Creativity must, says President

President Abdul Hamid has told graduates that they need to be creative.

Hamid was speaking at the 48th convocation of Dhaka University while he gave students this advice on Monday.

He said getting a degree was not enough. “Your education must make you enlightened people with a creative personality."

Hamid, who is also the university’s ex-officio chancellor, urged everyone to work to fulfil the nation’s dreams.
He advised the university to lay a greater emphasis on research.

Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), was the convocation speaker.

He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree, honouris causa.

A total of 8,312 graduates took their degrees from the president.

Among them were 38 PhDs, 25 M.Phils., 33 gold medalists, 33 MD-MS, 4,680 honours graduates, 855 masters, 282 BDS, 221 nursing graduates, 201 physiotherapists, one education faculty, 47 homeopathy and ayurvedic pass-outs, 103 B.Eds., and 72 M.Eds.

The president appealed to student bodies to foster positive politics. He said this in the light of the recent deaths of two students, reportedly over political rivalry, in the universities of Mymensingh and Rajshahi.

He said Dhaka University had pursued academic excellence right from its inception and contributed to the development of knowledge in the region.
He also stressed that the university’s teachers and employees had always been at the forefront of a fight for progressive values.

“So, for obvious reasons, the nation expects a lot from Dhaka University,” said Hamid.

Describing the present situation as a fight between the forces of good and evil, he said: “If the good does not win, we will again lag behind as a state and a nation.

“We will be once again defined as an extremist, terrorist and religion- fanatic nation. Our economic and cultural progress will be halted. And we will be cast in a bad light as a nation.”