Bhubaneswar: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday called upon the states and Union Territories to work cohesively for building a collaborative education system and leveraging education as the key pillar of Viksit Bharat.
Addressing the inaugural session of review meeting of Department of School Education and Literacy with states and Union Territories, Pradhan shared his thoughts on the roadmap for next five years for holistic development of school education across India.
“Education is a key pillar of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Viksit Bharat and called upon the states to work together to achieve this goal. In almost four years of National Education Policy, the education ecosystem in the country has made tremendous progress and implementation of NEP is key to transforming Bharat into a knowledge superpower and enabling equitable and inclusive access to quality education,” he said.
“India is a young country and our challenge is to make global citizens for the 21st century world which is rapidly changing and being driven by technology. Ensuring an education system which is both rooted and futuristic is our collective responsibility,” he added.
Stressing education in mother tongue and all Indian languages, he called for carrying forward the basic spirit of NEP to ensure Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability in education. He also spoke on the importance of building technology readiness in schools with a holistic approach and ensuring critical thinking among students.
He urged both states and the Centre to work as a team to strengthen the education ecosystem as well as replicate and amplify best-practices. He called upon all stakeholders to work cohesively for strengthening capacities, building a collaborative education system and leveraging education as the key pillar of Viksit Bharat.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary said NEP 2020 is the most ambitious and progressive policy document. He highlighted how improving GER and taking it to 100% is extremely important and students from the economically and socially backward, tribal communities must be included in the formal educational system. He also spoke about other ambitious programmes of the Ministry such as PM SHRI and invited the states to be a part of the programme.
Secretary of the department Sanjay Kumar; Additional Secretaries Vipin Kumar and Anandrao V Patil; other officials of the Ministry, principal secretary and secretary and SPD/Directors of states and UTs, heads and representatives of the NCERT, SCERTs, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya Vidyalaya and CBSE were also present at the meeting.