Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, 29 July, virtually addressed educational professionals, policy makers, and students across the nation to mark the completion of one year since the National Education Policy 2020 was introduced, and stressed that amid COVID-19, online learning has become "the order of the day".
"We've witnessed how COVID changed the entire scenario, but students adapted to these situations quickly and online education is becoming the order of the day," he said.
He added that the DIKSHA portals has seen over 2,300 crore hits in the last year.
The PM launched several key initiatives in the sector of education during his address, saying that "these programmes will have a big role in future".
These include a three-month play school preparation module for students of Class 1 called Vidya Pravesh, as well as Structured Assessment For Analyzing Learning Levels (SAFAL), a competency-based way of assessment in CBSE schools for Classes 3, 5, and 8.
Other key initiatives included National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR), National Education Technology Forum (NETF), and a website for Artificial Intelligence.
Launching the The Academic Bank of credit system, the PM added that it will bring "revolutionary changes" for students, as they will be empowered to select, drop a stream anytime according to their interest and convenience.
"This will make our youth future-oriented, open the way to AI driven economy," the PM said.
The PM announced that 14 engineering colleges in 8 states will begin their studies in five Indian languages.
"We have also developed a tool to translate Engineering courses in 11 regional languages. I congratulate students who are starting their education in regional languages. This will especially help the poor, needy, Dalits, and other backward classes," he added.
Further, Indian Sign Language was included as a subject at secondary level, with the PM underlining that over 3 lakh students who use it as their primary language will benefit from it.
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