Educational Institutions should Create Wider Awareness about SDGs
Experts at a National Virtual Conference on Higher Education and SDGs, jointly conducted by Dr MCR HRD Institute & RBVRR Women’s College
Educational Institutions should Create Wider Awareness about SDGs – Consensus among Experts at the National Virtual Conference, jointly conducted by Dr MCR HRD Institute & RBVRR Women’s College
“In the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, held in September, 2015, 193 member countries, including India, agreed to implement 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relating to People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership. The Government, therefore, has formulated a number of innovative schemes to achieve the SDGs and thereby to give a big boost to inclusive and equitable growth trajectory of the country”, said Dr A K Jain, IFS (Retd), Principal Consultant, NITI Aayog, Government of India in his keynote address at the National Virtual Conference on “Driving Sustainable Development through Higher Education in the Wake of Covid 19 Pandemic”, jointly conducted by Dr MCR HRD Institute & RBVRR Women’s College. Over 300 academicians from Universities and leading institutions, both from India and abroad, participated in the Conference.
Continuing his address, Dr Jain said that achieving the goals of sustainable development calls for concerted efforts not only on the part of the Government but also Corporate Sector, Civil Society, NGOs, SHGs, and people at large. He, therefore, called upon educational institutions to sensitize different stakeholders, including students, in order to ensure that achieving the SDGs becomes a people-centric campaign.
Professor V Venkataramana, Vice Chairman, TS Council for Higher Education called upon educational institutions to adopt a holistic approach and equip students with skill to think out-of-the-box and to innovate in order to empower them to play a much broader role in society. “Restructuring curriculum, redesigning teaching methodologies, enhancing relevance of courses, and carrying out multidisciplinary research have assumed greater importance in the preset-day world of education”, he stated and applauded multiple schemes of Government of Telangana aimed at promoting education, especially among girls.
P K Sharma, IFS (Retd), Chief Consultant at Institute called upon achieving all the 17 SDGs, rather than merely 4 SDGs indicated in the SDG Matrix, in order to achieve the goal of environment and bio-diversity conservation. He said that effective implementation of the plan of action, proposed by the experts at John Miller Rochester Institute of Technology, will result in sustainability of environment.
Dr Amir Ullah Khan, Adjunct Professor at the Institute said that Covid 19 has added about 100 millions to the poor, 40 millions to those who go hungry, and 120 millions to unemployment. “It is in this context that educational institutions can make students and society aware of the challenges that the poor face and how these have become even more insurmountable after the pandemic”, he opined.
B P Acharya, IAS, Director General of the Institute & Spl Chief Secretary to Government, in his Presidential Address, underlined the need for achieving cherished goals of SDGs in a large number of villages across the length and breadth of the country, rather than in a few urban centers. He added that the Government’s commitment to fully realize the dream of Bangaru Telangana is a step in the right direction as this would, inter alia, result in achieving all the SDGs.
Ms Divya Parmar, IES, Head, SDGs at the Institute, Prof K Muthyam Reddy, Secretary, HMVS, Dr J Achyutha Devi, Principal, RBVRR Women’s College, and Ms P Vijaya, Coordinator, IQAC & Program Convener also spoke on the occasion.