As part of the one-year anniversary of the National Education Policy (NEP 2020), Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched various educational schemes, including Indian sign language as a subject, an academic credit bank for multiple entry/exit in institutes and first-year engineering programmes in regional languages among others.
The highlight was the flexible entry/exit scheme in colleges where students can exit their academic course after the first, second, or third year.
“Multiple entry/exit will help students break away from the shackles of sticking to one stream. One can select their course and can exit if they are not interested. This is a revolutionary change,” said Modi in a virtual address.
Flexible entry and exit grants academic credit for partially completed courses. A student who quits a degree course after one year gets a certificate. A diploma is earned after two years and a degree after three/four years.
“We are entering the 75th year of Independence. In a way, the implementation of NEP is a vital part of this occasion. This will play a key role in creating a new-India and future-ready youth,” said PM Modi.
Another significant announcement made by the PM was regional language technical education. “All over India, there are 14 engineering colleges in eight States that will offer courses in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali. This will benefit those from economically disadvantaged families,” said the PM.
He further said that there is a translation tool developed to translate technical education into 11 regional languages. The Prime Minister said that mother tongue-based instruction in the area of school education is also being developed.
On July 29, NEP completed a year since the Cabinet approval. In July 2020, the Union Cabinet headed by PM Modi gave its nod to the National Education Policy. Consequently, the Human Resource Development Ministry was renamed the Ministry of Education.
This policy was launched 34 years after the old policy.
The first scheme launched was Vidya Pravesh for early childhood education. This is to ensure that all early childhood education is available on an equitable basis.
He launched AI for all which is a scheme to learn artificial intelligence (AI) scheme for students. PM Modi said that this digital evolution in education will help students to compete globally.
“Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, students had to adapt to online education and our Education Ministry has taken a slew of steps to promote this initiative,” he added.
PM Modi said that the DIKSHA platform is seeing 5 crore hits on a daily basis. The DIKSHA platform offers teachers, students and parents learning material. Students can download the DIKSHA application and scan the textbook QR codes for accessing study materials.
Modi also released guidelines related to the internationalisation of higher education. This could include the study in India scheme and other incentives to foreign institutes setting up campuses in the country.
“Office of international education has been set up at 250 plus universities and this will enable attract foreign education,” said the Prime Minister.
The Indian sign language as a subject at the secondary level was also designated as a subject now. Students can opt to study this. It will promote Indian sign language and will help the differently-abled, said Education Ministry Press release.
Also, he launched a new version of teacher training, called NISHTHA 2.0. NISHTHA is a capacity building programme for improving the quality of school education through integrated teacher training. It aims to build competencies among all the teachers and school principals at the elementary stage.
A National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) and National Education Technology Forum (NETF) were among the key initiatives of the NEP 2020 launched by Modi.
The Government of India further approved 27 per cent reservation to students belonging to OBC and 10 percent to EWS in the all India quota seats for undergraduate and postgraduate medical, dental courses (MBBS/MD/MS/Diploma/BDS/MDS) from the current academic year 2021-22 onwards.
“Our Government has taken a landmark decision for providing 27% reservation for OBCs and 10% reservation for the economically weaker section in the All India Quota Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses from the current academic year,” tweeted Modi.
The decision to provide reservations will benefit around 1,500 OBC students in MBBS and 2,500 OBC students in postgraduation and also around 550 EWS students in MBBS and around 1,000 EWS students in postgraduation.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said as the country celebrates Amrit Mahotsav, the NEP will be a guiding philosophy in nurturing and grooming future leaders who are in the age group of 5-15 years today.
Pradhan thanked the PM for launching key initiatives related to the NEP. He also expressed his gratitude to Padma Vibhushan Dr K Kasturirangan, academics and intellectuals for drafting the NEP.