Govt for ‘free flow of ideas’ in education, says PM Modi

Hailing this as a “landmark experiment” related to higher education, the Prime Minister said the government would take this forward to more institutions. “But I am surprised that this is not being discussed in the country. Intellectuals are silent… those who were advocating autonomy and had been writing about it for 20-25 years would not have imagined it,” the PM said, adding that these “intellectuals” were silent because they didn’t want the “credit to go to Modi”.

The PM also said that the University Grants Commission had recently issued Graded Autonomy Regulations, after which over 60 higher educational institutions and universities were granted autonomy.educacrime

Modi also stressed that universities and higher educational institutions need to give equal emphasis to innovation as they give to knowledge.

Invoking B R Ambedkar, Deendayal Upadhyay and Ram Manohar Lohia on education, the PM said their ideas had made it clear that education without a goal was “nothing more than a certiicate hanging from a hook”.

The PM also said that the government was going to increase the number of ‘Atal Tinkering Labs’ in schools – from 2,000 now to 5,000 over the next few months – to encourage children to innovate.

Modi said scholars and students should take responsibility for spreading digital literacy and generating greater awareness of government programmes such as Ayushman Bharat.