NEP Is The Game Changer: Academicians

The 5th Higher Education Conference, organised by BW Businessworld in Chennai, witnessed an enlightening panel discussion on the Draft National Education Policy.

The session was moderated by Mangat Ram Sharma, IAS, Principal Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Government of Tamil Nadu. Among the panellists were Dr Sandeep Sancheti, Vice Chancellor of SRM University; Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam, Vice Chancellor of Sastra University; Dr Sunder Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor of KREA University; Dr Kuncheria Isaac, Vice Chancellor of Hindustan University; and Dr Rakesh Kumar Sharma, Vice Chancellor of Saveetha University.

Sastra University VC expresses that the NEP has to accomodate a lot of confronting issues and one has to re-invent to contribute in the education space.

He also pointed the two game changing policy vehicles of NEP and said, "To do away with unitary teacher education institute and rather bring teacher education as part of a multi- disciplinary higher education institute will be doing more good in having quality faculty. Next is the National Research Foundation that will be encouraging competitive performance based research whether it comes from a public or private institute is a welcome move."

Isaac asserted that the spending should be increased as that will be the way to success in having quality education in the country.

Dr Sandeep Sancheti said, "NEP is a game changer as it covers all the aspects from primary to higher education and was due for a long time. 'Autonomy' is one of the crucial point of NEP, as it is the way forward for all of us"

"Public and private institutes will treated equally, and open education i.e. higher emphasis on learning rather teaching is a significant step towards quality education," he added.

Futhermore, Ramaswamy mentions the attractive points of NEP. He said, "The emphasis on increasing the GER and making up for the less GDP spent of education as compared to other developing countries is really gratifying. The focus on quality that every university should focus on and autonomy that is really important but along with it accountabilty plays a vital role."

Saveetha University VC suggested to have a depository of outcomes of universities so that if any agency or government body wishes to accredite, they can pull the records from there.