Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM releases commemorative stamp in honour of Dr. J. P. Naik

"I am delighted that on the occasion of Teachers' Day we are paying our respects to an outstanding teacher and great educationist by releasing a postage stamp in his honour. The Late Shri J.P.Naik was a great educationist, a revered teacher and a true and great institution builder. Above all, he was a nationalist and a Gandhian, admired by his students and well-wishers all over the country.

His professional life began as a teacher in a primary school and culminated in his role as an outstanding educational planner. It is a happy coincidence that he shared his birthday with another great educationist and teacher, our former Rashtrapathiji, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. It gives me great pleasure that we honour two of our great educationists today.

Dr. Naik was a great institution builder. Among the many institutions he built was the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). ICSSR has played a foundational role in the development of social science research across our country. Dr. Naik helped build world-class research institutions in various State capitals, including at Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, Bangalore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Patna and Ahmedabad.

He played an extremely important role in promoting educational reforms. I have been told that he took a token salary of one rupee and in return, gave our nation a priceless record of service to our education system. The outstanding quality of his work greatly influenced generations of educationists both inside and outside our country. He was honoured by UNESCO which placed his name in the Honour Rolls of World Educators.

Dr Naik was a true product of our freedom movement. He was deeply influenced by the ideas and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. The ideas he elaborated continue to have relevance for educational reforms and societal reforms even today. In our effort to vastly improve the educational standards of our people we need to pay heed once again to visionaries and institution builders like the late Shri J.P. Naik.

In the scheme of educational reforms advocated by Dr. Naik, social justice was seen as an important objective, if not a more important one, as compared to merit and the promotion of excellence. His view that selection procedures for admission to educational institutions must be based both on merit and on the principles of social justice show his equal commitment to enlarging access and promoting excellence in education.

Dr. Naik also showed keen interest in our health care system. He was actively associated with drafting the Report on "Health for All: An Alternative Strategy" and when I was in the Planning Commission together with Dr. Swaminathan, I think it had a profound influence on certainly on my own thinking how to universalize access to health care for the benefit of all our people. He was greatly impressed by Kerala's experience in improving human development indicators, including health indicators, and advocated a decentralized system of health care provisioning. Those ideas are very relevant even today.

Our Government in the past three years, has placed great emphasis on both these areas of concern of Dr. Naik, namely, education and health care. We have taken several steps to increase public investment in both and reform our delivery systems. We have effected at the Central Government level a three-fold increase in public spending on education. We have extended the scope of the Mid-Day Meal programme for school children. By linking education and health of children, we have tried to take an integrated approach to affirming the rights of all our children. But, both education and health care are essentially State subjects. While the Central Government can increase financial support and must do so and even offer new ideas, it is the State Governments that must improve delivery on both counts.

I sincerely hope that on this Teacher's Day, we will all resolve to work that much harder to improve our educational and health care systems, so that our children are both better educated and also are more healthy. Sound in body and mind, they will be energetic and enterprising citizens of our great country and the world at large.

With these words, I pay tribute to our teachers on this day and hope that men like Dr. J P Naik will continue to inspire our teaching community to work with dedication and commitment in the service of our people. I take great pleasure in releasing this stamp in honour of Dr. Naik."