Tag: academics

  • Yearender: A year of academic overhaul, major initiatives on the anvil for 2023

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: The maiden Common Universities Entrance Test (CUET), touted as a single-window solution to cumbersome college admissions, had a bumpy start in 2022, but the year belonged to the new National Education Policy overhauling the country’s academic structure.

    Major promotion of mother tongue, including teaching engineering and medicine, and soon legal education, in local languages, immense flexibility to students by providing them multiple entry and exit in courses and easing PhD rules are sweeping measures that will change the face of education in the coming years.

    The year also saw India’s premier educational establishments – Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) – bettering their international rankings, paving the way for strengthening their global presence by opening up offshore campuses.

    It will be two-way traffic as foreign universities open their campuses in India, making global standards in higher education affordable at home.

    The coming year will focus on one of the major initiatives of the education ministry, the National Credit Framework (NCrF), for which Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched a public consultation on October 19.

    The first-of-its-kind framework in India, NCrF, to be launched in 2023, aims to integrate academic education and skilling. It is a unified credit accumulation and transfer framework, which applies to school, higher and vocational education providing flexibility to students to pick their learning trajectories, as it allows for mid-way course correction or modifications according to their talents and interests.

    On the anvil is also the Higher Education Commission of India, for which a committee was set up to merge the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE). Though the proposal first came in 2018, it is one of the significant transformations suggested under NEP 2020.

    According to University Grants Commission Chairperson Prof M. Jagadesh Kumar, in 2022, the Commission introduced many initiatives and encouraged higher educational institutions (HEIs) to implement them effectively.

    One such achievement was when several educational institutions registered for the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), which paved the way for uploading students’ credentials on the ABC Portal.

    ABC is a virtual/digital storehouse that contains information on the credits earned by individual students throughout their learning journey. It will enable students to open their accounts and give multiple options for entering and leaving colleges or universities.

    “With the enabling provision of allowing students to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously, the UGC has created multiple formal and informal learning pathways. UGC’s Professor of Practice will pave the way to increase institution-industry collaborations,” Prof. Kumar told TNIE.

    The revised Ph.D rules that will facilitate the direct entry of four-year UG students into Ph.D courses, doing away with the mandatory condition of publications and permitting research and teaching assistantships, is the other highlight.

    The year also saw the announcement of twinning, joint or dual degrees with academic collaborations between Indian and foreign higher educational institutes.

    However, one of the significant challenges this year was filling faculty vacancies – a whopping over 11,000 positions – in 45 Central Universities (6,180), IITs (4,502), and IIMs (493); but also in Kendriya Vidyalayas (14,000 teaching and non-teaching posts) and Navodaya Vidyalaya (4,227). The ministry said the process to fill up these positions has begun in a “mission mode.”

    Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) Commissioner Vinayak Garg told TNIE all vacancies of teaching and non-teaching staff are being filled in mission mode. Of the total of 4227 notified vacancies, 757 have been filled. “All the vaccines will be filled by April 2023,” he said.

    So what more is in store for next year?

    A better coordinated and glitch-free CUET, which the UGC chairman has stressed, was neither to make board exams irrelevant nor give a push to coaching culture so that both students and their parents don’t agonise in terms of travelling long distances, change of examination centres at the last minute and even technical glitches while taking the exam.

    A significant reform on the card is the National Higher Education Qualification Framework, which will be instrumental in the development, classification, and recognition of qualifications to ease the integration of vocational education into higher education.

    Another major initiative will be the National Digital University, which is likely to be established on the hub and spoke model, and would bring together various universities with no upper cap on the number of seats so that Class 12 pass students can access higher education.

    The Four-Year Under-Graduate Programme (FYUP) to be adopted in all higher education institutions from 2023-24 academic session is yet another step that aims to develop student’s capabilities across a range of disciplines, including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, languages, as well as professional, technical, and vocational subjects.

    NEW DELHI: The maiden Common Universities Entrance Test (CUET), touted as a single-window solution to cumbersome college admissions, had a bumpy start in 2022, but the year belonged to the new National Education Policy overhauling the country’s academic structure.

    Major promotion of mother tongue, including teaching engineering and medicine, and soon legal education, in local languages, immense flexibility to students by providing them multiple entry and exit in courses and easing PhD rules are sweeping measures that will change the face of education in the coming years.

    The year also saw India’s premier educational establishments – Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) – bettering their international rankings, paving the way for strengthening their global presence by opening up offshore campuses.

    It will be two-way traffic as foreign universities open their campuses in India, making global standards in higher education affordable at home.

    The coming year will focus on one of the major initiatives of the education ministry, the National Credit Framework (NCrF), for which Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched a public consultation on October 19.

    The first-of-its-kind framework in India, NCrF, to be launched in 2023, aims to integrate academic education and skilling. It is a unified credit accumulation and transfer framework, which applies to school, higher and vocational education providing flexibility to students to pick their learning trajectories, as it allows for mid-way course correction or modifications according to their talents and interests.

    On the anvil is also the Higher Education Commission of India, for which a committee was set up to merge the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE). Though the proposal first came in 2018, it is one of the significant transformations suggested under NEP 2020.

    According to University Grants Commission Chairperson Prof M. Jagadesh Kumar, in 2022, the Commission introduced many initiatives and encouraged higher educational institutions (HEIs) to implement them effectively.

    One such achievement was when several educational institutions registered for the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), which paved the way for uploading students’ credentials on the ABC Portal.

    ABC is a virtual/digital storehouse that contains information on the credits earned by individual students throughout their learning journey. It will enable students to open their accounts and give multiple options for entering and leaving colleges or universities.

    “With the enabling provision of allowing students to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously, the UGC has created multiple formal and informal learning pathways. UGC’s Professor of Practice will pave the way to increase institution-industry collaborations,” Prof. Kumar told TNIE.

    The revised Ph.D rules that will facilitate the direct entry of four-year UG students into Ph.D courses, doing away with the mandatory condition of publications and permitting research and teaching assistantships, is the other highlight.

    The year also saw the announcement of twinning, joint or dual degrees with academic collaborations between Indian and foreign higher educational institutes.

    However, one of the significant challenges this year was filling faculty vacancies – a whopping over 11,000 positions – in 45 Central Universities (6,180), IITs (4,502), and IIMs (493); but also in Kendriya Vidyalayas (14,000 teaching and non-teaching posts) and Navodaya Vidyalaya (4,227). The ministry said the process to fill up these positions has begun in a “mission mode.”

    Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) Commissioner Vinayak Garg told TNIE all vacancies of teaching and non-teaching staff are being filled in mission mode. Of the total of 4227 notified vacancies, 757 have been filled. “All the vaccines will be filled by April 2023,” he said.

    So what more is in store for next year?

    A better coordinated and glitch-free CUET, which the UGC chairman has stressed, was neither to make board exams irrelevant nor give a push to coaching culture so that both students and their parents don’t agonise in terms of travelling long distances, change of examination centres at the last minute and even technical glitches while taking the exam.

    A significant reform on the card is the National Higher Education Qualification Framework, which will be instrumental in the development, classification, and recognition of qualifications to ease the integration of vocational education into higher education.

    Another major initiative will be the National Digital University, which is likely to be established on the hub and spoke model, and would bring together various universities with no upper cap on the number of seats so that Class 12 pass students can access higher education.

    The Four-Year Under-Graduate Programme (FYUP) to be adopted in all higher education institutions from 2023-24 academic session is yet another step that aims to develop student’s capabilities across a range of disciplines, including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, languages, as well as professional, technical, and vocational subjects.

  • Schools to open for practical in February, there are less chances of regular classes

    The school has been closed since March due to a corona infection. There are signs of school opening for students in February. But it will not take regular classes as before. Schools will open for practical exams and project work. In this way, once again in February, students will be gathered in schools. Under the CG Board, there will be practical and project work examinations in schools from 10 February to 10 March. A large number of students will not be called simultaneously. According to the shift, there will be an examination of practical exam and project work. Social distancing has to be fully followed. Instructions will be issued soon for schools in this regard. Academics say that in view of the corona infection, the government is less likely to get permission for regular classes in schools right now. Therefore, regular classes will not be held as before. But it is sure that some special classes can be organized in schools to remove the doubts related to the subject. The date has been fixed for the practical exam and project work examination from the Education Department. But detailed instructions have not been issued in this regard. Accordingly, students will be called in schools.

    This time there will not be external
    This time schools will conduct examinations of practical exam and project work of class X-XII as per their convenience. They will also give the number. This time the requirement of external inspector (practical) for practical exam has been removed. Academics say that everything depended on their time due to the necessity of external inspector. According to his time, schools used to organize practicals. But this time schools have been given relief.

  • Rajiv Gandhi biography will be studied in Chhattisgarh, new map of Jammu and Kashmir added to the course

    In Chhattisgarh, a new chapter in the biography of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has been added in Hindi of the seventh. Also, a new map of Kashmir has been added to the 9th book of social science, in which Leh-Ladakh will remain separate. Apart from this, for the first time such English words are being used in the books of CG Board Hindi Medium, which are in full circulation and are part of the common conversation. In the next session, the CG board will study with these changes.

    The books of CG Board’s new education session have been sent for printing with these changes. In the seventh Hindi chapter based on former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, his political journey and achievements have been included. According to academics, now Rajiv Gandhi is mentioned somewhere in the school books and there is little information. The detailed chapter is nowhere. However, it is believed to be the effect of political changes in the state.

    Students of Hindi medium will also be able to use such English words in science and mathematics, which are technical or in practice. Educationists told that many words of Hindi are difficult in the books of mathematics and science of Hindi medium. Not only this, until reaching college, these words become meaningless, because technically only English words are used there. Therefore in Middle-High, such words have been taken in Science and Maths. Similarly, the new map of Jammu and Kashmir has also been included in Navami.

  • “I would like thank the government of Japan for the constant support to India-Japan Samvad,” says PM Modi

     Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses India-Japan Samvad Conference on Monday.

    This Samvad Conference revolves around the need to build the future of Asia on the positive influence of traditions of non-violence and democracy in Asia.

    The first conference, Samvad-I, was held in New Delhi in 2015, at Bodh Gaya. During Samvad I, leading scholars, religious leaders, academics, and political personalities had exchanged views on conflict avoidance and environmental consciousness.

    In the past, humanity often took the path of confrontation instead of collaboration. From Imperialism to the world wars. From the arms race to the space race. We had dialogues but they were aimed at pulling others down. Now, let us rise together: PM

    We must keep humanism at the core of our policies. We must make harmonious co-existence with nature as the central pillar of our existence: PM

    Our actions today will shape the discourse in the coming times. This decade will belong to those societies that place a premium on learning and innovating together.