Education should aim at building character, President

Education can help in nurturing the spirit of peaceful co-existence and acceptance of diversity and should aim at building character, President Pranab Mukherjee today said.
"Education is just not injecting some information in the mind of a student... Aim of education should be building character," he said.
The President said education helps in instilling capacity, building faith, peaceful co-existence, rationality of mind, and developing scientific temper.
"It also helps to nurture culture, the spirit of co existence and acceptance of diversity," Mukherjee said, speaking at the closing ceremony of the sesquicentennial (150 years) celebrations of Bishop Cotton Boys' School here.

The President said once such good values are inculcated in the minds of young boys and girls through education they will imbibe it in practises of their lives and become good citizens.
Complimenting the founders and management of the School for having successfully completed 150 years of service to the cause of education, Mukherjee said schools should instill in their students "commitment to our core civilisational values that includes love for motherland."

He also pointed out that the alumni of the school include eminent personalities such as late General K S Thimayya, who served as Chief of Army Staff from 1957 to 1961 in the crucial years leading up to the conflict with China in 1962, and renowned nuclear scientist Dr Raja Ramanna, among others.

There are over 300 dental colleges in the country
producing around 30,000 dentists annually, but these numbers are somewhat inadequate as the 'dentist to patient' ratio is small, particularly in the suburban and rural areas.
As against an already low ratio of 1:8,000 in urban areas, the dentist to population ratio is acute in rural areas with one dentist for every 50,000 people, Mukherjee said.
"If we have to close the gap between the number of people seeking dental treatment and the number of dentists available, we have to introduce innovative models of service delivery. In addition to organising dental camps and dental education outreach camps, we need to increase access through mobile dental clinics," he said.

Mukherjee said it has become imperative to initiate awareness drives and reach out to the population that has so far been excluded from dental care services.
"We have to start from a basic level, by educating parents and teachers on proper oral healthcare regime and ensure that good practices are inculcated in large number of children."
"To reach out effectively to the underprivileged and backward sections of our population, we have to employ simpler methods for them to remember and benefit from," he said.
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Later in different sessions at the event, RSS leader Suresh Soni and BJP's Subramanian Swamy also expressed their views.

Swamy, who is no stranger to controversy, said, "When we say that India is secular and a democracy it's because overwhelming majority of its population is Hindu."
"There are sections who do not display the same fervour for secularism and democracy," he claimed.