The National Education Policy (NEP) introduced in 2020 has resulted in research and innovation getting into a higher loop but challenges exist for the academics in dealing with backbenchers and nurturing them and bringing them onto this eco-system.
One of the important outcomes of the deliberations at the 98th All India Universities Vice Chancellors Conference, organised by the ICFAI University in Hyderabad recently, was that the world was looking to exploit the Indian potential but the challenge also lies in dealing with the huge group of students who are out of this innovation loop.
The three-day conference, held at a resort, was inaugurated by the Governor of Telangana C.P. Radhakrishnan who advised the students to equip themselves to compete with the best talents of the world and emerge victorious.
He said the introduction of the Bharat Knowledge System (BKS) was one such step towards achieving the target and appealed to all the universities to create and groom enthusiastic and talented youngsters to realize the dream of Viksit Bharat envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Radhakrishnan said India was in an advantageous position given its demography where the young population is highest in the country, and putting them on the right track will yield results that will see India becoming the world leader in economy in the next 25 years.
The three-day conference with the theme ‘Higher Education @ 2047’ saw more than 300 vice chancellors from various Central, State and deemed universities attending and sharing their views on higher education.
Several interesting sessions during the conference were aimed at reviewing the benefits of the NEP 2020. They concluded that it helped in identifying research and innovation while some academics stressed the need to focus on the students who are economically and socially disadvantaged groups apart from those coming from rural areas.
In one of the sessions, Prof. B.S Murty, Director of IIT, Hyderabad stated how COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation and gave a brief on National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL). Other speakers delivered their views on the upcoming challenges in India, opportunities provided by digital transformation in India and also about how digital skills will help the country in future.
Prof. G D Sharma, President Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Prof. Pankaj Mittal, Prof. Vinay Kumar Pathak, Vice President AIU and Prof. TG Sitaram, Chairman AICTE also spoke. Prof. L S Ganesh, Vice Chancellor, ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education presided.
