Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar jointly launched on August 24 the booklet on One-year New Education Policy (NEP) – 2020 Achievement along with some major initiatives of the NEP 2020.

Among the key initiatives of NEP 2020 which were launched are: NIPUN Bharat FLN tools and resources on DIKSHA; virtual school of NIOS; alternate academic calendar of NCERT and release of ‘Priya’- accessibility booklet developed by the NCERT and Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.

Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi and Secretary, School Education Anita Karwal were also present on the occasion.

Pradhan stated that Education is not merely a competition to acquire degrees, but is a transformative tool to leverage knowledge for character building and eventually nation-building. The Minister stressed that the government is working to facilitate the up-gradation of infrastructure in schools, such as ensuring that the internet reaches the village schools across the country.

He said the book “Priya -The Accessibility Warrior”, released today will sensitize the students on accessibility related issues for Divyangs.

While launching the Virtual School of NIOS, the education minister, said that this school is a new model of learning and is an example of how leveraging technology and innovation can facilitate greater inclusion in education. The school is the first-of-its-kind initiative in the country that will provide advanced digital learning platforms through Virtual Live Classrooms and Virtual Labs.

The alternate academic calendar of NCERT has been developed to facilitate teachers and parents to assess the progress in the learning of children, he said. The alternate academic calendar contains a week-wise plan of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to learning outcomes, themes, and chapters taken from the syllabus or textbook, he added.

The social justice minister said that accessibility opens doorways to opportunity and growth, thus, reinstating the importance of creating an accessible environment for everyone. He further said that awareness and a sensitized community are the essential fuels driving any revolutionary change. The government’s commitment to promoting accessibility led to the development of the E-Comic cum Activity Book, titled – ‘Priya- The Accessibility Warrior’.

NEP 2020 envisages education as a continuum without any segmentation and focuses on making education more experiential, holistic, integrated, character-building, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centered, discussion-based, flexible, and above all, more joyful. With this perspective, the Department of School Education and Literacy has taken up a multitude of initiatives at all levels of school education and has achieved 62 major milestones which will eventually transform the school education sector.