RONO HILLS, 11 Aug: The Rajiv Gandhi University’s (RGU) Department of Social Work organized two online national webinars on 9 and 10 August to mark the completion of one year of the National Education Policy 2020, which was presented first on 29 July 2020.
The NEP 2020 is the first national policy of the country, 34 years since the last policy (in 1986), to have a national level holistic policy on education.
On the first day, one of the member architects of NEP 2020 and renowned academician, Vice-Chancellor of Birsa Agri University, Ranchi Prof Ram Shankar Kureel spoke on various areas of the policy, including its aims and objectives.
The topic of discussion on that day was, ‘National Education Policy 2020: A pathway to uniform and universal education.’ The discussion focused on the various inequalities and disparities in the educational sectors, in terms of language, syllabus or curriculum or even in terms of the nature of class divisions. Prof Kureel gave insights into the role of NEP 2020 to address such issues.
During the second webinar, the topic of discussion was, ‘Focus on employability and multidisciplinary education through NEP 2020: Implications for learners and educators.’ During the session, TISS, Guwahati Campus Deputy Director Prof Kalpana Sarathy emphasized on creation of model public universities for holistic and multidisciplinary education and the abolition of single-stream universities in a phased manner, meant to make Indian universities more competitive with the best universities in the world.
She added that NEP 2020 focuses on value-based education and global citizenship education to help develop students who are aware of global issues, as well as increase the employability of Indian graduates and create independent-thinking ethical citizens.
RGU Vice-Chancellor Prof Saket Kushwaha emphasized that the onus to carve a niche in increasingly competitive world lies on the learners, and education as well as educators should be readily available, accessible and affordable to facilitate their ways.
Department of Social Work Head Dr Kaushalendra Pratap Singh briefly emphasized on the aims and objective of the session as well as the significance of the chosen topics.
A doubt clearance session was kept as a part of the webinars to assure better understanding and to build a meaningful dialogue between the key stakeholders and the resource persons.
Assistant professors Chaphiak Lowang and Dr Ravi Ranjan Kumar from the department of Social Work coordinated gave important insights related to the discussion for both the webinars.
Over a hundred participants attended both the sessions.
The sessions were conducted under the patronage of the RGU and Prof Vice-Chancellor Prof Amitava Mitra.
Registrar Dr NT Rikam also extended his support towards the programme.
