Education experts, former vice-chancellors, and higher education officials have been providing their inputs on the National Education Policy (NEP) to Minister MC Sudhakar over the past week. During a three-hour-long meeting held on Friday, all 30 public university vice-chancellors in Karnataka expressed their opinion to continue with the NEP 2020 in the state, rather than scrapping it as promised by the previous Congress government.
After a thorough consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the NEP, the collective opinion of the vice-chancellors was in favor of maintaining the policy. They highlighted that Karnataka had been the first state to implement the NEP and that the state universities were already two years ahead in its implementation across various stages.
While supporting the continuation of the NEP, the vice-chancellors also raised concerns about certain provisions of the policy. Issues were raised regarding the implementation of multidisciplinary courses and the availability of faculty for teaching open elective subjects under the NEP. Some state universities have already taken steps to implement the NEP by establishing an academic bank of credits and assigning credits at the end of each semester.
Dr. Vidyashankar S, the vice-chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University, stated, “Most of us have already incorporated different aspects of the NEP in our universities. While there are concerns about certain provisions that can be addressed through interventions, scrapping the NEP after two years of implementation would not be practical.”
Minister Sudhakar has been actively seeking inputs on the NEP from various stakeholders. His aim is to review provisions that might cause confusion among students and evaluate whether the NEP legislation was hastily passed by the previous BJP government. A comprehensive report on the NEP, jointly prepared with the school education department, will be submitted to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for a final decision.
In addition to the NEP discussions, the meeting also addressed other important topics such as the Unified University College Management System (UUCM), scholarships, staff recruitment, and measures to combat fake marksheet rackets. The introduction of a digital locker for mark sheets and addressing vacancies and funding shortages in state-run universities, particularly the recently established ones, were among the matters highlighted to Minister Sudhakar.
Author: IBC Global Times
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