Reforms in school education brought up by NEP 2020, Union Cabinet, GoI was covered in my previous blog. Now coming up with new reforms in Higher education, let’s see what Nation has got in its kitty for its youth.
Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) will be set up as an umbrella body for entire higher education sector, but excluding medical and legal education.
All professional education will become an integral part of the higher education system. Stand-alone Technical Universities, Health Science Universities, Legal and Agricultural Universities etc. will be encouraged to become multi-disciplinary organizations.
1. NEP 2020 has targeted to raise the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education from 26.3 per cent in 2018 to 50 per cent no later than 2035. Least of all, 3.5 crore new seats will be added to higher education institutions. This will integrate Vocational Education.
2. Multidisciplinary Education: The Higher Education policy frames a vast, multi-disciplinary, holistic undergraduate education with creative combinations of subjects, flexible curricula. Under Graduate education can be of 3 or 4 years with multiple exit options along with appropriate certification within this period.
E.g. certificate after 1 year, advanced diploma after 2 years, Bachelor’s degree after 3 years and Bachelor’s with research after 4 years.
3. An Academic Credit Bank for digitally storing academic credits points earned from different institutes so has to be laid down and these credit points will be counted towards final degree earned.
4. IITs, IIMs, to be set up as models of best multidisciplinary education at par of global standards in the country under MERUs (Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities).
An apex body National Research Foundation will be created building research capacity and fostering a strong research culture across higher education all over the nation.
5. Regulation: higher education institutions can be penalized by HECI for not conforming to norms and standards. Set of norms for regulation, accreditation and academic standards will be same for both Public and private higher education institutions.
6. Universities and Affiliations: Research-intensive universities to teaching-intensive universities and autonomous degree-granting colleges will become now a new definition of universities with rationalized Institutional Architecture.
It is anticipated that over a period of time, every college would develop into either an autonomous degree-granting college, or a constituent college of a university. A stage-wise mechanism is to be established for granting graded autonomy to colleges and affiliation of colleges is to be phased out in 15 years.
7. Financial support for students will be made by incentivizing the merit of students belonging to SC, ST, OBC, and other SEDGs. The National Scholarship Portal will be expanded in their support. Private HEIs will be encouraged to offer larger numbers of free ships and scholarships to their students.
8. Open and Distance Learning will be playing a significant role in increasing GER. Increased research funding, online courses and digital repositories, credit-based recognition of MOOCs, improved student services etc, will be taken as measures to ensure it is at par with the highest quality in-class programmes.
9. Online and Digital Education: development of dedicated unit of digital infrastructure, digital content will be created in the MHRD fostering the need of e-education in both schools and higher education.
10. Technology in Education: An autonomous body, the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF), will be created to provide a platform for based learning. Appropriate integration of technology into all levels of education will be done to improve classroom processes, and faculty development. E- educational access for disadvantaged will be developed
11. Promotion of Indian Languages: To ensure the preservation of Indian culture, all Indian languages, an Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation (IITI), National Institute (or Institutes) for Pali, Persian and Prakrit, strengthening of Sanskrit and all language departments in HEIs, will be set up and there will be essentially use of mother tongue/local language as a medium of instruction.
Citation Courtesy: [https://vikaspedia.in/education/policies-and-schemes/national-education-policy-2020].
