'Language is a Primary Challenge of Our Education System,' Says Pradhan During NIT Rourkela 19th Convocation

The National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela hosted its 19th convocation today, August 13, that was attended by education minister Dharmendra Pradhan as its chief guest. He stressed on the usage of mother tongue when it comes to education. “Language is a primary challenge of our education system,” said the minister.

There is a debated whether we will speak in English or local tongue, he said. The general mentality is one must learn English as then only they will be employable. But that is not the case, says the minister. He went to add that adopted mother tongue in their education, research and innovation — Japan, Germany and China.

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“We must learn English as we have to conquer the knowledge space of the globe” but not as a career. A tribal boy from a remote district in Odisha will first listen to the tribal dialect and then later learn Odia. But when he is going to school, he is listening to English. Thus making exams not joyous but it “is an issue of fear,” the minister said adding that “These fundamentals have to be changed.”

“I want to see NIT Rourkela to become hub of technology. The Institute must plan proactively on how the entire Sundergarh district can be linked to blockchain, how the households can be mapped, how the people can get benefits provided by government and how can it help in increasing the skill and employment possibility among the youth. NIT Rourkela should work on mapping this through the blockchain,” the minister added.

NIT Rourkela awarded ‘Blockchain-based Digital Degrees’ along with the physical certificates to its 2021 batch graduates. The blockchain-based digital degrees can be verified globally and are unforgeable, the institute claimed. Earlier, IIT Kanpur was the only institute to have awarded such blockchain degrees.

During the annual convocation, 6 gold medals, 5 endowment gold medals, 5 endowment awards, 70 branch topper medals and one endowment cash award were given to the students. A total of 11 alumni were conferred with Distinguished Alumnus Award–2021. A total of 1,555 students including 859 UG, 608 PG, and 88 PhDs, were awarded their degrees, the institute said.

“You will receive your Digital Certificate (OTP based) in real time, whether present or absent in the Convocation, in your Mobile number and Email id registered with us at the time of pre-registration,” reads the official notice. Blockchain system works on the principle of de-centralization, which results in control not being in the hands of one person but on a distributed network. Information in a blockchain is recorded and stored sequentially along with an exact timestamp and cannot be altered making it a tamper-proof transcript, the institute said.

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