The National Education Policy (NEP) was approved by the Union Cabinet on July 28, 2020 in order to transform the educational scenario of the country.
After a gap of 34 years, the government forwarded consolidated feedback from 2.5 lakh village-level stakeholders to two national parliamentary level committees, and after more than 50 months of consultations and workshops, the NEP-2020 was framed.
In implementing the NEP-2020, the J&K UT administration is mainly focussed on skilling and facilitating the employability of students, besides promotion of local languages and culture. Vocational courses, co-curriculum activities and student exchange programmes will be made an integral part of the education system under NEP.
The Jammu and Kashmir Higher Education Department (JKHED) has started taking initiatives for implementing NEP-2020 to ensure equitable access, gender parity and to uplift Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs). It has taken several initiatives and executed several state and centrally-sponsored schemes.
The Lieutenant Governor’s Sustainable Development Fellowship (LGSDF) was started in 2021 to provide a platform for highly motivated young professionals to contribute towards strategic planning and implementation of development policies and initiatives in the UT.
Under the AICTE-Pragati Scheme, 124 students have been benefited and the number is increasing year by year.
Under the PMSSS Scheme, 4488 students were granted scholarships last year to pursue undergraduate studies outside of Jammu and Kashmir.
The AICTE-Saksham Scholarship Scheme has also been successfully executed for physically disabled students.
The JKHED is also offering several programmes at the undergraduate and post-graduate level to promote India’s rich knowledge in arts, music, Sanskrit, linguistics, Urdu, Punjabi and Dogri, and environmental sciences. For skill enhancement and employability, it has identified 16 degree colleges to start a bachelor’s degree in vocational education from the next academic session.
To boost research and innovation and integration of technology, several research and innovation centers, innovation & incubation centers, browsing centers and Smart/Digital outlets have been established in degree colleges.
Moreover, a process has also been initiated for establishing centers for invention innovation, incubation & training (CIIITs) in 14 different colleges under the PPP mode.
For improving the quality of teaching and learning, the department has taken several initiatives for NAAC accreditation of degree colleges in the UT. A target of 100 colleges has been set to get NAAC accredited by December 2022.
To address, “access including online and Open and Distance Learning (ODL) education”, and “transforming education through integration of technology”, the JKHED is going to launch the “JK e-governance system” to ensure all degree colleges are networked on single platform to support the monitoring of institutes, online learning and teaching, and online submission of documents.
Under NEP-2020, the JKHED is mainly focussed on establishing a more holistic and multidisciplinary education, besides introduction of vocational courses, introduction of Honors/Ph.D. programmes in GDCs and establishment of Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) in higher education institutions (HEIs).
In catalysing quality academic research in all fields through the new JK Research Foundation and establishment of innovation and incubation centers in colleges, the major objectives of the JKHED are being addressed under the NEP-2020.
The UT government is also planning for the institutional restructuring and consolidation accreditation of government degree colleges and moving towards autonomy and boosting of faculty/student exchange programmes.