BENGALURU: The higher education department will train college managements and teachers on the new format of National Education Policy (NEP) and they can in turn counsel students. The NEP implementation plan was explained by the commissioner of collegiate education, P Pradeep, at a meet organised for the media by minister for higher education CN Ashwath Narayan.
Answering queries on how the policy will be implemented, the commissioner said work- shops for affiliate-colleges have begun in several universities across the state. “Workshops have been held in Bengaluru North University, Dharwad, Mangaluru, and Tumakuru, among others,” he said.
The government has come under criticism for rushing with NEP without a proper roadmap or groundwork. The allegation is that Karnataka government’s haste to be the first in India to implement the policy has resulted in several problems. However, denying the allegation, the minister said: “We are ready to roll out NEP. We did not intentionally launch it to be no. 1 in the country. We thought everyone was working on it, we did not realise we would be the first... NEP was launched in 2020. Since then, we have been planning to kickstart it from 2021. We began working on it, even though the pandemic delayed things a bit. The Centre has given 15 years to complete NEP implementation; we are hoping to finish it in 10.”
Implementation phase
“The model curriculum is almost ready and will be released in September first week. The board of studies of universities can tweak it according to their needs. We have been interacting with universities and teachers and inculcating confidence in them. There will be no problem in executing it from October 1,” said Thimme Gowda, vice-chairman, Karnataka State Higher Education Council.
Special helplines will be set up at university and college levels; social media handles and websites will be created. Task forces will be formed under the leadership of VCs to clarify doubts.
Electives from other streams
On how single-discipline colleges will offer electives from other streams, officials said colleges can collaborate with neighbourhood institutions offering those streams. “Just like school clusters are mooted, colleges can collaborate with their neighbourhood institutions. However, this might take time and may not be possible this year. In case private colleges want to collaborate, they are free to do so,” said the commissioner.
Language policy
On the language policy, the minister said: “In primary classes, we have a three-language policy and in higher education, two. Kannada is mandatory for four semesters in degrees. It will only be functional Kannada for non-native speakers like in VTU... Students are anyway studying in English medium, they needn’t take English as the second language, so they can opt for other languages,” he said.
On budget constraints
Asked about budget constraints in rolling out NEP, the minister said: “It’s not dependent on funds, it is about maximum utilisation of existing resources in giving flexibility to the existing system. To bridge the digital divide, since 2019, we are giving devices. Digitalisation in education has been given utmost priority. Benchmarking should be done by government institutions.”
The model curriculum will only be 10-15% different from the existing syllabus and teachers are already being trained in the new format, said department officials.
