Vijay Kumar Saraswat bats for academic autonomy

New Delhi: Newly-appointed Chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University V.K. Saraswat has said that vice-chancellor should be free to decide “whom to teach, what to teach and who will teach”.

During his maiden visit on Monday, he also stressed on the need for academic autonomy and developing an interface between academia and industry. He said that value addition to social goods should be one of the goals of the varsity.

“Education and research should be socially relevant and the knowledge generation should go beyond the individual excellence and translate into various positive benefits for the society,” Mr Saraswat was quoted as saying in a release issued by JNU administration. He also pitched for creating an ecosystem that would promote innovation, value addition and research through collaboration with other universities in the country and abroad.

Mr Saraswat, a full time NITI Aayog member, also held talks with the varsity V-C, rectors, registrar and deans of the schools and chairpersons of special centres.

The Union human resources development ministry had in May appointed scientist and former DRDO chief Vijay Kumar Saraswat the Chancellor of JNU. Saraswat replaced ISRO chief Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan whose five-year term ended on March 30.