ZT WEB DESK
Srinagar: India’s today unveiled new education policy after 34 years, the National Education Policy 2020, which has restructured higher education in significant ways, besides renaming the Union Human Resource Development Ministry as the Ministry of Education.
Rolling out the new features for higher education, Union Secretary (Higher Education) said that India aims to achieve 50% Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) by 2035. The new policy also regulates the fee structure under a broad regulatory framework.
Here are the key points announced for Higher Education:
- Aim to increase the gross enrolment ratio to 50% by 2035
- To ensure holistic, and multidisciplinary education through the flexibility of subjects in Higher Education
- Multiple entry/exit points to be allowed – UG program : 3 to 4 years, PG Program – 1 to 2 years, Integrated 5 years bachelors/ masters program and M Phil to be discontinued
- Common norms for public and private HEIs which include private philanthropic partnerships and capping fees within broad regulatory framework
- Graded autonomy of academic, administrative and financial institutions
- A single regulator for all higher education working under a self-disclosure based transparent system for approvals in place of numerous ‘inspections’
- Public investment in the education sector to reach 6% of GFP at the earliest. Currently, it is around 4.43% including state and center govt.
- E-courses will be developed in regional languages in education planning, teaching, administration and regulation. Virtual labs to digitally equip schools, teachers and students to be created. The e-content to be available in regional languages starting with Kannada, Odia, Bengali, Tamil etc to join Hindi and English
- Standalone Higher Education Institutes and professional education institutes will be evolved into multi-disciplinary education with a National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) to be created
- Emphasis to be placed on Divyang friendly education software