Innovation-driven virtual schools to achieve greater inclusion in school education: Pradhan

New Delhi: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar today jointly launched the booklet on One-year New Education Policy (NEP) – 2020 Achievement along with some major initiatives of the policy.

Addressing the participants, the Education Minister said that NEP is a guiding philosophy to transform the hopes and aspirations of millions of the youth to reality and making India self–reliant.

He said that the formulation of NEP is also a live example of co-operative federalism to achieve a common goal of making India a global hub of knowledge.

When we look back at the progress of NEP, we get more confident about the future of our students, he added.

Pradhan stressed that the Government is working to facilitate upgradation of infrastructure in schools, such as ensuring that Internet reaches the village schools across the country.

Pradhan said that the book “Priya -The Accessibility Warrior”, released today will sensitize the students on accessibility-related issues for Divyangs.

Special emphasis has been laid to make the booklet simple, interesting and interactive to create awareness on accessibility in children right from their formative years, he added.

The Minister while launching the Virtual School of NIOS said that this school is a new model of learning and is an example how leveraging technology and innovation can facilitate greater inclusion in education.

The school is first-of-its-kind initiative in the country which will provide advanced digital learning platforms through Virtual Live Classrooms and Virtual Labs., he added.

Pradhan also said that the Alternate Academic Calendar of NCERT has been developed to facilitate teachers and parents to assess the progress in the learning of children.

The Alternate Academic Calendar contains week-wise plan of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to learning outcomes, themes and chapters taken from syllabus or textbook.

Speaking on the occasion, Virendra Kumar said that the accessibility opens doorways to opportunity and growth, thus, reinstating the importance of creating an accessible environment for everyone.

He further said that awareness and a sensitized community are the essential fuels driving any revolutionary change.

NEP 2020 envisages education as a continuum without any segmentation and focuses on making education more experiential, holistic, integrated, character-building, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centred, discussion-based, flexible, and above all, more joyful.

With this perspective, the Department of School Education and Literacy has taken up a multitude of initiatives at all levels of school education and has achieved 62 major milestones which will eventually transform the school education sector.