Call to promote science education
Tirupati: Speakers at the inauguration of the week-long silver jubilee celebrations of Regional Science Centre (RSC) here on Sunday, emphasised on boosting up the facilities for promoting science education for the betterment of the society. They also sought sustained efforts to kindle interest among the young generation to take up sciences to counter the declining trend in the study of basic sciences.
IIT Tirupati Director Prof KN Satyanarayana candid enough to say that the craze for engineering and medical courses killing sciences while expressing concern over the declining of the study of basic sciences and less importance being given to sciences.
Stating that there were instances of students opted only these professional courses because of their parents’ pressure, he urged them to allow their children go after their passions in selecting the courses for study. He stated Andhra Pradesh allocation is less for promotion of sciences when compared to other state like Kerala and West Bengal.
Satyanarayana suggested the institutions like RSC, Tirupati engaged in promotion of sciences to look out for resources from corporate and individuals to expand facilities to step up their activities as there is lot of scope to get funds under CSR.
He also wanted RSC to rope in the IISER and IIT functioning in Tirupati and take up the services of faculty and students to add more to the RSC activities for promoting sciences among school and college children and assured the support of IIT to RSC.
RSC Project Coordinator R Manigandan giving a brief account on the steady growth of RSC said it was inaugurated in September 23, 1993 by the then President of India Shankar Dayal Sharma in the presence of the then Governor Krishna Kanth and Chief Minister Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy.
The RSC which initially had only three galleries increased to six now in addition to creation of 3 science parks including life sciences park, innovation hub and a planetarium. In all, the centre is attracting a footfall of about 1.5 lakh annually, mostly school and college students to its events. He also introduced the staff working in RSC responsible for the development of RSC to the gathering.
On the occasion, Viswam School correspondent N Viswantha Reddy was felicitated in recognition of his support to RSC activities. Marking the occasion, a new facility HPT-32 Deepak was inaugurated in the main park to showcase the students on aircraft functioning. Former SVU Vice-Chancellor R Ramamurthy, SVU UGC Radar Application Centre Director Vijaya Bhakskar Rao, Nagasuri Venugopal and others were present.