TIA correspondent
NEW DELHI: The Vice-President, Mohammad Hamid Ansari on Thursday reminded the nation that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad made no compromises on national unity and education of the citizens of the country.
Inaugurating the National Education Day here he said Azad was an ardent advocate of Mahatma’s Basic Education and of vocational training and adult education. Ansari said that Azad as first education minister of independent India laid the base for higher education and for technological and scientific research and education that was instrumental in industrialisation and the recent emergence of knowledge-based industries. Maulana Abul Kalam birth anniversary is celebrated as National Education Day in the country.
Expressing concern over persistence of inequality in the education vice president said that the impact of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan among SCs and STs, Muslim concentration areas and slums has not been very significant. “While the issues of access has been largely addressed, the huge drop out rate at the elementary level of over 43 per cent is a cause of concern”, he underlined.
Vice-President said that specific issues highlighted by the Mid Term Appraisal of the Eleventh Plan need to be focused upon teacher absenteeism, single teacher schools. He also said that there was need to address equity concerns of the disadvantaged, vulnerable social groups and urban deprived groups with regard to access and retention. “All quality issues impacting on the learning outcomes of children must be addressed as a priority”. He stressed
Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal said that though the country’s education system could boast of outstanding scientists, technologists, doctors, academics, economists, writers and philosophers, India should not afford to be complacent. “We need a paradigm shift in the way our children are taught. Education should be child-centric instead of being exam-centric as it seeks to mushroom each child’s genius,” he said,
The minister underlined that the educational system should help the child to choose a discipline that builds upon the child’s particular personality traits. ‘It is necessary to provide the child the possibility of vocational training and experience along with academic learning’, he said.
Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari, President, General Conference of UNESCO Davidson Hepburn, Minister of State for Universities and Science, UK Mr. David Willets, Secretary, Higher Education Dr.. Smt. Vibha Puri Das, also addressed the gathering.
KB Library organizes Book exhibition on Maulana Azad
TIA
PATNA: Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, in collaboration with the state HRD ministry organised a book exhibition on Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad’s personality and contributions on the Education Day.
The exhibition inaugurated by HRD principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, has displayed about 350 books, including 21 publications of the library on Azad. A power-point presentation on the life and ideas of Azad was an added attraction.
A book written by Abu Salman Shahjahanpuri, which deal with the period of Azad’s internment at Ranchi during 1916-20 was also released on the occasion. It was released by Dr Ahmad Abdul Hai.
A lecture series was also organized wherein Irteza Karim of Delhi University, Rizwan Qaisar of Jamia Millia, Manzar Husain of Ranchi University, Razi Ahmad of Gandhi Sangrahalaya and Khuda Bakhsh Library director Imtiaz Ahmad presented their papers dealing with the different facets of Azad’s contributions.
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