E-Paper
HT This Day: August 19, 1951 -- Maulana Azad’s stress on technical education
Maulana Azad gave an assurance that the Government would continue to take a deep interest in the advancement of technical education in the country.
Maulana Azad gave an assurance that the Government would continue to take a deep interest in the advancement of technical education in the country.
The Education Minister, opening the Indian Institute of Technology here today, said the main function of the institute would be to provide facilities for training high grade engineers and technologists. The institution would have provision for the teaching of 2,000 students at the under-graduate level, and 1,000 students for post-graduate study and research.
The institution, he added, was beginning with only a little over 200 under-graduates and a few research students, but he could visualize the day when its potentialities would be fully realized.
Maulana Azad said the policy of the Government was to so improve the facilities for higher technical education in the country that they could themselves meet most of their needs. They had, therefore, decided that facilities in different subjects would be made available at the institute only when the Government was satisfied that properly qualified and experienced personnel had been secured to run the courses and that the industrial and technical development of the country needed the provision of such courses.
He said the Government had already before them a scheme for establishing four institutions of the standard of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A scheme, costing ₹1.5 crores, had also been sanctioned for strengthening and improving the 14 engineering and technological institutions situated in the different parts of the country and it was in the third year of its operation.
The Minister made a special appeal to industrial and business magnates to take an active interest in ‘he development of technical institutions.
The West Bengal Governor, Dr Katju, who presided, expressed the hope the institute would meet the national needs in the shape of technical education. It was appropriate, he said, the location of the institute should be at Kharagpur in Midnapore district, which had played an immortal part in the struggle for independence. Dr J. C. Ghosh Director of the Institute, assured its founders they would not spare any effort to fulfil their high expectations. He hoped the education here would imbue the students with the principles of social justice so that they served their country not only by expert counsels in their own fields but also as leaders in community enterprises.
He dispelled the doubts expressed in certain quarters that the institute could not properly function in the isolation of Kharagpur. He reminded the critics the place was very near to the largest railway workshop in India, as also the industrial town of Jamshedpur, I which they intended to make full use of.
In a message on the occasion, Mr N. R. Sarkar, Finance Minister. of West Bengal, who was absent due to indisposition, said they were today taking a step forward and this he hoped would usher in an era of technology.
