A mega event “Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Samagam” is being organized in the holy city of Varanasi from July 7 to 9, 2022 which is being billed as a “Maha Kumbh of Higher Education in India”. The core objective of this grand event is to extract Amrut (nectar) through the ‘Manthan’ of the plethora of quality imperatives enshrined in NEP2020. The event is being organised on the occasion of the second anniversary of NEP2020, which has been launched by the present government to make the youth of the country future ready while focusing on human values, life skills and traits of Bharatiya civilization. The event would be an excellent platform to take stock of the amount of water flown through the mighty Ganges for nurturing the learning system of India and transforming it into one of the best systems for empowering youth with glocal competencies. Deliberations will be focused on mapping the interests, abilities and demands of the younger generation for framing enabling policies for making India ‘New and Atmanirbhar’. This platform will also be used to re-visit and re-strategise already drawn pathways for the implementation of NEP2020 and the benefits accrued thereby. One major concern of the event will be to build up a holistic perspective for flawless implementation of NEP2020 to the maximum extent possible. 

In knowledge driven society, the quality of the education system provides bases for economic vitality, health and overall well-being of humanity. NEP2020 was launched on 29th July, 2020 to transform the existing learning system and to actualise the needs of the 21st century learners. The seriousness of this mammoth assembly of Directors and Vice-Chancellors of the higher educational institutions can be appreciated from the fact that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself will inaugurate and address the gathering for inspiring these leaders to leave no stone unturned in implementing NEP2020. The presence of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan during all three day of the Samagam will give renewed directions and vigour to senior educationists in implementing NEP2020. This is a reflection of the commitment of the Government for providing quality education to the youth.

India can become Atmanirbhar only when we make our youth competent enough to contribute meaningfully and purposefully, and to become privy to Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0. This revolution capitalizes on the fusion of disruptive digital technologies viz., Internet, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Intelligent Robotics, 3D Printing, Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing and other innovations that are blurring the boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological domains. In IR 4.0, Cyber-Physical Production System (CPPS) is utilized for industrial production, by unifying the physical and the virtual world. For actualizing this opportunity, we need to embrace the imperatives of Education 4.0. This version of education, unlike the previous three versions, ensures co-learning, co-creation and innovation; anytime, anywhere, and any type of learning; use of the flipped classroom for transforming passive learning to active learning; learning at home or outside institutions, while institutions are used for skill-development; personalized and collaborative learning; lesson plans becoming creativity plans; continuous training for updation of domain knowledge and skills;  full freedom to learners to choose courses, knowledge, and skills where students can learn preferred courses from multiple institutions. Thus Education 4.0 is outcome-based.

In this event, academicians and officials will focus on the need to formulate policies to make our youth future-ready to face a highly uncertain and volatile future. The speed of changes witnessed by the education sector is outpacing the ability of the existing system to respond adequately and appropriately. Thus, the educational system is at increased risk of becoming outdated.  HEIs need to mentor youth for those jobs that are yet to exist, using technologies that are yet to be invented. Children enrolled in primary schools today will ultimately have to perform in new workplaces with new work profiles which currently do not exist. Nearly half of the subject knowledge acquired during the first year of a four-year technical degree will be outdated by the time the students graduate. We need to reform and re-strategise our mentoring goals to prepare mentees to boldly face such future uncertainties.

Thread-bare deliberation will take place on the student-centric and Bharat-centric reforms that form the soul of NEP2020. These include multidisciplinary and holistic education; skill-development and employability, research, innovation and entrepreneurship, capacity building of teachers for quality education; quality, ranking and accreditation; digital empowerment and online education; equitable and inclusive education; Indian knowledge system; and internationalization of education. The progress made thus in implementing these quality benchmarks will be discussed and future-pathways for ensuring speedy and impactful implementation of these imperatives shall also be drawn. 

The Ministry of Education and the UGC are burning midnight oil in making provisions/regulations on learning outcome-based multidisciplinary curriculum; multiple exit-entry options; academic bank of credits; use and integration of technology in education; education in mother tongue/regional language at least up to primary level, admissions through a single window, digital university and national research foundation; national and international academic collaborations; building strong community connect etc., and most importantly the use of Indian knowledge traditions that emerged out of experiential wisdom of our ancestors.

This new round of dialogue will aim at getting better suggestions and effective solutions regarding the speedy implementation of NEP 2020 and its optimum utilization for the good of humanity. Emphasis will also be on bringing a paradigm shift in pedagogy especially on ‘How to Learn’ rather than on ‘What to Learn’; skilling, up-skilling and reskilling; learning, unlearning and relearning (life-long learning to become life-long learning adaptability); and reform, perform and transform; and where learners will have to think like employees and employees will need to think like learners. Such a new approach may help youth face future challenges. We need to embrace the pole-vaulting model of implementing reforms rather than the leapfrogging model.
(The writer is Vice-Chancellor, Central University of Punjab)