The need to learn English as a communication tool and not as a mere language was highlighted by C. K. Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director, Cavincare, while addressing students at the third College Day celebrations of Ramco Institute of Technology (RIT) here on Saturday.
Taking a leaf out of his book of experience, Mr. Ranganathan explained how he, a Tamil medium student, read The Hindu daily with a dictionary.
By learning the meaning of five words in the newspaper at a time and using them in sentences he was able to master the art of communicating in English.
“I maintained a notebook to write down the sentences and wrote 25 sentences a day. In three years, I was able to speak well in English,” he said.
Exhorting the students to be job creators and not job seekers,
Mr. Ranganathan said that several factors were responsible for a person becoming a successful entrepreneur and foremost among them was guidance and encouragement from parents.
Students should change their mindset from “I can’t win” to “I can” to court success and they should develop a will to learn as “real education begins only after college.”
According to him, scrupulous tax compliance was a crucial factor for success in any business.
In his presidential address, P. R. Ramasubrahmaneya Rajha, Chairman, Ramco Group, said that the RIT was started with the sole objective of imparting value-based education.
P. R. Venketrama Raja, Vice-Chairman, said that traditional engineering education was not enough in a competitive world and hence the RIT adopted an approach that enabled students to define a problem and also solve it.
Mr. Ranganathan gave away scholarships instituted by the management to meritorious students and awards to teachers for producing good results.
R.V. Mahendra Gowda, Principal, presented the annual report and K. Vijayalakshmi, Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, proposed a vote of thanks.
