In pursuit of excellence

Updated on: Monday, November 16, 2009

Nalanda University is all set to rise from the ruins, thanks to national and international efforts to rebuild it as a “Centre of Intellectual Excellence”.

The idea for the university’s revival was former President A P J Abdul Kalam’s. To be located some 16 km from the ruins of Nalanda, the varsity is being seen as a beacon of global understanding and world peace.

To essentially be a postgraduate university, involved in research and teaching with world-class collaborations, the proposed university will be fully residential and draw on the understanding of the past while emphasising its relevance to the future.

Nalanda University will be a unique institute in as much as its joint arrangements and international partnerships between a number of Asian countries including Japan, China and Singapore etc. Courses taught would include philosophy and Buddhist studies, regional history focusing on comparisons and connections among Asian countries advanced through culture and trade, business and management studies, international relations and peace studies and the study of languages including Asian languages, both classical and modern… The curriculum could also, at a later date, include subjects like the neuron-sciences. Emphasis would be given to retaining the varsity’s unique international character and academic excellence.

Of course like any other challenge, this too needs to be taken up with zeal.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has welcomed India’s initiative to revive the Nalanda University noting that it was a ‘great ancient centre of learning’.

The heads of the ASEAN member states ‘are deeply impressed with the sanctity and significance of the great ancient centre of learning in Nalanda that attracted many scholars from South, South-East and East Asia,’ read a joint press statement of the fourth East Asia Summit held in Thailand.
Appreciating the contribution and recommendations of the members of the Nalanda mentor group, headed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, towards the establishment of the university, the statement called for ‘appropriate funding arrangements on a voluntary basis from governments and other sources including public-private partnership’.

The university will ‘enable’ its students ‘to acquire liberal and human education and give them the means needed for pursuit of intellectual, philosophical, historical and spiritual studies and thus achieve qualities of tolerance and accommodation,’ said the statement.

Founded in the 5th century AD., Nalanda, which flourished for 800 years, was the first international residential university in the world. And if all goes to plan Nalanda will rise to its days of glory once more!

In pursuit of excellence

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