Education is a major medium of development and modernization. It expands activities in all spheres of human life. Various studies have indicated a positive relationship between education and small families, health, longevity political stability and economic growth.
Today, Punjab has four universities, out of which one is a university specializing in agriculture (Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana). The other universities ~Punjab University at Chandigarh, Punjabi University at Patiala and Guru Nanak Dev University at Amritsar are overcrowded and under tremendous academic pressure.
However the southern region of Punjab, Malwa, has no higher education infrastructure. Recently efforts were made to start an engineering college at Bathinda. Punjabi University has a regional center at Bathinda and an Institute of Management at Damdama Sahib. This is inadequate in view of the potential and demand for education in the region. If we take Bathinda at the center, the institutions of higher learning are located at a distance of more than 150 km. In other words, the heart of the Malwa belt has no easy access to the institutions of higher learning. As a consequence, the fruits of modem education are denied to a significant part of the population. This partly explains the relative backwardness and low productivity in the Malwa belt comprising Sangrur, Ferozepore, Faridkot, Bathinda and Mansa districts. The principles of education equity and social needs suggest that of greater educational inputs are required in this region. As suggested by Dr A. S. Dhesi, there is urgent need for a university at Bathinda; this will fulfill the principles of both equity and social needs. If a university is set up at or around Bathinda, it will serve Mansa, Bathinda, Faridkot and Ferozepore districts in Punjab and Ganganagar and the adjoining areas of Rajasthan and Haryana. Bathinda can thus lay claim to a state university.
Such a university could bring about a revolution in the formal, non-formal and informal sectors of education. The objectives of social upliftment, particularly among the weaker sections of society, rural development, population control and several other objectives like National integration etc. could be achieved through the university, (Courtesy the Tribune).
Article extracted from this publication >> April 9, 1993
