Chennai: As many as 6,581 students received their degrees at the 13th convocation of VIT Chennai, held at its campus on the Kelambakkam-Vandalur Road in Thiruporur.

Tamil Nadu Information Technology Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan presented gold medals and degrees to 39 toppers and addressed the graduating students. Of the total, 6,468 students were conferred undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, while 113 received research degrees.

“Education is the root of the Dravidian ideology. Social justice and equality begin with equal access to education,” Thiagarajan said. He noted that women's education and their employment in industries such as electronics have played a major role in Tamil Nadu's rapid economic growth. Calling for the inclusion of law, history and literature in technical institutions, he advised students to remain humble in success and resilient in failure.

VIT Founder and Chancellor G Viswanathan, presiding over the ceremony, stressed the need to increase India's higher education enrolment ratio from 28 per cent to 50 per cent to achieve developed nation status by 2047. “Only 2.5 per cent of the Union budget is spent on education. Students must invest in India and start companies to strengthen the economy,” he said.

Bangladesh Deputy Ambassador Shelly Salehin, VIT Vice-Presidents Shankar Viswanathan and G V Selvam, Vice-Chancellor V S Kanchana Bhaskaran, Chennai Associate Vice-Chancellor D Thiagarajan, Vellore Associate Vice-Chancellor Parthasarathy Malik, Registrar D Jayabharathi and other dignitaries participated in the event.