Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said a hybrid system of online and offline learning should be developed to avoid overexposure to technology in school-going children.
While chairing a high-level meeting to review the progress in the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the PM said that in the two years since its launch, it has seen many initiatives being unrolled to achieve the objectives of access, equity, inclusivity, and quality, as laid down under the policy.
The policy has given a big push to online learning with higher education institutions being allowed to run full-fledged online courses and the permissible limit of online content being raised to
The PM suggested that secondary schools with science labs should engage with farmers in their area for soil testing.
From special efforts to track out of school children and bring them back into the mainstream, to the introduction of multiple entries and exits in higher education, many transformative reforms have been initiated that will define and lead the progress of the country, he said.
The meeting was attended by Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Education (MoE) and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Minister of State in MSDE, Subhash Sarkar, MoS, MoE, Annapurna Devi, MoS, MoE and Rajkumar Ranjan Singh MoS, MoE and MEA, Principal Secretary to PM, Cabinet Secretary, Advisor to PM, Chairman UGC, Chairman AICTE, Chairman NCVET, Director NCERT and other senior officials from Ministry of Education.
Prime Minister was apprised that the work of formulation of National Curriculum Framework, under the guidance of the National Steering Committee, is in progress.
Modi suggested the databases maintained by Anganwadi centers should be seamlessly integrated with the school databases as children move from Anganwadis to Schools. Regular Health check-ups and screening for children in schools should be carried out with the help of technology.
He also suggested that secondary schools with science labs should engage with farmers in their area for soil testing to create awareness about soil and agriculture.
Prime Minister was also informed that the guidelines for Multiple Entry-Exit for flexibility and lifelong learning, along with the launch Academic Bank of Credit on Digilocker platform will now make it possible for students to study as per their convenience and choice. In order to create new possibilities for life-long learning and centrally involve critical and interdisciplinary thinking in learners, UGC has published guidelines according to which students can pursue two academic programmes simultaneously.
The National Higher Education Qualification Framework (NHEQF) is also at an advanced stage of preparation. UGC is revising the existing “Curriculum Framework and Credit System for Undergraduate Programme” in alignment with NHEQF.
In order to encourage an ecosystem of Start-up and Innovation, 2,774 Institution’s Innovation Councils have been set up in HEIs in 28 States and 6 UTs, the PM was updated.
Stress is being paid to multilinguality in education and testing to ensure that lack of knowledge of English does not impede the educational attainment of any student. With this objective in mind states are publishing bilingual/ trilingual textbooks at foundational level and content on DIKSHA platform has been made available in 33 Indian languages.