Srinagar, July 11: Vice-Chairman of the J&K Higher Education Council (JKHEC), Prof Dinesh Singh, on Tuesday interacted with Vice-Chancellors, faculty members, students and principals of degree colleges at the University of Kashmir.
Prof Singh was on visit to the University on the invitation of the Vice-Chancellor, KU, Prof Nilofer Khan, to facilitate wide-ranging discussions with key stakeholders on the flagship National Education Policy-2020 on the advice of the Honourable Chancellor, Shri Manoj Sinha.
Addressing top administrative officers, deans of schools and directors of campuses during a special session, Prof Singh said “freedom is the guiding philosophy driving the National Education Policy-2020 to help young students to discover themselves and find the true meaning and purpose of education.”
“The road to this self-discovery is not so easy. It is therefore a challenge for academics to see how they can make the young students find the ‘drumbeat of the soul’ and their ‘inner voice’ to make them move ahead in life,” he said, citing examples of Mahatma Gandhi, Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachchan to draw home his point.
“These great personalities caught and followed their ‘drumbeat of the soul’ and ‘inner voice’ and that is what you (academics) will have to encourage young students to do to realise the essence of the NEP-2020,” Prof Singh, the former vice-chancellor of Delhi University, said.
Appreciating the University of Kashmir for leading NEP-2020 implementation at the UG level in Jammu and Kashmir, Prof Singh also laid strong emphasis on integrating knowledge and skills, saying these are two sides of the same coin.
He asserted that a lot of focus needs to be laid at the undergraduate level education where curriculum and pedagogy have to be transdisciplinary to encourage experiential learning and foster curiosity of young minds to solve the problems of the society and the world with new learning that goes beyond blackboards, notes and regular examinations.
Earlier, Prof Nilofer Khan, who co-chaired all the interaction sessions, highlighted the University’s journey and determination leading to successful implementation of the NEP-2020 at the UG level in 2022 under the leadership of the Honourable Chancellor.
Thanking Prof Singh for interacting with the faculty and students, Prof Nilofer said such face-to-face interactions will enable the University to further improve upon its learning programmes under NEP-2020 and implement it smoothly at the PG level.
Dean, Academic Affairs, KU Prof F A Masoodi gave a power-point presentation on implementation of NEP-2020 at the UG level, while as Registrar, Dr Nisar A Mir, conducted proceedings of the session and delivered a formal vote of thanks.
Later, Prof Singh had detailed interaction with students of the University, where he urged young students to “consider the whole society as a university to benefit from true experiential learning”.
He said the NEP-2020 paves way to devise mechanisms to evaluate “uniqueness in every student” and boost the “entrepreneurship associated with different disciplines of study and research.”
“We have to bolster the ability of school and college-going students to help them connect with society and its problems,” Prof Singh said. He also answered several questions of the students related to academics and research.
In the final session, Prof Singh interacted with Vice-Chancellors and college principals and urged the faculty to “be ready to change, modify, and alter the pedagogy and curriculum in accordance with the needs of the society and foster transdisciplinarity in education.”
He also sought their active feedback, support and cooperation in implementing a new ‘Design Your Degree’ learning programme at the UG level in Jammu and Kashmir, which, Prof Singh said, is being placed before the upcoming JKHEC meeting for discussions.
Besides Prof Nilofer Khan, the interaction session was also attended by Prof Shakil A Romshoo, VC, IUST; Prof Umesh Rai, VC, Jammu University; Prof Bechan Lal, VC Cluster University Jammu; Prof Kavi Arya, Department of Computer Sciences and Engineering, IIT Bombay and Prof Shobha Bagai, Director, Cluster Innovation Centre, University of Delhi. Dean, College Development Council, KU, Prof Khursheed A Bhat, Registrar Dr Nisar A Mir and Controller of Examinations, KU Dr Majid Zaman were also present.
