Vice President calls for greater support for women’s education

OV Digital Desk
4 Min Read
Mount Carmel College

The Vice President, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu today called for removing barriers hindering the emancipation of women in the country. Although our civilizational ethos encourages women to participate equally in various fields, there are many areas where women haven’t achieved their full potential.

Today, the Vice President addressed a crowd after inaugurating Mount Carmel College’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in Bengaluru, calling for governments to do more to support women’s education. When given the chance, women have always proven themselves.

Indians are proving themselves as leaders in all fields, he said, and their rise is widely recognized around the world. Regarding religious intolerance, Shri Naidu said religion is a personal matter and no one should denigrate others’ religious beliefs. India’s commitment to pluralism and inclusivity cannot be undermined by sporadic incidents that undermine secularism and tolerance towards others’ views.

According to the Vice President, India’s stellar contribution to education in ancient times earned it the status of ‘Viswa Guru’. Using the names of women scholars from ancient India like Gargi and Maitreyi as examples, he said women’s education has been a priority since ancient times. He also praised progressive rulers and reformers from Karnataka like Attimabbe and Sovaladevi, who were great supporters of learning, and the Virashaiva movement that emancipated women through education.

She lauded the College for empowering women since independence to become catalysts of change through bridging gender disparities in education by mentioning many illustrious women alumni from the College.

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Observing that workspaces are changing at a rapid pace, Shri Naidu emphasized the importance of adopting a futuristic approach to education. This approach will focus on developing students’ skills ranging from artificial intelligence to data analytics. “Equally important is to possess effective communication skills,” he added.

Emerging career options and even established ones, to an extent, now require employees to have wider knowledge in diverse fields. Going forward, youth must not only have an in-depth knowledge of their specialization but must also be strong in fundamentals of other disciplines. They must nurture the ability to assimilate and integrate knowledge from different fields to become competitive in the 21st century job market.

Stressing the need to move away from rote learning to ‘active learning’, the Vice President urged educational institutions to adopt an evaluation based on continuous assessment. Calling for breaking rigidity and water-tight compartmentalization of the subjects, he underlined that “Interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity are the way forward.”

Terming education as the most powerful instrument for building a just and equitable society, Shri Naidu wanted educational institutions to equip youth with the right skill sets. This would make them not just employable but also catalysts of New India’s growth story.

On this occasion, a Commemorative Envelope of the Postal Department was also released to mark the Platinum Jubilee Year of Mount Carmel College.

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