Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, M. Jagadeesh Kumar has advised students not to confine themselves to the four walls of their classrooms or the laboratory but to go to areas of work and get first-hand information and gather innovative ideas from the ground.
“Our students should go to the areas of work and meet farmers, workers and other working people to get ideas from the ground. Innovation is very important. Innovation doesn’t come only from working in a laboratory. Many innovations have come from field visits and multidisciplinary studies, discussion and debates. There are many examples of problems getting solved through innovation,” Mr. Kumar said in his valedictory address that he remotely delivered during the second day of the two-day workshop on the implementation of National Education Policy 2020 (NEP-2020) at the Central University of Karnataka here on Wednesday.
The event was jointly organised by the Central University and the Centre for Educational and Social Studies (CESS), Bengaluru.
Laxman G. from ABRSM, Hyderabad, who participated as guest of honour, highlighted the process in which the NEP-2020 was drafted and also gave a bird’s eye view of its salient features.
“The NEP-2020 Drafting Committee took almost four years to prepare the policy. It involved all the stakeholders and incorporated their ideas in the policy to make it holistic and students-centric and nationalistic. The policy covers education from KG to UG,” he said.
Mr. Laxman said that the poor quality of educational institutions in India that have been suffering from inadequate resources is pushing a large number of students from the country to get better education at relatively better-resourced institutions abroad.
“The reason behind India’s students increasingly going abroad for studies is the poor quality of education offered in Indian institutions. To address the issue, NEP-2020 has proposed to allocate 6% of the GDP to the education sector and improve the quality of educational institutions in the country. Not providing quality education is a crime. Spending on higher education in India is very meagre as compared to institutions in the the U.S. But, unfortunately, those institutions that get enough money are not able to spend it. Money given under RUSA is not being spent by many institutions,” Mr. Laxman said.
In his presidential remarks, Vice-Chancellor of Central University of Karnataka Battu Satyanarayan stressed the importance of freedom to teachers and doctors for the progress of the country.
“If we want our nation to progress, we must create such an environment where teachers and doctors could work with freedom and without any prejudices. Making students good citizens is in the hands of teachers. Teachers have to mould students and make them good citizens. If we want quality doctors, engineers and teachers, we have to provide quality education to our students. We have to improve the quality of education in domestic institutions to attract students who go abroad for studies,” Mr. Satyanarayan said.
Resource persons Gourisha and Rajendra Joshi from CESS, Central University Registrar Basavaraj Donur, organising secretary, Channaveer R.M. and deans, heads and faculty members were present.
