Universities should focus on inter-disciplinary programs: UGC

Updated on: Tuesday, November 29, 2011

UGC chairman Ved Prakash has appealed to universities to focus on inter-disciplinary educational programmes and strengthen infrastructure to enable students to avail benefits of higher education.

Underlining the need to define higher education, the UGC chairman said the universities in the country were plagued by poor administration and lacked basic infrastructure to cater to global challenges.

While addressing the 98th convocation of Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj (RTM) Nagpur University, formerly known as Nagpur University, at campus here yesterday, he said teachers play an important role in shaping the students and increasing their outlook.

"The role of teachers in higher education has become more demanding. How many teachers discuss national and international issues with students? It's duty of teachers to make student fluent in languages. There is no age bar to learn any language," he said.

In his presidential address, Vice Chancellor Dr Vilas Sapkal said the RTM Nagpur University has decided to introduce inter-disciplinary courses in a bid to give an opportunity to students to acquire various skills. The courses include M.Tech and PhD programmes, he said.

"The decade 2010-2020 has been declared as the decade of innovation wherein innovative ideas, creative concepts are to be used to improve competitiveness. The university has also planned to become global through establishing meaningful international co-operations for joint research, training and degree," Sapkal said.

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Vikas Sirpurkar, senior counsel Kumkum Sirurkar, former vice chancellor of Amrawati University Kamal Singh and others were present on the occasion.

Universities should focus on inter-disciplinary programs: UGC

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