Venkaiah Naidu says India’s education system should be ‘completely revamped’ to encourage independent thought among students

Hyderabad: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said the country's education system needs to be reoriented to reflect the tradition of quest for knowledge and also acquiring life skills. The present school education system should be completely revamped, he said.

Naidu, who was speaking at the annual day function of Jubilee Hills Public School, said the children must ask questions and seek answers.

Such questioning should become an essential characteristic of a student’s education, he said.

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"The school curriculum should be oriented to make students think rationally, independently and express cogently," he said.

File image of Venkaiah Naidu. Firstpost/Naresh Sharma

Highlighting the great Indian tradition of 'guru-shishya parampara,' he said teachers and students used to live together and engage in a constant dialogue. Naidu stressed on technology and tradition going together.

He suggested that only 50 percent of the time should be spent in class rooms with remaining 50 percent spent outside.

Noting that lifestyle changes were leading to a number of diseases, he said Indian food was time-tested and the Indianness should be preserved. "Instant food means constant disease," the vice president said.

He said "People who have ruled us, ruined us, looted us, cheated us, cheated our minds also."

This has resulted in an inferiority complex in the country that those things English are great and the things Indian are inferior, Naidu said. He also said no government could provide jobs to everybody.

Replying to queries from students, he said farmers in the country were in distress not because of any particular government or any party, but "somehow our policy from the beginning, the planning commission those days, the parliament, the press and political parties have not given adequate importance to agriculture and rural development."

The government approach needs to be restructured with emphasis on rural roads, connectivity, electricity, water supply, linking of rivers, construction of godowns and cold storage units, he said. The government's E-NAM initiative would also help farmers, he said.

He termed loan waiver as a temporary solution and said the country must find out ways and means of structural changes.

Observing that there was a lot of competition in the era of globalisation, with WTO rules in force, he said the Indian manufacturing sector is not able to withstand competition effectively for a variety of reasons.

Many were not able to invest and take up manufacturing as wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few, the vice president said.

The priority of the governments at the centre and states should be to focus more on manufacturing, he added.