NEP 2020 has inspired Indian education, Indian society, parents and psyche enormously. Earlier, we thought education means to study, get degrees, have one or the other job and no specific skills and hands-on experience. So, we have created a big number of unemployed youths who were unable to deal with today’s challenges and tomorrows opportunities also. To `harness the opportunities of the futuristic world, we need to upskill our children to know the demands of the job market for the growing number of youths in our country. NEP 2020 can become a helping hand to enable the education sector, making it ready to accept the challenges and opportunities. We all know tomorrow is unpredictable. The landscape of health, the environment, the jobs, and skills have to be studied accordingly. We need to make our syllabus upgraded, totally change, or even collaborate with other domains of knowledge like science, technology, languages and social science. With a great vision, NEP 2020 intends to make India a makers’ hub. Modern syllabus, which is always collaborative and adaptive, create an educated force ready to use their head, heart, and hands. From class 7 itself, there will be a skill educated activity to inspire the young children toward the “work is worship” philosophy. We need to know one or the other life skills like communication, writing a request letter, attend a bank requisition, repair your own home gadgets, to know the driving, enable yourself to make the punctures, repair the tap, fix the electrical gadgets, to iron your own clothes, prepare your food, wash your dishes and to know the unmatchable power of Wi-Fi.
Indian Knowledge Systems were targeted by the colonial education system. The colonial education system taught us to hate our hope, religion, neighbourhood, our villages, ponds, cow, goat, the potter, the blacksmith, the weaver who are the economic force of our Indian villages.
Our education system has detached from our ethos and moralities. They have a rich tradition of science, mathematics, surgery, medicine, Ayurveda, yoga. NEP 2020 has created a wonderful awareness among youth about our own Indianess, our own Charak Samhita, Chanakya, the greatest grammarian Panini. By doing so, our own teachers and scholars as well as students indulge themselves in research on Indian Knowledge Systems. This is because of NEP 2020 even in small span of three years an enormous sensitization has been created in the Indian academia to upgrade the syllabus, rewrite the textbooks, train the teachers to ready to accept adaptability, adaptability of Indian Knowledge Systems, adaptability of technology, adaptability of yoga, adaptability to handle the unpredictable challenges of tomorrow.
NEP 2020 believes that our teachers should be ready to learn new things, new technologies, and unlearn that which is not able to address the present and the future and at the same time relearn upcoming technologies and opportunities to enable young scholars to deal with future opportunities. A continuous process of learning will make our teachers lifelong learners. Lifelong learners are epitome, adapt new technologies, new research environments and such teachers definitely create a ready to work and adaptable to any circumstances of the future.
Declaration of 21 June as International Yoga Day has created opportunities, to learn yoga, know yoga and experience the health benefits of the oldest knowledge system of India. NEP 2020 taught us that enormous economic opportunities are there in Yogic Studies. So, the whole world is looking towards India for Yogic Knowledge Systems to have well-being in life.
The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2023 as the International Millet Year. This is the greatest contribution of our PM to the whole world. Soft powers of India like yoga, millet, music, art, culture, paintings, dance are being seriously studied by our IITs, NITs, IIITs, IISERs, IIMs, Central Universities, and other premier institutions. The Department of Performing Arts is the darling of the Indian academia. NEP 2020 has proven the worthiness of Indian soft power—Karnataka Music, Hindustani Music, folktales and folklores are creating new business avenues.
NEP 2020 has taught us that wi-fi has unlimited power of selling and purchasing. Technology and artificial Intelligence have helped develop a new business module. Without physical presence how one can make business, can run their business avenues, it is the contribution of broadband. NEP 2020 has enabled the Indian academia to eradicate unemployment in Indian society to a large extent, and to create a young society happy to work by using their wisdom, knowledge and hands. The whole educational psyche of Indian society is under a transitional process from rote learning to conceptual understanding and analytical thinking. This has been possible only because of the effective implementation of NEP 2020.
The nation celebrated the third anniversary of the implementation of NEP 2020 on 29 July this year. PM Narendra Modi declared in the Kashi Educational Conclave that laboratory experiences and findings should be able to solve the problems of the land. The land problems, challenges and opportunities have to be taken up by the academia to work on their laboratories to harness the opportunities in time. So, we need to work on land, labs, and society to connect each other in making India once again a “Vishwaguru”.
Prof T.V. Kattimani is Vice-Chancellor, Central Tribal University of Andhra Pradesh.