PUNE: India has to upgrade from Right To Education to right education, right way of education, said renowned scientist, Global Research Alliances president and National Research Professor Raghunath Mashelkar at the 112th convocation of the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) held on Saturday.
A total of 97,133 students, of which 79,317 were graduates and 17,762 were post-graduate students, received their degree certificates for the academic year 2016-17. Moreover, 347 PhD students also received their degree certificates. In all, 58 students from different fields of study were awarded gold medals this year.
'The President of India Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma Gold Medal' was given to Deepali Kherbha Manjare, a student of the Shardabai Pawar Women's College, Baramati, while Deepali Ramnath Sonawane and Tanjila Khalil Shaikh were honoured for doing outstanding work under the 'Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil Earn and Learn' scheme.
Besides, degree certificates of 70,221 students have been sent to their respective colleges.
Mashelkar was present as the chief guest for the convocation. He spoke about the various stages the education sector has passed through from traditional teaching to digital learning in the country. "Today, knowledge on any subject is freely available on the Internet, which can is easily accessed. Rich formatted content, flipped classrooms and research material from the best faculty on the subject will be available for free," said Mashelkar.
He said machines will influence both blue and white collar jobs. India cannot afford to have technology-led jobless growth. India will have to work on innovative strategies to deal with its massive challenges.
Furthermore, encouraging students to be more curious and creative, he said, "There is no limit to human imagination and achievement, except limits put by yourself in your own mind. So, go limitless and don't settle for less, instead keep your goals higher to grow bigger in life."
Vice-chancellor of SPPU Nitin Karmalkar highlighted various achievements, plans, and programmes of the university. He said, "The National institutional ranking framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has ranked SPPU at the 10th position among the Indian universities. In the overall ranking of all the higher education institutions in India, SPPU has been placed at the 18th rank. The SPPU is the only state university in Maharashtra among the top 100 universities in India."
Speaking about the achievements, he said that recently, the university became a beneficiary of one of the biggest social science and humanities research projects funded by the European Commission (EU). It is an international research project titled 'Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future (CHIEF) under the horizon of 2020 research programme of the EU."
He said that SPPU has announced 20 post-doctoral fellowships from next academic year. One of the fellowships has been named after Dr Raghunath Mashelkar.
