No nation can progress without educational empowerment of women, says Venkaiah Naidu

New Delhi, Nov 7 (PTI) No nation can progress without educational empowerment of women on a national scale and educating a woman can help in educating the entire family and the society, former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said on Tuesday.

Naidu made the remarks at the sixth convocation ceremony of the Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW).

He said women are leading the development trajectory in all spheres in the country and there is a need to achieve a greater parity between the genders.

'Women have been breaking the glass ceiling in all fields, yet a lot more needs to be done to achieve complete gender parity. This includes equal rights in matters related to inheritance of property,' the former vice president said.

'When you educate a woman you are educating an entire family and the society,' he added.

Naidu, who was the chief guest on the occasion also said that academic institutions must become hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship and praised IGDTUW for offering courses in frontier areas.

Talking about the National Education policy he said that states should not do politics over the implementation of NEP 2020.

Naidu advised the students and their parents to speak in their mother tongue at home while emphasising that no single language should be 'imposed' on anyone.

'The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is bringing a lot of changes in the current educational system. Every university and teacher should read the policy and implement it in a good spirit,' he said.

'It is my appeal to all the state governments. No politics should happen over the implementation of NEP as it is in the nation's favour,' he added.

The convocation ceremony was inaugurated by Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena who serves as the University's Chancellor. A total of 552 undergraduates, 172 postgraduates, and 15 doctorates were conferred degrees at the event.

Taking the example of the opposition to Hindi in the southern parts of India, Naidu said one should learn as many languages as possible.

'In states like Tamil Nadu, there is some opposition to Hindi... all Indian languages are great, you cannot come up in life without learning Hindi because it's spoken by a large number of people,' he said.

Congratulating the graduates, LG Saxena advised the students to follow their passion and make their presence felt all over by contributing to the development of the country.

Two 'Chancellor Gold Medals' and 12 'Vice-Chancellor Gold Medals' were awarded to the top-performing students across various disciplines. PTI SJJ SJJ NSD NSD