Asserting that universities should play a leading role in addressing specific challenges faced by the nation, President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday said higher educational institutes should emerge as spaces that nurture free expression and ideas.
His remarks come in the backdrop of violent protests witnessed recently at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia over the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Addressing the closing session of the meet of Vice-Chancellors and directors of Central universities, Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) and Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, he said universities and higher educational institutions should play a leading role in addressing the specific challenges faced by our nation and the society.
“Many of these challenges require creative and innovative solutions. It is your paramount duty to ensure that your campuses emerge as spaces that nurture free expression and ideas, where experimentation is encouraged and failure is not ridiculed but is seen as a learning,” the President said.
Mr. Kovind said universities should become the laboratories for exposing students to the problems that need to be addressed in the cause of nation-building.
