
India Education Summit Day 2 HIGHLIGHTS: Delhi Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in his address at the India Education Summit 2021 said that the first budget after the rollout of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 does not show commitment towards the policy.
“New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 talks about several missing points which were not talked about earlier in the education space. It is a nice document. Having both the education and finance portfolio I understand that when one has to invest in education, the administration has to pull from several other spheres. It was very unfortunate to see that the first Budget after the roll-out of NEP does not give the commitment that the NEP‘s vision demands,” said Sisodia
After Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal’s inaugural address on February 9, the IES 2021 enters its second day. Day 2 began with an address by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant. The theme of the day is ‘a grassroots approach’. Amitabh Kant in his address said that India needs to be cautious that a digital divide is not created as the country moves towards digital education. He asked the private and public stakeholders to join hands to reach the goal of 50% GER in higher education. He said, 33 million more seats are needed and brick and mortar model alone cannot fulfill the requirement.
Relook at Day 1 India Education Summit
Join us on day 3 to discuss the ‘journey towards a new world’ including gaining digital proficiency, how to creating modern thinkers to what needs to be done to take education to employment.
This brings us to the end of day 2. Join us again tomorrow. The theme for the third and final day would be 'journey towards a new world'. The day would begin with Supreeth Nagaraju - Head Education, Digital Media - India & South Asia, Adobe. There will be discussions on 'creating modern thinkers' , journey from education to employment, and a closing remark by Sapna Chadha, Senior Director of Marketing Southeast Asia and India, Google
-- Infrastructure buildings ka mudda nahi hai (infrastructure is not the issue of buildings) but is issue of diginity and equality
-- The IT industry will have to prepare itself for the post-COVID schooling system. This would need another level of upskilling for techno-heads as well as teachers
-- National Capital region is moving away from the annual assessment system where a child is made to sit for a three-hour test after the end of a year to a tech-backed continuous assessment system.
-- NEP 2020 talks about several missing points that were not talked about earlier in the education space. It was very unfortunate to see that the budget commitment which the NEP's vision demands were missing from the Union Budget 2021. The Budget allocated to the education sphere was on the contrary was reduced by Rs 6000 crore as compared to last year.
-- We need to be cautious of not building a digital divide, as we move towards digital education
-- We need additional 33 million seats in higher education to achieve the 50% GER aim set by NEP 2020. This cannot be fulfilled only through the bricks and mortar model cannot achieve this task alone.
-- To formalize the incorporation of digital in education, National Digital Education Architecture has been rolled out. This will help streamline digital education
How you help before, during, and after the class - are the three things we need to take care of. Before the class, we need to give support in terms of how to create content. This is where we are helping teachers. During class, we are helping teachers to help assess students better maybe a google form or WhatsApp chat, or creating a lesson plan etc. When we go into the classroom, how to flip it. What to give for home and what to teach in class is different in an online class as compared to physical classes, said Aditya Natraj, Founder & Director of Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF)
The last session of the day begins. The panel will discuss "empowering all educators for digital transformation". The panel will be moderated by Anushree Bhattacharyya, Editor Brand & Marketing FE Online. Panels will consist of Shaheen Mistry, Teach for India, Venkatesh Sarvasiddhi, Senior Head – Digital Skills & Innovation, Industry Partnerships & CSR – NSDC, Aditya Natraj, Founder & Director of Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF), and Garima Babbar, Policy Head For Education India & South Asia, Adobe
RCM Reddy, MD & CEO, Schoolnet India explained the unemployability issue in India by stating, "those who drop-out of the system do not have enough jobs and those who pass the system do not have skills." He said, we need to shift from waiting to impart skills post education and imbibe these skills into schools, colleges, and university systems. Such a system is talked about in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
With NEP, govt is not leaving it at the policy level. There have been committees formed to take it from policy level to implementation level. How do you create a standard for people with 1.38 billion people, there is a work in progress, said Dr. Arunabh Singh, Director, Nehru World School. Deepti Sawhney, CEO & Founder, Mahattattva said that there are school managements who are saying "lets not wait but start ourselves". This is what she said is a new outlook towards a policy.
We need to change the way we frame questions. why would you frame a question which can be googled? We need to have questions which force students to think, said Deepti Sawhney, CEO & Founder, Mahattattva
We need to make a digital education map, suggested RCM Reddy, MD & CEO, Schoolnet India. He added we need to standardise the digital infrastructure requirement from internet access, device access to teacher training then only this digital education can be carried forward.
We had more than 5000 teachers trained in the first month of the pandemic, Teachers thought it was their mission to teach these students sitting online, said Deepti Sawhney, CEO & Founder, Mahattattva. Quoting a Harvard pandemic, she said, this was the first time that a pandemic made education the focus instead of health, she added.
The third session of the day 'educators of the new world' begins. The session will highlight how educators are coping with the new era. Siddhartha Dubey, professor, Ashoka University is moderating the session. The panel consists of Deepti Sawhney, CEO & Founder, Mahattattva, Dr. Arunabh Singh, Director, Nehru World School, and Stuart Miller, Head of Marketing, Google For Education, APAC
The tuition teacher model is the reason how children are able to clear entrance exams. There is so much of (untapped) opportunity, said R V Balasubramaniam Iyer, Vice President, Reliance Jio Infocomm. He said that housewives and retired people can be involved in teaching to bring the gap of teachers. He also highlights that digital content availability is not everywhere. Each state creates its own content in its own language and uniformity and standardization is needed.
R V Balasubramaniam Iyer, Vice President, Reliance Jio Infocomm, and Amit Doshi, Chief Marketing Officer, Lenovo India join Bani Paintal Dhawan, Head of Education India and South Asia, Google Cloud India to discuss the infrastructure aspect of the post-COVID education.
Every school affiliated with the Gujarat state board will have to adopt GET as their digital curriculum norm. It would be a single tech-based education learning platform for everyone. Anyone who wants to subscribe to any other tech company can do it but not as a rule but as a reference. GET will be the e-version of NCERT. GET will also have the role of regulator as it evolves. We will also develop content to ensure that it will be acceptable to every single school, across the spectrum of schools.
Using tech for teacher training will make teacher training more skilled, said Vinod R. Rao, Secretary to Government(Primary & Secondary Education), Education Department, Sachivalaya, Gandhinagar. He informed more than 1.5 lakh teachers have already enrolled and been trained by a tech-enabled platform for teacher training created by IIM-Ahmedabad.
Bani Paintal Dhawan, Head of Education India and South Asia, Google Cloud India moderating a session on infrastructure play. Dr. Vinod R. Rao, Secretary to Government(Primary & Secondary Education), Education Department, Sachivalaya, Gandhinagar sharing the journey of the Gujarat government in providing education to students despite the pandemic.
The IT industry will have to prepare itself for the post-COVID schooling system. This would need another level of upskilling for techno-heads as well as teachers, said Manish Sisodia.
Manish Sisodia, Deputy CM Delhi who also holds the education portfolio said that the National Capital region is moving away from the annual assessment system where a child is made to sit for a three-hour test after the end of a year to a tech-backed continuous assessment system.
“While the NEP says that six per cent of the GDP should be dedicated to education. The sector hardly got about three per cent. The Budget allocated to the education sphere was on the contrary reduced by Rs 6,000 crore than the funds allocated last year,” said Sisodia.
New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 talks about several missing points which were not talked about earlier in the education space. It is a nice document. Having both the education and finance portfolio I understand that when one has to invest in education, the administration has to pull from several other spheres. It was very unfortunate to see that the first Budget after the roll-out of NEP does not give the commitment that the NEP’s vision demands, said Sisodia.