Vice President Naidu calls for multidisciplinarity in higher education

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday called for increasing multidisciplinarity in higher education to produce well-rounded individuals from universities and realize the full potential of our demographic dividend.

Speaking at the inauguration function of the Moturi Satyanarayana Centre for Advanced Study in Humanities at KREA University, Naidu observed that many career trajectories in the coming years will require employees to have wide knowledge in diverse fields.

Naidu called for a revival of the liberal arts and their integration with the curriculum of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) courses, as per the release by the Vice President's Secretariat.

"Various assessments have shown that exposure to arts and social sciences results in enhanced creativity, improved critical thinking, higher social and moral awareness and better teamwork and communication skills among students. Such qualities are in high demand in the 21st-century economy where no sector of the economy works in a silo," said the Vice President.

Naidu also underscored the importance of updating students from humanities' backgrounds with the latest technological developments for them to apply these advancements in their research studies.

"India had a 'parampara' of holistic education since ancient times. The National Education Policy 2020 recognizes the importance of such holistic education and seeks to break the 'rigid and artificial barriers between disciplines," he said.

Appreciating the efforts of colleges like IIT Bombay which has recently introduced an interdisciplinary undergraduate course that includes liberal arts, science and engineering in one programme, the Vice President suggested that other institutions too should explore offering multidisciplinary courses.

Expressing concern over rote learning practices in schools, Naidu appealed to parents to infuse curiosity for arts and literature in children from a young age. "In a race to make it to the top national institutions of science and engineering, we are ignoring essential subjects in schools such as languages and social sciences", Naidu remarked.

( With inputs from ANI )

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