Education is not competition to acquire degrees, but tool to leverage knowledge for character building: Pradhan

Union Education and Skill Development Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday launched a booklet on one-year New Education Policy (NEP) and said that education is not merely a competition to acquire degrees, but is a tool to leverage knowledge for character building and eventually nation-building.

According to a statement, Pradhan and Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar today jointly launched the booklet on One-year New Education Policy (NEP) - 2020 Achievement along with some major initiatives of the New Education Policy-2020 such as NIPUN Bharat FLN tools and resources on DIKSHA--Virtual School of NIOS--Alternate Academic Calendar of NCERT--and Release of 'Priya'- accessibility booklet developed by the NCERT and Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.

The Minister stressed that the government is working to facilitate the up-gradation of infrastructure in schools, such as ensuring that the Internet reaches the village schools across the country.

The Minister stated that NEP is a guiding philosophy to transform the hopes and aspirations of millions of the youth to reality and making India self-reliant.

He said that the formulation of NEP is also a live example of cooperative federalism to achieve a common goal of making India a global hub of knowledge. When we look back at the progress of NEP, we get more confident about the future of our students, he added.

Shri Pradhan said that the book "Priya -The Accessibility Warrior", released today will sensitize the students on accessibility-related issues for Divyangs. Special emphasis has been laid to make the booklet simple, interesting, and interactive to create awareness on accessibility in children right from their formative years, he added.

The Minister while launching the Virtual School of NIOS said that this school is a new model of learning and is an example of how leveraging technology and innovation can facilitate greater inclusion in education.

The school is the first-of-its-kind initiative in the country that will provide advanced digital learning platforms through Virtual Live Classrooms and Virtual Labs., he added. Shri Pradhan also said that the Alternate Academic Calendar of NCERT has been developed to facilitate teachers and parents to assess the progress in the learning of children. The Alternate Academic Calendar contains a week-wise plan of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to learning outcomes, themes, and chapters taken from the syllabus or textbook.

Speaking on the occasion Shri Virendra Kumar said that accessibility opens doorways to opportunity and growth, thus, reinstating the importance of creating an accessible environment for everyone. He further said that awareness and a sensitized community are the essential fuels driving any revolutionary change. The government's commitment to promoting accessibility led to the development of the E-Comic cum Activity Book, titled - 'Priya- The Accessibility Warrior'.

Shri Kumar urged both the Departments of School Education & Literacy and the Department of Higher Education to take up the task of creating accessible educational infrastructure and content on a mission mode, consistently progressing towards Inclusive Education which is a vital component of the new National Education Policy.

On the occasion of the 75th year of Independence of India, let us all work with our children to become 'Accessibility Warriors' and make inclusive education a reality to build a brighter future for all our citizens, he added.

According to the statement, NEP 2020 envisages education as a continuum without any segmentation and focuses on making education more experiential, holistic, integrated, character-building, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centered, discussion-based, flexible, and above all, more joyful.

With this perspective, the Department of School Education and Literacy has taken up a multitude of initiatives at all levels of school education and has achieved 62 major milestones which will eventually transform the school education sector.

( With inputs from ANI )