Central University of Punjab organized Webinar on Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay: Antyodaya and Education

Bathinda: The IQAC Cell of the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda organized Webinar on “Pundit Deen Dayal Upadhyay: Antyodaya and Education” under the patronage of Vice Chancellor Prof. Raghavendra P. Tiwari. The keynote speaker of this programme was Dr. Mahesh Chandra Sharma, Chairperson, Research and Development Foundation for Integral Humanism, New Delhi.

The programme commenced with the welcome address of Prof. S.K. Bawa, IQAC Director, where she introduced the keynote speaker and put a light on webinar theme.

Dr. Mahesh Chandra Sharma in his keynote address informed that as per Pandit Deen Dayal’s Ideology, the initial education of humanity of a child does not begin from school, rather it commenced from the family of that child. He stated that humanity includes four dimensions i.e. Individual, Society, Nature & Almighty, and our education should be based around them. He referred to Deen Dayal’s view that society should build an education system in which mothers can teach value-based moral education to her child at the family level and teachers at the institutional level can impart knowledge and develop skills of children. He mentioned Deendeyal ji gave the concept of Antyodaya (i.e. the rise of the last person) which emphasize that education is the right of every person and development of a society can only be possible by educating the ignorant weaker section. He stated that Deendayal ji identified the weaknesses of western education system which was imposed on us by East India Company in 1835 and emphasized that our education system should be focused on motivating the more intelligent person to join teaching profession, developing special telnets of every individual, and creating responsible citizens who contribute in nation’s development. Dr. Sharma asserted that NEP-2020 contains all elements of holistic education but its effective implementation will be possible only when there ia voluntary participation of each stakeholder i.e. society, teachers, academicians, and administration, during the implementation process.

Vice Chancellor Prof. Tiwari appreciated Dept. complimented the keynote speaker for delivering scholarly lecture & sharing key insights on the Webinar’s topic. He highlighted that Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay played a vital role in establishing linkage between education and employment & which is the main focus area in our NEP-2020 as well. He stated that to achieve the objective of building an educated society that will contribute towards making of ‘Atam Nirbhar Bharat’, we need to focus on character building of children through moral education, skill development through the student-centric teaching pedagogy, and proper implementation all imperatives of NEP-2020 at school and higher education level.

Towards the end, Prof. V.K. Garg, Dean Student Welfare gave the formal vote of thanks.

CUPB faculty, staff members, and students attended this webinar through Google Meet.