This Century Is The Era Of Empowerment Via Knowledge: Dharmendra Pradhan

The 21st century is the century of empowerment through knowledge, said Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday in Ahmedabad. 

While speaking on 'framing the work ahead: the dynamic Indian higher education context', he said that people-centric solutions are the core of education for a sustainable future and holistic thinking is the pathway.

The minister highlighted that the Indic way of living and knowledge traditions are based on the concept of ‘Samagra’.  

"Modern-day holistic thinking is nothing but an expression of Indic traditions. Design thinking today gives us an opportunity to reinvent the Indic process for human welfare," he added.

While talking about the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, he explained that the Centre is intertwining India's centuries-old tradition of ‘ideate, create and test’ to reform and reimagine education and make it more practice-based and human-centric.

"We need to create a holistic, ‘Samagra’ darshan," he added. Pradhan expressed his confidence that this discourse will suggest scalable ways to keep the public purposes of education at the centre of learning and for economic empowerment.  

Notably, on Tuesday, Anant National University and the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, United States initiated the future of learning collaboration to address critical challenges and devise plausible solutions to deliver high-quality education at the varsity campus. 

“The purpose of the collaborative is to explore the role, purpose, reach and dissemination of education and learning in the context of a world that is changing fast for reasons such as climate change, geo-political conflicts and technical disparities and to recommend steps and ensure that the future of learning is relevant, equitable and inclusive, solution-oriented and impactful across contexts”, said Anunaya Chaubey, Provost, Anant National University. 

Interestingly, Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, UGC Chairman stated that if any nation wants to become self-reliant or Atmanirbhar (a term popularised by PM Modi and his ministers), it should have excellent educational institutions. 

"Today's youth are aspirational. They are lifelong learners, creative, innovative, problem solvers and leaders. They are risk-takers who learn from their failures and essentially want to become good human beings. The EP is designed to fulfil these aspirations," Kumar added.