A New Education Policy in the Making, Says Smriti Irani

Union HRD minister Smriti Irani said the draft of the new education policy in the country would be introduced by the end of this year, even as several steps have been taken to improve the quality of education and enable the students to get better quality higher education here.

Denying that there was any effort of saffronisation of the education system as alleged by the opposition political parties, Ms Irani said there should be no politics in education and appreciated the Uttar Pradesh government and others of their cooperation in the process for new education policy.

Interacting with people at the conclave of the Hindi national daily Hindustan here, Ms Irani said a scheme has been launched to send Indian teachers to get foreign education exposure and then teach here.

Besides, foreign faculty members have also been invited to give lectures at the government institutions.

" Till date, around 300 foreign faculty members have shown their interest in sharing their knowledge in Indian institutes," she said.

Giving details about the new policy, the Union Minister said she had already attended three regional meetings. Besides 2.75 lakh village teachers of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan will also give their suggestions.

Ms Irani stressed the need for expansion of capacity building in all states as 2.5 crore students will go to the undergraduate level in the next two years time.

She also called for optimum use of land of the educational institutions so that maximum numbers of students get chance to study. Besides, skill development courses should also be commenced in all the institutions.

Claiming that there was no dearth of talent in the country, she said that now in order to contain students going abroad for research work,the institutions here were making all arrangements for the research work.

Source: United News of India