NEW DELHI : Dr K Kasturirangan, Chancellor of Central University of Rajasthan and NIIT Universitysaid that the NEP 2020 was born out of an urgent need to revisit India’s three-decade-old education policy and adopt a new one aligned to the 21st-century imperatives.
Addressing the session, Edu-volution and the Future of Jobs,during FICCI’s 93rd Annual General Meeting, Dr K Kasturirangan said, “Globalisation and demand of a knowledge economy and knowledge society, calls for an emphasis on the need for acquisition of new skills by learners on a regular basis, for them to ‘learn how to learn’ and become lifelong learners.”
Dr Kasturirangan said that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 provides an integrated yet flexible approach to education. “It has kept the interconnectedness of the various phases of education in mind, and has attempted to enable continuity, coherence and processes to provide an end-to-end educational road-map for the country,” he said. Dr Kasturiranganfurther mentioned that the distinction between curricular, extra-curricular, and co-curricular, as well as arts, sciences and vocational subjects are done away with in the Policy, thus making educational ecosystem more holistic and integrated.
Mr Azim Premji, Non-Executive Chairman, Wipro Ltd in his message highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that while markets and businesses have an irreplaceable role in society, public goods and public systems, including food, shelter, safety, basic social security and equitable and high-quality education and healthcare are fundamental.
“There is a need for government, industry, civil society, and the average citizen to come together and work concertedly in developing a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society,” noted Mr Premji.
Mr Manish Sabharwal, Chairman of the Board of Directors, TeamLease Services said that India is affected more by the issue of wages than unemployability. He further highlighted that positivity has been created by various reforms measures introduced by the government in MSME, agriculture and the education sector.
Highlighting the importance of technology and data sciences, Mr Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO, OYO Hotels and Homesstressed on the need for prioritizing creativity in Indian industry and consider the stock options as a way of being able to appreciate employees and to bring a sense of ownership in them.
Mr Ashish Dhawan, Founder & Chairman, Central Square Foundation, while emphasizing the imperatives of multi-disciplinary education also stressed on the opportunity that existed to re-purpose government schools and re-design the existing curriculum by using technology.
Mr Mayank Kumar, Co-founder & MD, upGrad mentioned that technology disruption will lead to creating more jobs and with online education becoming the new normal, India is poised to develop into a global destination of teaching and learning.
Summing up the session, Mr Suhel Seth, CEO, Counselage highlighted the distinction between education and knowledge. He emphasized on the significance of knowledge and the need for policy incentives to encourage industry and corporates to effectively engage with government and other stakeholders in driving the much-needed reform agenda forward.
