Various aspects of National Education Policy 2020 discussed

PATHSALA: Following all COVID protocol, the Internal Quality Assurance Cell of B.H.B. College, Sarupeta organized a seminar and a workshop in the college on August 14.

In the seminar, held on the topic 'National Education Policy 2020', Dr. Birinchi Kumar Das, Principal, B. H. B. College, deliberated on various aspects of the National Education Policy 2020. He said that the National Education Policy 2020 was framed with inspiration from the rich heritage of education in ancient India and also keeping in mind the need of reshaping the education system of the country to meet the challenges of the coming days. This policy considers ushering in a complete transformation in the education system of the country so as to make it capable of creating opportunities for total development of the personality of the learners.

Elaborating on school-level education, Dr. Das said that special emphasis was laid on strengthening the Anganwadi centres/pre-schools so that proper foundation for school education could be laid in the minds of the children from age three to six. The National Education Policy focuses on multilingualism and opens provisions for giving the children the opportunity for learning several languages as the early childhood is the best part of life for learning languages. Development of creative and critical thinking by reducing the course contents, introduction of the same type of textbooks at national level while providing room for the regional characteristics and abolishment of coaching culture are some other characteristic features of the National Education Policy, Dr. Das said.

Speaking about higher education, he said that by introducing three types of higher educational institutions such as research-intensive universities, teaching-intensive universities and autonomous degree granting colleges, and by aiming at larger, multi-disciplinary higher educational institutions, the National Education Policy proposes a tremendous change in the higher educational scenario in the country. He said that people should get ready to take advantage of all the positive aspects of the policy while safeguarding the regional identity in the education system.

Another speaker, Phanidhar Mech, Assistant Professor in the Department of History of the college, expressed his apprehension regarding the outcome of the National Education Policy 2020. He said that it had to be kept in mind whether the policy paved the door for large-scale privatization of the education sector of the country while posing a threat to the public sector institutions.

In the workshop held on the topic 'Gains and Drawbacks of Online Classes', Babul Chandra Deka, Assistant Professor of B.H College, Howly and Himendra Kalita, Assistant Professor of the host college, were the resource persons. In this workshop, the growing importance of online classes in the changing scenario of education as well as the problems that might crop up in this regard were discussed. Besides, some technical aspects of online classes were also discussed.

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