19-Sep-2019: Ministry of HRD announces National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT) Scheme for better learning outcomes in Higher Education

Ministry of Human Resource Development has announced a new PPP Scheme, National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT) for using technology for better learning outcomes in Higher Education.

The objective is to use Artificial Intelligence to make learning more personalised and customised as per the requirements of the learner. This requires development of technologies in Adaptive Learning to address the diversity of learners. There are a number of start-up companies developing this and MHRD would like to recognise such efforts and bring them under a common platform so that learners can access it easily. Educating the youth is a National effort and MHRD proposes to create a National Alliance with such technology developing EdTech Companies through a PPP model.

MHRD would act as a facilitator to ensure that the solutions are freely available to a large number of economically backward students. MHRD would create and maintain a National NEAT platform that would provide one-stop access to these technological solutions. EdTech companies would be responsible for developing solutions and manage registration of learners through the NEAT portal. They would be free to charge fees as per their policy. As their contribution towards the National cause, they would have to offer free coupons to the extent of 25% of the total registrations for their solution through NEAT portal. MHRD would distribute the free coupons for learning to the most socially/economically backward students.

AICTE would be the implementing agency for NEAT programme. The scheme shall be administered under the guidance of an Apex Committee constituted by MHRD. Independent Expert Committees would be constituted for evaluating and selecting the EdTech solutions. MoUs will be signed with the shortlisted EdTech companies. Awareness programs would be taken up by MHRD to create awareness of the NEAT solutions to teachers and students.

 MHRD proposes to launch and operationalise NEAT  in early November 2019.

28-Jun-2019: Five-year vision plan 'Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP)' finalised and released by HRD Ministry

In accordance with the decision of the Prime Minister for finalizing a five-year vision plan for each Ministry, the Department of Higher Education of HRD Ministry has finalized and released a five-year vision plan named Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP). This report has been prepared after a detailed exercise done by the Experts covering the following ten areas:

The ten Expert Groups drawn from senior academicians, administrators and industrialists, have suggested more than 50 initiatives that would transform the higher education sector completely. The Groups have set the following goals for higher education sector:

1. Double the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education and resolve the geographically and socially skewed access to higher education institutions in India.
2. Upgrade the quality of education to global standards.
3. Position at least 50 Indian institutions among the top-1000 global universities.
4. Introduce governance reforms in higher education for well-administered campuses.
5. Accreditation of all institutions as an assurance of quality.
6. Promote Research & Innovation ecosystems for positioning India in the Top-3 countries in the world in matters of knowledge creation.
7. Double the employability of the students passing out of higher education.
8. Harness education technology for expanding the reach and improving pedagogy.
9. Promote India as a global study destination.
10. Achieve a quantum increase in investment in higher education.

For each initiative, the Groups have recommended modalities for implementation, investments and timelines. The proposal would now be taken for inter-departmental consultations and appraisal through the EFC mechanism before being taken to Cabinet for approval.

25-May-2019: Higher education to get a boost with ₹1.5 lakh crore action plan

The Ministry of Human Resource Development plans to launch an ambitious ₹1.5 lakh crore action plan to improve the quality and accessibility of higher education over the next five years.

This is being described as the implementation plan for the National Education Policy — a 2014 poll promise from the BJP — which is also likely to be released in a week's time, after five years of repeated delays and extensions. The last NEP was released in 1986, with a revision in 1992.

EQUIP stands for the Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme and was crafted by ten committees led by experts within the government such as NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, principal scientific advisor K. Vijay Raghavan and former revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia, as well as some corporate chiefs.

The ten committees have drafted strategy to improve access to higher education, especially for underserved communities; improve the gross enrolment ration; improve teaching and learning processes; build educational infrastructure; improve the quality of research and innovation; use technology and online learning tools; and work on accreditation systems, governance structures and financing. It will need substantial investments, to the tune of ₹1.5 lakh crore [over five years].

This is the implementation part [of the higher education section] of NEP, which we hope to release by May 31, after the new government is in place. Other officials involved in the preparation of NEP and EQUIP said the release was more likely in early June.

Given that the last budget only allocated ₹37,461 crore to the higher education department, the EQUIP project will need to rely on extra-budgetary resources. The secretary said the Centre would mobilise money from the marketplace through the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA).

This would go beyond HEFA’s current ambit. The joint venture between the HRD Ministry and Canara Bank, set up in 2017, has been tasked with raising ₹1 lakh crore to finance infrastructure improvements in higher education by 2022. So far, projects worth ₹30,000 crore have been approved.

EQUIP is meant to bridge the gap between policy and implementation. Policy is always idealistic, but it needs clear cut strategies to be carried out. Otherwise, there are goals mentioned in every education policy from 1948 onwards which are yet to be fulfilled. However, the committees drafting EQUIP did not have access to the 400-plus pages of the draft NEP document, officials admitted. Once NEP is in the public domain, EQUIP will also be tweaked to ensure closer alignment.