New Delhi: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today addressed the inaugural session of the review meeting of the Department of School Education and Literacy with States and Union Territories.
Key officials, including Secretary DoSE&L Sanjay Kumar, Additional Secretaries Vipin Kumar and Anandrao V. Patil, and representatives from NCERT, SCERTs, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya Vidyalaya, CBSE, and other educational bodies, were present.
Pradhan shared his vision for the next five years, emphasizing the holistic development of school education across India. He highlighted that education is a key pillar of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Viksit Bharat and urged States and Union Territories to collaborate in achieving this goal. Reflecting on nearly four years of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, he noted the significant progress made in transforming India into a knowledge superpower and ensuring equitable access to quality education.
Pradhan underscored the importance of education in Indian languages, aligning with NEP 2020’s emphasis on mother tongue education. He called for adherence to NEP’s core principles: Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability, and Accountability in education. Highlighting India’s demographic advantage, he stressed the need to prepare global citizens for a rapidly changing, technology-driven world. He advocated for a rooted yet futuristic education system, technological readiness in schools, and fostering critical thinking among students.
The Minister emphasized the need for collaboration between States and the Centre to strengthen the education ecosystem, replicating and amplifying best practices. He highlighted the importance of teacher capacity building and competency-based education to enhance employability and make the educational ecosystem more vibrant.
Jayant Chaudhary praised NEP 2020 as a progressive policy document and stressed the importance of improving the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) to 100%, especially including students from economically and socially disadvantaged and tribal communities in the formal education system. He also promoted the Ministry’s ambitious programs such as PM SHRI, inviting states to participate actively.
Secretary Sanjay Kumar focused on reviewing NEP 2020 implementation and aligning flagship schemes like Samagra Shiksha, PM SHRI, PM Poshan, and ULLAS with the policy. He outlined the meeting’s goals, including developing a roadmap for the next five years, reviewing infrastructure progress, ICT and Smart classrooms under Samagra Shiksha, VSK and 200 channels setup, finalizing UDISE+ for 2023-24, and discussing best practices and tobacco control in schools.