Vice-President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu said that he was disturbed over ‘one or two universities that have been in the news recently for the wrong reasons’.
He was speaking at the silver jubilee celebrations of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
Politics should be kept out of the campuses of educational institutions, said Mr. Naidu, adding that while there are over 900 universities in the country, only a few universities were in the news for the wrong reasons, without directly referring to the incidents at the JNU. “One should not disturb the peace on campus. There is nothing wrong in discussing ideologies, but that should be done outside the campus. Universities are places of learning,” he said.
He argued that academic endeavours and co-curricular initiatives must attain primacy in universities and not factionalism or divisive tendencies. “Our children, when they leave the portals of educational institutions, must be enlightened citizens who will take an abiding interest in protecting our democracy and preserving the fundamental values that are enshrined in our constitution,” he said.
Earlier during his talk, he expressed concern over the quality of education in the Indian universities and said they should strive to be among the top in the world.
