Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The newly elected President of India Ram Nath Kovind may be the pioneer the Indian education sector is gasping for help from. The prominent personality he now is, a slight sneak peek into his background will provide us a lot of insight over how, despite his so-called ‘social-standing’, he made his way to higher education. Post taking the oath, the new President will be visiting all central universities through which, he will have a big ‘knowledge constituency’ to serve in the country.

The world we live in today, it’s the ‘soft power’ which defines the development of a nation and the country is making its way forward in the same direction. While the President-elect Kovind had been the Governor of Bihar, he contributed significantly to the development of higher education in the state, and hence, is expected to act as the messiah who’d bring educational renaissance in the country.

Kovind name surfaced in the context of the nation when he became the governor of Bihar, and post that too, there was much little excitement because being the Governor of Bihar does not bring one much fame, given its reputation. But the name rose to fame when Kovind gave a landmark speech at the 2nd Silver Jubilee Conference of the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) on ‘Social Statistics’, where he was invited as a guest. The man made a mark while in discussions and further interactions with his hard-to-miss intellect.

It also became noticeable that he was close to Morarjee Desai, a man known for the highest disciplinary standards in public life. And hence, Kovind’s work even reflected similar wisdom and wit. It took him a short while to take notice of the ills affecting higher education in Bihar. He put forth criticism towards the lacking sector but the conductive one in the way of a ‘nurturant task master’ to control and streamline a truant system. Despite the fact that RSS backed Kovind, he tried structural changes in higher education by taking Chief Minister Nitish Kumar into confidence.

Rising from a lot of good and hasty encounters during his tenure. The newly-elect President allowed the then vice-chancellors to complete their tenures, but some of them who flouted legal norms were sacked unceremoniously. The most distinctive contribution of the governor was that he initiated the process of appointment of vice-chancellors in a transparent manner. He set up various, quite distinguished ‘search committees’ to handpick the best of candidates. Selection of vice-chancellors is a but a rare occurring in recent times with a proper procedure and background check and not and not the quid pro quo method, which was the regular practice adopted.

Next, the selected candidates for the post were exposed to lectures on the issue of challenges in higher education by academic luminaries such as Deepak Nayyar and YK Alagh, successful former vice-chancellors of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University, respectively.

Ram Nath Kovind has, hence, brought many structural changes in the the higher education of the state of Bihar, and has raised hope around the nation that the same positive impact he will have at the national level during his regime and will take education to the highest point it has had till now. President-elect Kovind does not come from formal academics like that of president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan or president Zakir Hussain, but his Bihar experience speaks in its place and gives us enough to rely on the the fact that he will more than make up for it by his bottom-up approach to the administration of higher education. Given the history Kovind holds, he might just touch upon the fall-outs in the education sector and work on the betterment of the situation of the state, civil society and corporate India.

It is high time that the country goes through an education revolution and a man no better than Kovind can actually suffice the need of the hour. Hopeful for the same, many have faith that his tenure as President will be as remarkable or even better than that of Bihar and will take nidian education high enough to touch global standards.

READ: Let’s make universities world-class, not world-minded, says Pres

READ: US ‘looks forward’ to working with President Ram Nath Kovind

By Rupal