Beijing: Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar today called for increased cooperation in the field of education and said it is a universal good and empowers everybody. Highlighting initiatives of the Indian government in education, Mr Javadekar, who was addressing the 5th BRICS Education Ministers meeting on the second day here, said it’s not negotiation, but cooperation all the way. So, increased cooperation in education is the need of the hour. It will set the tone for the world of the future. Mr Javadekar led the Indian delegation and thanked China for hosting the meeting in Beijing. Delegation of all the five BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa) countries participated in the two-day deliberations. He appreciated the creation of institutional mechanism in the form of BRICS Network University and BRICS Think Tank Council.
Under BRICS Network University proposal 12 universities from each of the 5 countries will engage with each other in education research and innovation. The 5 areas of cooperation which have been prioritised are–Communication and IT, Economics, Climate Change, Water Resources and Pollution, and BRICS study. Mr Javadekar assured India’s full participation and cooperation. The HRD minister also reaffirmed the Indian government’s commitment for reforming and reprioritising its education. In School Education, it is the learning outcomes which are being emphasised upon, and efforts are on to promote creativity and keep alive curiosity and inquisitiveness amongst students. In higher education the focus is on skilling, research and innovation.
He emphasised the steps taken to achieve equity through increased scholarships, education loans, remission and fee waivers for disadvantaged and marginalised sections. Mr Javadekar highlighted some of the initiatives of the Govt. of India in education where he specifically spoke about the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) which provides a relative ranking of Indian institutions, India’s indigenous MOOCs platform, SWAYAM, which has already hosted over 480 courses online and, this year, plan to host 2000 courses and GIAN (Global Initiative for Academics Network) under which 600 professors from 62 countries have already conducted their courses in India and, this year, we expect to receive another 800 faculty from across the world. The Minister spoke about India’s research initiative, IMPRINT, which identifies priority areas for research for India, National Digital Library, which provides over 7.2 million online resources free of cost and is ever expanding National Academic Depository (NAD), Smart India Hackathon, which involved over 40000 students in solving over 300 problems received from various sources. Delegations from other BRICS Member states, similarly, spoke about education systems of their countries, initiatives taken by them and identifying the areas of future cooperation among BRICS Member States. At the conclusion of the BRICS Education Ministers’ meeting, a bilateral meeting was also held between the Minister of Human Resource Development, India and the Education Minister of China, Mr Chen Baosheng when bilateral cooperation between the two countries was discussed.
