Prof. Raj Shree Dhar
According to Swami Vivekananda, ‘Education means the process by which the character is formed, the strength of mind is increased, and the intellect is sharpened, as a result of which one can stand on one’s own feet’.
Here is a pure romantic fiction between Zero and Infinity in which an attempt has been made to discuss India’s NEP-2020 and its implementation. Infinity and Zero met after a gap of two years to share their dreams and ideas with greeting and smile as both are survivors of Covid-19. Infinity, in her dreamy mood, starts singing that we are nothing and everything and both walked to a nearby river to cool-off and discuss about the education in the world.
Zero is exceedingly charming as it plays a special role everywhere. There is only one which is unbounded for whom he felt naturally inclined. She is Infinity. Zero tells to Infinity to create healthy atmosphere, and food for livelihood. Rest automatically follows as a process including education and India’s NEP-2020 to be implemented and to set up a mechanism for a happy life, safe shelter, and healthy food.
Infinity narrates to Zero a dream she had: Deep in the glorious vision, she sees a dazzling lightening sail, some stars, and some black holes shining with a constant brightness and blinking with a rhythm. There comes a shining planet and appears like that was lost in a cosmic ocean. She welcomes the planet with life on it and the people, surroundings everything appeared beautiful with quality and tremendous development with various education initiatives designed to work towards eliminating poverty, increasing the health of a population or enhancing local economies, among others. Infinity replied that we have to find some relation between Education and these all. We have to search for great thinkers and planners who will generate new ideas as in NEP-2020 and most important is that to implement it in letter and spirit.
Some important features of this policy are to have greater transparency and oversight of executive leadership, responsibility and accountability when it comes to the initial selection and ongoing performance review regarding the suitability of boards, heads of the institutions, because the NEP (National Education Policy) being a very student-centric and innovative policy, and when it is implemented in letter and spirit, the total landscape of Indian education can change. Initially when any policy document is released, the first and foremost thing is to create awareness and let the people understand the document.
Covid-19 the pandemic had highlighted the digital divide. Removing the digital divide and bringing out low-cost devices and maybe cheaper internet connectivity are the challenges now so that the digital divide may be bridged and everybody has access to online education. Online is not only during the pandemic; it will be a new normal. Blended education is also being promoted in the NEP. Blended education is the future both in terms of open education resources as well as the technology. We need to focus on the quality of education. The most important part is how India will lead the world in the education sector.
The Education Minister of India had tweeted that “around 47% of the country’s population is under the age of 25 according to official statistics based on the census so we shall be committed to strengthen skilling efforts, equipping youth with necessary skills to prepare them for future of work and creating linkages between skilling & employment. We will continue to set new benchmarks in integrating education with employment & making it more inclusive, holistic, multi-disciplinary and at par with global standards.”
Multidisciplinary higher education is a key theme in the National Education Policy (NEP) announced last year and the process will start with the approvals of the MERUs. However, a more holistic education should in the long term be the aim of all undergraduate programmes, including those in professional, technical and vocational disciplines, according to the NEP document. Departments of languages, literature, music, philosophy, Indology, art, dance, theatre, education, mathematics, statistics, pure and applied sciences, sociology, economics, sports, translation and interpretation, and other subjects will be strengthened under the proposal.
The University Grants Commission has made the regulations, namely: establishment and operationalization of ABC (academic bank of credits) scheme in higher education, 2021. These shall apply to all the universities in India established by a central act, a provincial act or a state act, the autonomous colleges and non-autonomous colleges affiliated to them, and the deemed-to be universities declared under section 3 of the UGC act, 1956, provided the above higher education institutions are accredited by national assessment and accreditation council (NAAC) at least at ‘A’ grade level.
“Academic Bank of Credits (ABC)” is an academic service mechanism as a digital/virtual/ online entity established and managed by MOE/ UGC to facilitate students to become its academic account holders and paving the way for seamless student mobility between or within degree-granting Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through a formal system of credit recognition i.e. credits earned through eligible higher education institutes and transferred directly to the ABC by the concerned HEI, credit accumulation facility created by ABC in the ‘Academic Bank Account’ opened by students across the country in order to transfer and consolidate the ‘credits’ earned by them by undergoing courses in any of the eligible HEIs., credit transfers and credit redemption to promote distributed and flexible teaching learning.
The fast-growing forces against institutional autonomy demand an urgent response. It is vital that we formulate a 21st century version of this autonomy, strengthen our own practices to maintain autonomy instead of contributing to its weakening and make a powerful case to the public for why it matters.
National Education Policy (NEP), announced in July 2020, had recommended that selected universities from the ‘top 100 category’ in the world university rankings should be allowed to operate in India. Among the eight considering setting up a branch campus, three were from the top 100, according to the survey. Everything depends on the new act that is going to be framed by the Indian parliament because the new education policy talks about allowing foreign universities to come into India, but the act should be passed by parliament and then only can the University Grants Commission initiate actions to frame regulations. The BRICS countries virtually signed a joint declaration with the resolve “to further strengthen their academic and research collaboration in higher, technical and vocational education.”
Zero had ordered food and after having their meal together, they deliberated that for implementation of autonomous institute or ABC the institutes should be ranked at least grade A. The institutes with good grades, at least A, should be given priority to implement NEP and at the same time to move towards attaining quality in every sphere of the institute for getting good grade so that NEP-2020 can be implemented in letter as well as spirit.
(The author is Principal, Govt. Degree College, Jindrah, J&K)
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