Union Minister Jitendra Singh today advocated study of scriptures and books of moral and social relevance for making students "socially relevant".
"Education can help a person become a better citizen through the study of scriptures and books of social or moral relevance, but education, per se, alone may not make an individual socially relevant," Singh said while addressing students at Jamia Millia Islamia.
The Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office also pitched for skill-based education to make the students more employable.
"Education can be a medium to learn the skills or to groom the inner talent to gain employment, but education without skill or without talent may help an individual to become employable," he said.
Addressing the 95th Foundation Day function of Jamia, the Minister said that the university is among the educational institutions which were not established as part of planned state or corporate initiative, but were a result of passion of certain individuals.
Dwelling on certain contradictions and confusion in today's education system, Singh said that for an education pattern to be absolutely relevant, it has to be essentially based on social and economical determinants of any given time.
"Unfortunately, education sometimes tends to lose its relevance partially because of the conditioned approach of the teachers themselves or social competitiveness among parents who are keen to push their adolescent children into all sorts of tutorials and coaching classes without themselves being clear about what actually they expect from their children," he said.
"This queer phenomenon, often ends up making the aptitude a casualty and thus even the most highly educated youngsters may be unable to live up to their expected parameters," he added.
The Minister also launched the Global Jamia Alumni Network (GJAN), an online interactive platform for the varsity's alumni to connect with each other.
