Collective effort needed to deliver quality education to every last child: Director CBSE

Dr. Joseph Emmanuel, who was a special guest at CII Delhi Education Summit 2021 themed ‘New Trends And Modern Approaches – Need Of The Hour’ stressed on the need of collective efforts on the part of all stakeholders to enhance quality of education.  “India faces two challenges – to provide education to all and importantly, deliver quality education to all. Due to our socio-economic conditions and disparity in social apparatus both state and central governments have not been able to reach the last child of this country with quality education. However, a huge difference can be made if the society partners with the government. For example, in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala a lot of philanthropic organisations have come together to provide free and quality education to millions of students from underprivileged areas.”

He further stated that, “Everyone in the society should lend a helping hand to reach out to every last child to provide quality education. This should be supplemented with pedagogical and assessment reforms and connecting learning with the real-life.”

Dr. Joseph Emmanuel also said that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 will bring the end of rote learning regime in India. “We should do away with the rote memorisation which we have practised for more than 200 years. Every state government and school board should focus on four main areas: transforming teaching and learning that’s happening in the classroom, capacity building of teachers, partnering with parents and society for delivering quality education and lastly, we should bring a lot of systemic reforms. For example SAFAL (Structured Assessment For Analysing Learning), a competency-based assessment for grades 3, 5 and 8, which would test achievement of basic learning outcomes. We should also adopt the best practices practised by the schools across the country.”

NEP is a complete rethink and revolution of our Indian education system: Aditya Berlia

Aditya Berlia, Immediate Past Chairman, CII Delhi State, Co-Promoter Apeejay Stya Group and Svran group, who was moderating the session, said NEP could be a game-changer. “NEP is a complete rethink and revolution of our Indian education system. This is something we had been waiting for almost two decades. However, implementing it won’t be easy. We have our work cut out. People at all levels in government and private institutions have to really think through to not only implement the NEP in letter but in the sheer spirit of transforming education.”

Mr Berlia lauded the hard work put in by the teachers during the pandemic. “I am truly grateful for all our professors, teachers and staff in all the educational institutes in India who have really stepped up to help their students through imparting virtual education, in many cases going to the individual homes of students, government for truly understanding and stepping up to face the challenges that we all face. As schools and colleges go back to normal, pending a few scares now and then, I really hope that by April of next year we will have put most of our issues with Covid-19 behind us and we can begin the inspiring journey of NEP. However, I do like to state that the devil is in the details. Every policy change will have broad implications not just for the educational ecosystem but for the entire economy.”  

The success of NEP largely hinges on cooperative federalism: Madhav Singhania

Madhav Singhania, Vice Chairman CII Delhi State and Deputy Managing Director & CEO at J.K. Cement Limited, said Covid-19 has given rise to huge inequalities in our education system as many students lack access to digital devices such as tablets and laptops and adequate internet access at home for remote learning. He also said the current education system must move from theoretical learning to one which focuses on building critical-thinking, analytical skills and is entrepreneurial in nature to equip students to adapt to today’s highly competitive environment.  “The biggest challenge will lie in the implementation of NEP due to the sheer size of our education system with more than 15 lakh schools, 24 crore students and 89 lakhs teachers. The success of NEP largely hinges on cooperative federalism and states taking ownership for these reforms,” said Madhav Singhania.