A total of 15,955 degrees were awarded today during the 27th convocation of the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) held at the university campus.
The awardees were 117 Ph.D., 8 were M.Phil, 1559 were PG degrees and 14,271 were Bachelor’s degrees.
The Union Minister for Education, Skill Development, and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan graced the occasion as the chief guest with Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma as the guest of honour.
In his address, Pradhan urged the passing out students to be job creators and stated that it is time for the student community to give back to society but not to forget their roots.
Stating that the National Education Policy will bring good reforms in the education sector which will ultimately help build a stronger nation, he said that the PM has re-emphasized that all local and regional languages are all national languages and it is an important feature of the NEP.
He said the NEP focuses on universalisation of early childhood care and education and also emphasises on learning in all Indian languages. He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for reiterating the importance of all Indian languages. “No language is less than the other,” he added.
Sangma congratulated the students who were conferred with degrees and thanked the union minister for exempting Meghalaya from the purview of CUET.
Emphasising on the larger goal and purpose in life and to take calculated risks to reach the next level he urged students not to get disheartened by failure nor let success get into their heads.
Meanwhile the union minister accompanied by the chief minister and state education minister, Lahkmen Rymbui and other officials held a review meeting on education, skill development, and entrepreneurship at NEHU.
Later after the meeting, Pradhan said that the State government is aggressively and pro-actively implementing the National Education Policy.
Stating that there are 15 lakh students in Meghalaya, he said both the State and Union governments have to create productive manpower for the future and that these educational institutes will complement and be the knowledge partner of the Meghalaya government and will jointly work together.
He also said that Meghalaya is going to be the ideal state for a lot of governance units of the country even as he informed that all the Central Government educational institutes located in Meghalaya are working in tandem and henceforth they will be part of the policy process.
Later in the day, Pradhan visited Umsning Presbyterian School. He said Neuro-surgeon, pilot, engineer, soccer player, musician— ambitions and aspirations of future leaders from this school in Ri Bhoi district will reaffirm the faith that India is going to become a knowledge society.
