Our Universities must play a leading role in future :M Venkaiah Naidu

Tirupati: The Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu said that " Enhancing of Universities number are important in higher learning, but at the same time varsities have to maintain quality and high standards in teaching and educational research".

Vice President Naidu has given his convocational address in the first convocation of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) as Chief Guest in Sricity(Sathyavedu) on Tuesday in Chittoor district.

Addressing the students and parents, he told that " today we have more than 900 universities across the length and breadth of the country. But none figures in the top 200 universities in the world, merely adding more universities is not enough".

He stressed, " we need to completely revamp our higher education system to make it one of the best in the world. Our Universities must play a leading role in this endeavour and make India again a hub for global learning. To start with, our universities should aim to be among the top 100 institutions in the world".

Further, VP added that our institutions must strive to achieve extraordinary results in a short span of time, they need to adopt a systematic approach for goal setting by comprehensively reorienting the teaching methods, research strategies and setting high academic standards on par with global institutions.

Naidu expressed pleasures for IIIT Sricity has inducted qualified faculty and initiated a strategic planning process. " I am sure that all the stakeholders will contribute to achieving the desired goals with the support of industry partners", he mentioned.

He told that India has entered in a future: new era of opportunities and challenges. Indi is the fastest growing large economy in the world, according to IMF India is set to become a 10 trillion dollar economy in the next 10-15 years.

" India emerging as economic leader , abundant opportunities will arise for young graduates like you. You will be witnessing and participating in India's transformation. For this you have to upgrade your soft skills in like cloud computing, robotic technology, artificial intelligence, big data analytics fields" he added.

Finally Vice President indirectly touched the politics in his speech and stated that " which the short term benefits were giving by all political parties to the people for gaining benefit at the time of elections are not good for the nation, political parties have to give long term benefited assurances to the people. Politics must to change as enhancing the people's living standards".

After over the 71 years of independence also, 21 % people were living in poor conditions, similarly 22% are continuing as illiterates, vice president remarked

Earlier, IIIT Director Professor G Kannabiran and Chirman of the institution SriniRaju addressed the convocation gathering. Director presented IIT activities report. In the first convocation total 135 students have received their Btech and MS degrees related to 2017, 2018 academic years as well as 4 students got gold medals.

Sricity MD RaviSannaReddy, Chittoor District Collector PS Pradyumna, SP Vikranth Patil, Joint Collector Girisha, Subcollector Dr Mahes, IIIT AO RamchandraReddy were present.