Minister stresses need for inculcating scientific temper in students

New Delhi: Union Minister Satya Pal Singh Friday stressed the need for inculcating scientific temper in students, while Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said the current government has done very little in this regard due to its own obscurantism.

The leaders were addressing the opening session of the eighth edition of One Globe Forum, a knowledge conference, here.

The Union Minister of State for Human Resource Parliament (HRD) said there are four components to the kind of education that children should be provided and said the kind of education India is imparting is devoid of basic human values.

"We want a kind of education that can teach our children that there is no discrimination between man or woman, on the basis of caste and creed. The education should teach universal brotherhood and harmonious development. The education should have a scientific basis and must create a scientific temper among our students," he said.

Congress leader Tharoor said, "We have a system of education in India that is over-regulated and under-governed and as a result, we don't focus on outcomes and we are heavily emphasising on process that result in lack of flexibility. This means that in many scientific and technical institutions, we seem to be teaching what was out of date many years ago." Stressing on the finding of a report which said 30 per cent of the jobs that exist now won't exist in 2030, he said there has to be a level of "intellectual adaptability'".

"To be effective in the knowledge economy you need to have a foundation of knowledge, scientific temper which I am sorry the government represented by our distinguished minister (referring to Satya Pal Singh) has done very little to encourage because of its own obscurantism," he said.