Day: January 11, 2022

Synergy between education and skills for making a future-ready workforce

 Addressing the CII’s virtual special plenary session on ‘Job Creation & Entrepreneurship – Way Ahead for Livelihood Generation’, Union Education and Skill Development Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the economy is growing at a rapid pace and the future of India is looking very promising. He added that building skill capacity is a key to enhance productivity and drive the economy ahead. 

Shri Pradhan highlighted that continuous efforts are being made to equip our youth with the 21st Century Skills. He said that as envisioned in the National Education Policy (NEP) -2020, the Government is working to create greater synergy between education and skills for making a future-ready workforce. NEP will contribute in creating a robust education ecosystem and eventually facilitating economic growth, he added.

The Minister informed that Educational institutions and skill development centers have been affected during the pandemic but Government ensured continuity of education by developing digital content at a large scale. He further informed that in the near future every village will be connected with high-speed Internet and these mass-scale digitization efforts are creating new education, skilling, and entrepreneurial ecosystems. 

Shri Pradhan stressed that teachers play an important role in building society and technology is reshaping society. With the greater advent of technology and changing society, our teachers need to be re-skilled and up-skilled, he added. 

Shri Pradhan urged that as we celebrate “Azaadi ka Amrut Mahotsav”, we must work together to make our youth future-ready who will lead India towards the goal of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. He stated that with this goal, India is going to witness rapid economic growth and will become the engine of global growth. The Minister called upon the industry to contribute to this mission.

Shri Ajay Shriram, Chairman and Senior MD, DCM Shriram Ltd, Shri Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII , Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan , Pratham Education Foundation and other industry experts attended the session.

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Booklet on one-year achievements of NEP Implementation

 In order to commemorate one year of the implementation of NEP 2020, the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education has prepared a booklet on one-year achievements of the NEP Implementation. The booklet will be launched virtually by Union Minister of Education, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan on 24th August, 2021. 


In addition to the booklet, some major NEP 2020 initiatives will also be launched by the Education Minister. These include: NIPUN Bharat FLN tools and resources on DIKSHA, which is a separate vertical for FLN resources developed under DIKSHA to assist and mentor States/UTs and teachers for implementing NIPUN Bharat; Virtual School of NIOSfor providing advanced digital learning platforms through Virtual Live Classrooms and Virtual Labs; Alternate Academic Calendar 2021-22 of NCERT containing week-wise plan of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to learning outcomes, themes and chapters taken from syllabus or textbook. 

Union Education Minister along with Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Dr Virender Kumar will also launch, ‘Priya’- Accessibility booklet developed by NCERT in collaboration with Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability for ingraining the concept and significance of accessibility in children right from their formative years itself as a move towards inclusive education.

As the National Education Policy 2020 envisions a substantial transformation in the entire education system at all stages, the Department of School Education and Literacy took the implementation of the NEP 2020 on a mission mode and has prepared a flexible, interactive, indicative and inclusive NEP implementation plan called SARTHAQ.  The Department has accomplished 62 major milestones in this one year, which will transform the school education sector. These include: NIPUN Bharat Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, aligning of the Samagra Shiksha scheme with the NEP 2020, Vidya Pravesh- a three months School Preparation Module, Blue print of National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR), capacity building of Secondary teachers under NISHTHA, Assessment reforms, Digital content on on DIKSHA, etc

The programme will be attended by senior officials of the Department and Heads of Autonomous Institutions and senior officers from the School Education Department from all States and UTs, and will be followed by a workshop with the states and UTs, SCERTs on the way forward for NIPUN Bharat Mission.

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Innovation-driven virtual schools to achieve greater inclusion in school education

 Union Education and Skill Development Minister, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Virendra Kumar today jointly launched the booklet on One-year New Education Policy (NEP) – 2020 Achievement along with some major initiatives of the New Education Policy- 2020 such as NIPUN Bharat FLN tools and resources on DIKSHA; Virtual School of NIOS; Alternate Academic Calendar of NCERT; and Release of ‘Priya’- accessibility booklet developed by the NCERT and Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. Minister of State for Education Smt Annapurna Devi and Secretary, School Education Smt Anita Karwal were also present on the occasion.

Addressing the participants, the Minister said that NEP is a guiding philosophy to transform the hopes and aspirations of millions of the youth to reality and making India self – reliant. He said that the formulation of NEP is also a live example of co-operative federalism to achieve a common goal of making India a global hub of knowledge. When we look back at the progress of NEP, we get more confident about the future of our students, he added.

Shri Pradhan stated that Education is not merely a competition to acquire degrees, but is a transformative tool to leverage knowledge for character building and eventually nation building. The Minister stressed that the Government is working to facilitate upgradation of infrastructure in schools, such as ensuring that Internet reaches the village schools across the country.

Shri Pradhan said that the book “Priya -The Accessibility Warrior”, released today will sensitize the students on accessibility related issues for Divyangs. Special emphasis has been laid to make the booklet simple, interesting and interactive to create awareness on accessibility in children right from their formative years, he added.

The Minister while launching the Virtual School of NIOS said that this school is a new model of learning and is an example how leveraging technology and innovation can facilitate greater inclusion in education. The school is first-of-its-kind initiative in the country which will provide advanced digital learning platforms through Virtual Live Classrooms and Virtual Labs., he added. Shri Pradhan also said that the Alternate Academic Calendar of NCERT has been developed to facilitate teachers and parents to assess the progress in the learning of children. The Alternate Academic Calendar contains week-wise plan of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to learning outcomes, themes and chapters taken from syllabus or textbook.

Speaking on the occasion Shri Virendra Kumar said that the accessibility opens doorways to opportunity and growth, thus, reinstating the importance of creating an accessible environment for everyone. He further said that awareness and a sensitized community are the essential fuels driving any revolutionary change. Government’s commitment to promote accessibility led to the development of the E-Comic cum Activity Book, titled – ‘Priya- The Accessibility Warrior’.

Shri Kumar urged both the Departments of School Education & Literacy and Department of Higher Education to take up the task of creating accessible educational infrastructure and content on a mission mode, consistently progressing towards Inclusive Education which is a vital component of the new National Education Policy. On the occasion of the 75th year of Independence of India, let us all work with our Children to become ‘Accessibility Warriors’ and make inclusive education a reality to build a brighter future for all our citizens, he added.

Another important initiative launched was “Priya -The Accessibility Warrior”, which is the outcome of collaborative efforts of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and Department of School Education and Literacy. It provides glimpses into the world of a girl named Priya who met an accident and could not walk, due to plastered leg. The story depicts how Priya managed to participate in all activities at school, and in the process learnt the importance of the accessibility. She, therefore takes the pledge of being an accessibility warrior. The comic book is also available with Indian Sign Language (ISL) explanatory videos.

NEP 2020 envisages education as a continuum without any segmentation and focuses on making education more experiential, holistic, integrated, character-building, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centred, discussion-based, flexible, and above all, more joyful. With this perspective, the Department of School Education and Literacy has taken up a multitude of initiatives at all levels of school education and has achieved 62 major milestones which will eventually transform the school education sector.

Other major achievements include: the launch of NIPUN Bharat Mission with a vision to ensure every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27; aligning of the existing scheme of Samagra Shiksha with Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG-4) and the NEP 2020 to ensure inclusive and equitable, quality, and holistic school education; Vidya Pravesh- a three months School Preparation Module for Grade I children; Blue print of National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) conceived to energise and catalyse the education ecosystem, capacity building of Secondary teachers under NISHTHA with a focus on improvement in quality of teachers and learning outcomes of students, Assessment reforms to make learning more joyful and experiential, DIKSHA as an teaching-learning repository of engaging e-content, etc.

NIPUN Bharat FLN tools and resources has been made available under a separate vertical for FLN resources developed under DIKSHA to assist and mentor States/UTs and teachers for implementing NIPUN Bharat guidelines. This vertical has infographics and videos on learning outcomes and assessment tools for teachers to facilitate them.

The programme was attended by senior officials and heads of autonomous institutions of the department, senior officers from the School Education department of all States and UTs and experts.

Click the link below to see the booklet on One-year New Education Policy (NEP): https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/upload_document/nep_achievement.pdf

Click the link to see the booklet “Priya -The Accessibility Warrior”: https://ncert.nic.in/ComicFlipBookEnglish/mobile/

Click below to see the details of Virtual Open School: http://virtual.nios.ac.in/

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61st Foundation day of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)

 Union Minister for Education, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan will be addressing 61st Foundation Day of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)  tomorrow via video conferencing.. MoS (Education), Shri Subhas Sarkar and MoS (Education), Dr. Raj Kumar Ranjan Singh along with Sh. Santosh Kumar Sarangi, Addl. Secretary, DoSEL, Prof. Sridhar Srivastava, Director, NCERT and senior official of the Education Ministry and NCERT will also be present on the occasion.

As a premier national organisation the Council is committed towards promoting excellence, equity, inclusiveness and quality, in the arena of school education.  The significant activities of the Council, spanning six decades of its existence, covers research, development of curriculum, textual and training materials (both face-to-face and online), and supplementary readers, aim to meet the needs of teacher educators, teachers and students. The organisation has significantly contributed in all deliberations and consultations of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, organised at all levels including the grassroots. Significant initiatives were taken up in eliciting bench mark information on student’s achievements in all States and Union territories that was collected with the help of the National Achievement Survey (NAS),. Contributions were made in developing Learning Outcomes (LO’s) and in preparing e-contents in all subject areas covering all stages of school education, for concept clarification and better understanding of subjects. Another milestone of achievement included the preparation of ECCE Curriculum and guidelines. NCERT is presently working towards development of National Curriculum Framework for school education, early childhood care and education, adult education and teacher education. It is helping the States to develop their own State Curriculum Frameworks. During the pandemic time, NCERT developed Alternative Academic Calendar for students of all classes and subjects so that their learning is not affected when the schools are closed.

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