[ad_1]

The new National Education Policy’s goal of achieving a 50% gross enrollment rate in higher education by 2035 is a worthy one, indeed an essential one if such advancement is understood and delivered in skill-enhancing terms. In this regard the government move to amend the UGC (Open and Distance Learning Programmes and Online Programmes) Regulations to allow 900 autonomous colleges with good performance to award online degrees from July 2022, is welcome. This will be a significant addition to the online degrees being offered by universities, which alone are allowed to do so currently.

In 2011 China’s GER was 26 and India’s 23. By 2018, while China had raced to 51 India had only crawled to  28. So it is both clear that India needs to go some distance to catch up with the competition, and that picking up pace to do this is doable. But the many question marks against the quality of higher education being offered in the country currently and the extent to which it is actually aiding youth employability, must be kept front of mind as we proceed with online education as well. Building strong online courses also needs high-level integration of traditional and new teaching methods. Basically, expanding quantity through new online courses is the easier task. In undertaking it, the tougher ask of ensuring skill standards must not be neglected.

Linkedin




END OF ARTICLE



[ad_2]

Source link