On 08th December, 2023, Honourable Prime Minister launched “Viksit Bharat @2047: Voice of Youth” in a virtual address to the students and teachers across the country. While outlining his vision to make the country a fully developed nation by 2047, the worthy Prime Minister asked the teachers and students to contribute ideas through My Bharat Portal, and thus directly participate in the policy making and governance.
The Honourable Prime Minister further advised the teachers to become inspiration for the youth and students. He said “This is the period in the history of India when the country is going to take a quantum leap.” His exact words were: “For India, this is the time, right time (Yahi Samay hai, Sahi Samay hai). Idea starts with an ‘I’ just like ‘India’ begin with an ‘I’; and development efforts begin from self—“I”…Youth power is both the agent of change and also the beneficiaries of change.”
Certainly, the honourable Prime Minister’s vision is a testament of the direct democracy and participatory governance that his government has formulated. In it, the opinion of each and every citizen of the country especially the youth counts and matters. This path-breaking initiative has thus defied the foreign experts who would claim that in a massive country like ours, there can’t be direct democracy. It is truly an exciting time for the whole country and all of us will have to play our active role in making India a developed country and a true global leader. He suggested running special campaigns in every college and university in the country to connect more and more youth with this campaign.
It is also obvious that the honourable Prime Minister has put onuson the academia especially on teachers since they will inspire the youth. He has indeed great expectations from the nation’s academia, and quite rightly so. All of us in academia will have to assume greater responsibility and active role in taking the country ahead. This is not the time to relax and do things in the conventional mode. It is us who have to translate honourable Prime Minister’s words and vision into palpable reality.
As we all know that in the modern societies, education is not merely a window to the world; it is, as it stands now, an essential means to succeed and move forward in social and economic progress. The course of human evolution through ages till this day stands testimony to this fact. Modern industry and technology oriented world has reinforced the fact that human progress and development are inextricably linked to learning and knowledge. For quite some time in our country now, much has been done about our education system.
Undoubtedly, huge strides have been taken in the advancement of education in our country. Since education is integral to socio-economic emancipation, and as the country embarks on the path of unprecedented economic progress, what is needed is that education reaches the deprived and underprivileged sections of our society who may have been left out till now. Education or lack of it has an effect on such people’s social emancipation and hinders their participatory roles in the institutions of democracy. The only way to take them out of the state of deprivation is to spread education among them on a comprehensive basis. It is in this context that a path breaking policy like NEP 2020 was becoming inevitable.
Of late, our country has done remarkably well in such initiatives as Digital India, Educational Transformation, Women Empowerment, Natural Disaster Risk Management Mechanisms, Green Technology, Environmental Responsibility, Resource Efficiency, and, most critically, Development and Expansion of Vertical agriculture. This is something that has been testified by the recent G-20 conclaves. This must be a nice motivation for us to achieve more objectives by encouraging our students to translate them to action.
In order to further realize the stated vision of the honourable Prime Minister, we have to be also fully aware about the fact that the domains of education, knowledge and information in general and Pedagogy and Research in particular are dynamic and ever-evolving disciplines. There is no room for remaining frozen in time or static when it comes to education and all the components of curriculum.
To account for the radical socio-economic change, the primary responsibility is on us, educators, to come up with dynamic responses in the form of fresh engagements. It is what the honourable Prime Minister’s words alluded to. And NEP 2020 is one such critical policy that was much needed to account for all this. Certainly, the process of NEP 2020 and especially with its emphasis on skill development and harnessing native creativity was put in place by our Government after great thought and reflection. It is certainly an appreciable initiative which willmake our future generations more creative and skilled, and benefit our country immensely in the long run.
We will have to harness more creative and critical skills to contribute to the nation-building. There is a great need to bridge the gap between the confines of a classroom and the socio-economic spheres of life. We need such positive orientation in our educational institutions for the students so as to prepare them for future leadership roles. Due to the active role and the able leadership of our honorable Prime Minister, things have been set in right direction and motion for us to take the country ahead.
(Author is Assistant Professor, Amar Singh College, Cluster University Srinagar. Feedback: [email protected])
