Harnessing demographic and geographic dividends, which India is abundantly endowed with, is the most significant pathway for realizing the vision for Viksit Bharat@2047. India is passing through a crucial time to reap these dividends. Her youthful population will grow old, say after three to four decades, and the youth having enormous potential to become assets for global well-being will eventually become a social responsibility. Hence, we do not have time to lose in this endeavour. Realizing this very aspect, PM Modi has called this phase Amrut Kaal and has given a clarion call to citizens to contribute to making Viksit Bharat@2047. Moreover, skilled, creative, productive and intuitive youth will certainly pave the way for India to become global knowledge superpower.
Empowering youth with the necessary skill-sets to enable them to make good of the opportunities that life offers in the 21st century, and to help them become agents of change who live as global citizens, is a must for realizing the vision. The government has provided us with an opportunity in the form of NEP-2020. This policy is transformative and learner and nation-centric. Charles Darwin once said, ‘It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change’. Transforming the extant education system to make it current and relevant through rigorous implementation of policy reforms should become the life-mission of the administrators, mentors, and mentees.
NEP-2020 is transformative as it provides varied options for holistic development. It lays emphasis on how to learn instead of what to learn, implying that mastery in the process of learning is more important than content learning. It prescribes for life-long learning. The policy envisions that education should develop the attributes of curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, comprehension, and entrepreneurship. It advocates for empowering youth with the 21st century life-skills. In fact, NEP relies on the basic premise that every individual is endowed with one or many potentials, and through education, s/he should be able to unfold that potential(s) for the good of humanity. To ensure this, classrooms have to become activity centres instead of mere sources of information. Classrooms should act as a catalyst for participatory, immersive, experiential, evidence-based, reflective, and joyful learning experiences. Learning has to become one-to-one instead of one-to-many. The evaluation of learning ought to be revealing and reflective of what was intended to be learnt.
The process of receiving information should be restricted to homes, whereas institutions have to become hubs of skill development. Albert Einstein said, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. I never teach my pupils; I only provide the conditions in which they can learn”. Therefore, learning spaces should become the centres of active learning with regard to observation, understanding, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and application, as well as testing the validity of learning outcomes for resolving problems of society to make learning translational. Moreover, learning should not be restricted to a preordained schedule of classes, and more beyond-classroom learning should happen. This implies that mentors and mentees have to become co-learners and co-creators, and mentors should act as facilitators of learning. Technology-enabled pedagogical pathways and open-book examinations ought to be embraced to achieve the objectives of learning. The learning ecosystem should be vibrant, radiating and conducive to real learning to enable learners to pursue learning trajectories themselves and eventually to become self-directed learners.
Though learning outcome-based multidisciplinary curriculum, multiple exit-multiple entry system, academic bank of credits, MOOCs through SWAYAM, experiential learning, etc., have been implemented both at the UG and the PG levels alongside Indian knowledge system and universal human values for imparting holistic education in most of the central universities, the pace of implementation is not in the required scale in many HEIs. Systemic changes have been effected from school to higher education. Admission to UG and PG programs is through a single window (CUET-UG and PG). Teaching in mother tongue/regional languages has commenced in some institutions. Internationalisation of education has also commenced. Several institutions have set-up incubation centres with government funding to develop and support entrepreneurs, which helped improve the start-up ecosystem. Professors of Practice have been appointed in many institutions for augmenting industry-academia interaction and industry-focussed research. The National Credit Framework is in place to facilitate crediting of all learning and assignments, as well as the accumulation, storage, transfer & redemption of credits. The Framework helps establish academic equivalence and enables mobility between vocational and general education. Industry-aligned skill development programs have been designed by the National Council for Vocational Education and Training to equip learners with industry-relevant entrepreneurial skills. National Skill Qualifications Framework, notified in 2023, provides for multiple learning pathways including vocational, general and technical, linking one level of learning to another higher level. This enables to acquire desired competency levels, shift to the job market and return for acquiring additional skills to further upgrade competencies. NDEAR, a unifying national digital infrastructure is in place to catalyse the education ecosystem for cross leveraging innovative solutions. Joint degree programs have also started in a few institutions. The capacity-building of mentors is in full swing through the newly created Malaviya Mission Teachers Training Centres. Sensitization programs for academic leaders are being held at regular intervals. Enabling regulations and guidelines have been framed by the UGC to facilitate the implementation of NEP.
The Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission, under the guidance of Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Education, are striving hard to upscale the implementation of NEP longitudinally and latitudinally. Ministry of Education is conducting periodical review meetings to oversee the progress. However, to accelerate the pace of implementation, it is essential that the Higher Education Commission of India, the National Research Foundation and National Virtual University become fully operational at the earliest. Besides, additional infrastructure and faculty are urgently needed for the implementation of NEP in contents and intent. Needless to mention that the budgetary allocation for the education sector has to increase to mitigate the shortage of infrastructure and faculty.
The Western learning system has transformed from Education 1.0 to 5.0 with the sheer determination of the stakeholders, including the industry. The industry needs job-ready youth with skill-sets to meet requirements in the workplace. Hence, they finance institutions to train manpower for conducting translational research. For instance, the business sector contributed 76% of the total expenditure on R&D, whereas the federal government’s share was only 18% in 2022 in the USA. This is not the case in India where industry-academia interaction is minimal as both are operating in silos. The academia needs to understand the research needs of the industry, orient research goals accordingly and train industry-ready manpower. This is doable by imparting translational learning and conducting cutting-edge industry-relevant research for mutual benefits. This will help bridge the trust deficit between the industry and academic institutions.
Like electronic gadgets, mentors have to upgrade themselves to present their improved version every academic year. This requires enhanced commitment, zeal and vigour. Players and stakeholders of the learning system have to shed inertia and move out of their comfort zones. Skilling, upskilling and reskilling of both mentors and mentees should become integral to learning. Educational institutions have to reform, perform and transform, or else they will perish. Here, I am reminded of a quote by T.S. Eliot, “Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” We need to appreciate that today’s youth is living in a highly volatile world with uncertain future. It is against this backdrop that NEP 2020 is highly relevant today. On the 4th anniversary of NEP-2020, let us rededicate ourselves to create a learning ecosystem that is conducive to imparting wisdom and making Viksit Bharat@2047 a reality.
Views are personal.
Prof. Raghavendra P. Tiwari is Vice Chancellor, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda
