NEW DELHI, Apr 30:
Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday pitched for revamping the country’s higher education system to cater to the changing requirements of the 21st century.
“The time has come for India to re-establish itself as a knowledge and innovation hub. For that to happen, we have to completely overhaul our higher education system to cater to the fast-changing requirements of the 21st century in different sectors,” he said.
The Vice-President made the comments while delivering Dr Rajaram Jaipuria Memorial Lecture here on ‘Education, Entrepreneurship and Ethics’.
“The syllabus, curriculum and the pedagogy have to be revamped using the design thinking and creativity. Rote learning has to be replaced by action learning. Students can learn from anywhere in real time now. Technology has effectively broken the barriers of distance through different mediums.
“Education is the most vital engine of development and the best gift you can ever give to children and youth for continuous progress of civilisation and prosperity of humanity,” he said.
Naidu said India needs to gear up for the “industry revolution” and bridge the development gap to be on with developed nations.
“As you all know, we are living in the era of Industry 4.0. In this era, India stands a real chance to bridge the development gap vis-a-vis the most developed nations in the world. We have missed the first three industrial revolutions in getting started on time. We were too late to catch up with the west,” he said.
“But thanks to the genius of young Indians, we are almost on par with the West and we stand a real chance to surge ahead and take the lead, given our demographic advantage. Industry 4.0 is also called the knowledge economy. The language of the new economy is digital and our youth shall take charge of digital new India,” the vice-president said.
He said that Bengaluru and Hyderabad are no longer the two silicon valleys of India.
“Every city, every town in India is evolving as a Silicon Valley. India is already home to one third of all startups in the world, next only to China and the USA. You all are today no strangers to artificial intelligence, Internet of things, big data, cloud computing, 3D printing, blockchain and design thinking,” Naidu added. (PTI)
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