Kovind roots for girls’ education

President Ram Nath Kovind said education of girls will help create a responsible future generation. Institutions of higher learning, he said, must be upgraded to make them “constantly embrace change.”

He was speaking on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Delhi’s Jesus and Mary College. “An educated girl contributes to the economy. She also ensures that other children in her family, as well as the family she may be married into, are educated. The next generation is made responsible and educated through the education of the girl.”

He said the nature of the economy and the workplace were changing. “The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the advances in digitisation and robotics will together make certain types of jobs obsolete and also create many new opportunities. How our society copes with these dramatic changes will be dependent on how our leading institutions of higher learning — institutions such as Jesus and Mary College —will respond.”

“We need to upgrade our higher educational system and, to the extent possible, make it future proof. Our education infrastructure, curricula and modes of teaching have to become 21st century-compatible and be nimble and dynamic enough to constantly embrace change,” said the President.

“As visitor of the University of Delhi and of over a hundred other universities, these are issues that concern me.”

Multiple transformations

He said India was in the midst of multiple transformations. Education could be a means to make India a developed society.

“It is crucial to harness the energy of our young people and use it to make our country a developed society. Education is fundamental to this effort — calling for both access to education and quality of education,” said the President.

He said the Christian community — whose history in India goes back 2,000 years and which has contributed so much to our shared culture — had carved a special role for itself in education. “Missionary institutions such as this one have become symbols of scholarship, dedicated teaching and academic excellence.”