Two lakh students graduate from Anna University
Governance of universities has never been as poor as it is now, said professor P Balaram, former director of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, speaking at the 38th convocation of Anna University
Published: 19th June 2018 10:39 PM | Last Updated: 20th June 2018 05:23 AM | A+A A-
CHENNAI: Governance of universities has never been as poor as it is now, said professor P Balaram, former director of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, speaking at the 38th convocation of Anna University on Tuesday. The event marked the graduation of as many as 1,95,452 students from the city’s top engineering and technology university.
Balaram said that the depth to which Indian higher education system has sunk is visible in the inability of the government to appoint Vice Chancellors to lead. “Even when appointments are made, controversies and charges follow with the same certainty that night follows day,” he said. Balaram said that in pursuit of getting better at various ranking systems, institutions are losing track of purpose and relevance of higher education.
“We seem obsessed with the rankings of our institutions, an obsession that may catalyse further decline, as institutions optimise irrelevant parameters,” he said adding that importance given to fundamental science should be enhanced in higher education for holistic development of students. It’s advancement in sciences that are often converted to development in technology, he said.
Speaking at the event, the University Vice Chancellor MK Surappa said that nearly 80 companies recruited 1,198 undergraduate students and 331 postgraduate students with a salary package ranging from `3.25 lakh to `24.65 lakh per annum. He further added that Anna University will soon have an incubator for start-ups.
The graduates include 1,304 PhD degree holders (of which 543 are women) and 68 first rank-holders from full-time BE/BTech/BArch programmes offered by the university departments and the affiliated colleges.
Surappa emphasised that not only among students but even half the faculty are women at Anna University.
While the PhD graduands and gold medallists received their certificates in person, as many as 1,94,084 candidates will receive their degrees in absentia, according to a release issued by the university management.
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