Parampara, Niadu called for Indianising our education and not blindly aping the west.
