Chennai | Students should not be merely a "bookworm", they should also work on overall personality development, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said on Monday.
Narayanan was attending a High Level Expert Committee and New Syllabus Design Committee meeting organised by Tamil Nadu to facilitate revision of the state curriculum at the Anna Centenary Library. The meeting was led by Tamil Nadu's School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the meeting, Narayanan stressed the need for value-based education.
"There are two types of education. One is intellectual-based education. You study Mathematics, Science... and score high marks. But value-based education also includes values like protecting our parents, respecting others, respecting teachers and tolerance. It is our desire that students should study with a sense of such distinction. The book alone is not important. It is the overall personality development that is important," the ISRO chief said.
Narayanan, who did his early schooling in a government school in Tamil Nadu, also said it really does not matter where one is schooled.
"How you study, how you grow, that is important. Otherwise, from where, which school, that is not important. Wherever one studies, if they study well, they can grow well," he added.
He underscored that it is also important to look beyond conventional fields.
"About 40 years ago, if you asked any student, 'What do you want to be?', he or she would say 'doctor', or 'engineer', one or two people would say 'collector'. They didn't know about other fields. But for a nation to transform into a developed nation, it must develop in all fields - be it the arts field, or sports," said Narayanan.
He pushed for a syllabus that is current and future-ready.
It should incorporate "new things" like Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, but the teachers should also be trained in these new developments.
"At the meeting, we discussed all these. This is a good activity that the Tamil Nadu government has undertaken. This will help the students of Tamil Nadu for the next 10 years," said the ISRO chief.