A good education gives us the humility to realize how much more there is to learn. This humility makes us lifelong learners and we grow as individuals,” said Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu in his Inaugural Keynote Address at ThinkEdu Conclave in Chennai last week.
It is “education that empowers individuals and transforms communities. It can break the vicious cycles of poverty. It can enable a country like India with a large youth population, to grow. But only if it can capitalize on its demographic advantage,” he added.
The Vice-President delivered his address after inaugurating the sixth edition of The New Indian Express’ annual education meet. Like always, the Conclave witnessed the coming together of the best minds from the fields of policy making, education, and industry. It saw 46 eminent speakers addressing the 700-strong audience of students, young executives, academics, historians and entrepreneurs. The speakers included Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Union Textiles and I&B Minister Smriti Z Irani, and Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha.
Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar did the honours for his state while neighbouring Puducherry sent two representatives to ThinkEdu: Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi and Chief Minister V Narayanasamy. Also among the speakers were former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, MPs Tiruchi N Siva, V Maitreyan and Kanimozhi. The arts were represented by actor Arvind Swamy, filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar and Mohan Raja, and designer-curator Rajeev Sethi.
The two-day programme included four keynote addresses and 11 panel discussions on all-important topics such as ‘What should our new Education Policy contain?’; ‘How do we give cultural soft skills a hard push?’; ‘How do we train our lawyers better?’; ‘Does a better education system lead to a cleaner political system?’; ‘Does our education system encourage creativity?’; and ‘Is Nationalism missing from Indian Education?’
The New Indian Express organized the first edition of ThinkEdu in 2013, guided by the belief that education and skill-building are the key instruments to national development and holistic, high-quality learning systems are required to prepare our youth for the future. It invited the key stakeholders of the knowledge sector to come together on one platform to engage in meaningful dialogue on the issues that plague our education system and the steps that can be taken to resolve them. The Conclave was a huge success, and it was decided to make it an annual event wherein the best minds of the country could gather and figure the best way forward for India’s higher education system.
Previous speakers at ThinkEdu have included the late President Dr Abdul Kalam, former Vice-President M Hamid Ansari, Union Ministers, Chief Ministers and senior political leaders cutting across party lines. This is in addition to educationists, edupreneuers, historians and spiritual leaders such as Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and the Gyalwang Drukpa.
Among the corporate leaders who have attended ThinkEdu are Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, TVS Chairman Venu Srinivasan and Infosys Co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Allahabad Bank CMD Usha Ananthasubramanian.
Details of all the Conclaves can be found at http://www.eventxpress.com/thinkedu/.