ITANAGAR, May 22: Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU) Vice-Chancellor Prof. Saket Kushwaha said that the real wisdom of life lies more in worldly experiences of farmers and indigenous societies and less in researches based on commercial interests.
Prof. Kushwaha said this during the valedictory function of the five-day online faculty development programme on Friday.
Academicians, research scholars, social scientists and development professionals, representing more than 50 institutions from over 20 states and one international participant attended the eFDP on “Re-thinking Research and Contemporary Development Priorities: Learning Essentials for a Sustainable Future.”
“Human empathy, trust and concern for one another recognized popularly as ‘social capital’ should be a priority area for academicians, researchers and development professionals”, he said.
Pro-VC Prof. Amitava Mitra focused on reaping the benefits of an enormous demographic dividend with conscious efforts on skill development, value education and adequate attention to youth as a vital learning essential for academicians, development professionals and policy makers alike to focus in their research, pedagogy and policy paradigms.
RGU Registrar Prof. Tomo Riba, highlighted the significance of spirit of human ethos which lies in concern and care for one another.
Earlier, convenor of the prorgamme Dr. Kaushalendra Pratap Singh presented a brief summary of the takeaways in terms of lessons and recommendations.
The recommendation included suggestions from the Waterman or Jalpurush of India Dr. Rajendra Singh to initiate courses, like ‘Nourishment of Nature’ instead of ‘fashionably’ taught Environmental Studies, which offers only synthetic learning and lacks in grass root reality based attitudinal transformation of learners.
The eleven key themes of eFDP included contemporary research and development priorities, such as mental health, environmental sustainability, economic growth, social capital, youth, welfare state, reflective pedagogy, social model of health, livelihood and migration, geo-politics and disaster management.
Inherent goodness of human beings and need for an empathy based quality education was also highlighted during the session as a priority learning and takeaway.
