NEP 2020 making education more holistic & effective

New Delhi : The IIT Council meeting was held at IIT Bhubaneswar, with Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan presiding over the meeting. The directors of all 23 IITs and Chairman UGC Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar also participated in the deliberations. Among others, the IIT Council made an important decision on National Credit Framework (NCrF), after UGC chairman presented on NCrF. The National Education Policy 2020 envisions making education more holistic and effective and emphasizes the integration of general (academic) education and vocational education. A national credit accumulation and transfer system is essential to fulfilling this vision, which is why the Govt. of India constituted a High-Level Committee with members from UGC, AICTE, NCVET, NIOS, CBSE, NCERT, DGT, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Skill Development. The NCrF is a comprehensive credit framework that encompasses elementary, school, higher, and vocational education & training, integrating creditization of learning in various dimensions, i.e., academics, vocational skills, and experiential learning including relevant experience and proficiency/professional levels acquired. IITs themselves took a lead role in conducting region-wise awareness workshops for teachers and administrators from school education and higher education. Five workshops were organized at IIT Delhi, IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Guwahati, IIT Bombay, and IIT Madras, respectively, for the North Zone, East Zone, North East Zone, West Zone, and South Zone. After the presentation made by Chairman UGC, the IIT Council unanimously decided to adopt the National Credit Framework and implement it across all IITs. The Chairman UGC praised the decision, stating that it will provide a better equivalence of credits obtained in general (academic) education, technical education, and skill & vocational education. Additionally, it will encourage the rest of the higher education system to adopt and implement the national credit framework, bringing a unified inclusive meta framework across the country.