New Delhi, Sep 4: The world looks at India for new models and solutions to current challenges, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Wednesday.
Pradhan also called upon the academic fraternity to reinvent their institutions and achieve “national priorities”.
The minister made the remarks in his address at a workshop on Institutional Development Plan (IDP) organised by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
“Our education must address 21st century aspirations and create solutions for local and global challenges. The world looks at India's talent pool for new models and solutions to challenges of our age.
“I exhort the academic fraternity to work in a focused and time-bound manner for reinventing their institutions, transforming higher educational landscape and achieving national priorities,” he said.
“Education will propel India from being a consuming economy to becoming a producing economy,” he added.
The minister asserted that the IDP should focus on enhancing competencies of our demography, integrating Indian languages in higher learning, prioritising innovation, entrepreneurship and job-creation, and achieving global standard of research & development.
He also launched a compendium of UGC guidelines at the workshop. The compendium consolidates all UGC rules, regulations, and notifications issued from 1957 to December 2023.
Pradhan spoke about the role of higher educational institutions (HEIs) in redefining the purpose and structure of education, empowering youth and making them future-ready.
He also listed among the government's targets doubling gross enrolment ratio, bringing the majority of population under the higher education net, and transforming 5,000 HEIs into ‘centres of excellence'.
The workshop was aimed to empower HEIs for their academic and professional excellence, in the light of UGC guidelines on IDP. Aligning with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the IDP provides institutions a clear roadmap to develop their vision, mission and goals for a future-ready education at institutional level.
