Mangaluru : Vice President Venkaiah Naidu felt that there is a scope for private sector investments to promote R&D in universities and academic institutions.

Delivering convocation address at the 17th annual convocation of National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, he urged private sector to create a corpus fund under CSR activities to fund research projects that have societal benefits.

Stressing the need for bridging gap between the theory and practice and to promote research in a big way, he called upon higher education institutions, engineering sector in particular, to network with industries, increase Research and Development labs within India and abroad, revamp syllabus to promote creativity and innovation and stoke a spirit of enquiry among students.

He said there is a need to introduce more effective teaching- learning approaches such as project-based learning to impart skills of teamwork, leadership and out of the box thinking, as well as teach entrepreneural education in technical institutions.

Further, he said draft National Education policy 2019 focuses on the holistic aspect of education. To provide multi disciplinary and holistic edication to students, it is essential to combine education with number of cocurricular activities including community service.

He said emphasis on digital technology has helped in tackling corruption and transforming our governance by making it more transparent. More than 1.20 lakh gram panchayats have been connected by optical fiber network. Technology should ensure that it makes life of common man easy.

He called upon NIT, universities in the country to come up with a vision document to achieve highest academic standards, including high quality research in the next five to ten years. A total of 1,545 candidates were awarded degree.

tressing on promoting mother tongue, Naidu said government should also give priority to mother tongue in education. He said priority should be to promote and protect mother tongues. However, while promoting mother tongue, one should not degrade other languages, he added

Naidu said abrogation of Article 370 brought total unity in the country. It is an administrative action for protecting unity, integrity of the country, he added.