Nep 2020 Webinar Series

Dr. K.C.G.Verghese Higher Education Leadership and Management Centre and IQACHITS, conducted a week-long NEP 2020 Webinar Series from 3 to 13 August 2021. This event was held in line with UGC and ICTE to commemorate the implementation of NEP 2020 and its completion of one year. The entire series’Convenors were Dr. A. Sherine Joy, Professor, Head Languages and Dr. K.C.G. Verghese Higher Education Leadership ManagementCentre; and Dr. T.Sudalaimuthu, Chief Coordinator IAQC, HITS. Each event of the series had over 180 active participants.

Highlights
Title: “Skill, Entrepreneurship Development & Employability: Challenges and Opportunities”
Date: 3 August 2021.
Resource Person: Mr. Gautham Premkumar, Campus Recruitment Lead, Tamil Nadu & Kerala, Infosys Limited.
Programme Coordinator: Ms. Kavitha Vijayaraghavan, Head Placement, HITS.

Dr. Pon Ramalingam, Registrar delivered the Welcome Address, and it was followed by introduction of the Chief Guest by M.Kavitha Vijayaraghavan. Mr. Gautham Premkumar highlighted the importance of communication skills, interpersonal skills apart from the aptitude skills for securing placement in reputed organisations, he dealt with inculcating appropriate skills and focused on entrepreneurship development and strengthening employability skills.

Title: “Egalitarian Permutations and Inclusive Outreach Reforms under NEP”
Date: 4 August 2021.
Resource Person: Prof. Dr. Vijayakumar, Vice Chancellor, National Law Institute University, Bhopal.
Programme Coordinator: Dr.J. Vincent Comraj, Professor & Associate Dean – Law, HITS.

Dr. S.N. Sridhara, Vice Chancellor, HITS delivered the Welcome Address. Dr. Vijayakumar was introduced by Ms. Jeni Philpose, AP, School of Law. She highlighted that he is instrumental in implementation of several educational reforms in Law education. The resource person informed that the most important aspect of NEP 2020 is to enhance the GER to reach 50% and that we have just 14 years left by 2035 it should be 50%. We have to encourage foreign students to enrol in our institutions. We were the global leaders in education many years ago, we have to provide quality education, and this is directly proportional to employability. All children should be given free and compulsory education that was the objective that should have been achieved even after so many decades it has not been achieved.

Dr Vijayakumar gave several examplesof the importance of experiential and practical learning opportunities for students.If a question is asked to the student whether they can file the IT form and if the student is not able to do this then they are not aware of the practical application of what they learnt in theory. Effort and emphasis are made in this policy that practical exposure should not be left. Chapter 9 was quoted for the discussion of NEP.

NEP seeks to address egalitarian principles plays an important role. NEP document mentions that, Higher education plays an extremely important role in promoting human as well as societal wellbeing and in developing India as envisioned in its Constitution - a democratic, just, socially conscious, cultured, and humane nation upholding liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice for all. Higher education significantly contributes towards sustainable livelihoods and economic development of the nation. As India moves towards becoming a knowledge economy and society, more and more young Indians are likely to aspire for higher education.

The resource person informed that providing opportunities for legal education has been a challenge.The NEP emphasises on well-rounded individuals and therefore we need creative individuals, and meaningful work roles and aim at economic independence. The resource person emphasised the NEP document chapter 9.3 Increased access, equity, and inclusion through a range of measures, including greater opportunities for outstanding public education; scholarships by private/philanthropic universities for disadvantaged and underprivileged students; online education, and Open Distance Learning (ODL); and all infrastructure and learning materials accessible and available to learners with disabilities.The policy envisions a complete overhaul of the Higher Education, re energising of the system to face the challenges.

Title: “Indian Knowledge System, Languages and Arts in NEP 2020”
Date: 5 August 2021.
Resource Person: Dr. Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Professor of Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Programme Coordinator: Dr. A.Prabaharan, Head Student Affairs, HITS.

Dr. R.W.Alexander Jesudasan, Pro Vice Chancellor delivered a special address before the commencement of the lecture. Dr.Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Professor of Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, highlighted on Chapter22 about wellbeing, cognitive development and cultural identity of individuals. Languages is linked to culture, link it with music, arts and crafts, she highlighted on the essential link between the study of the empirical and prescriptive. Promotion of Indian arts, Language and culture can only stem from an empirical study.

Success story of diversity in India is nothing but cultural strength of our nation. Language and Culture brings about the society. NEP 2020 has a great visibility, a fine document that makes it more interesting as we go on for more deliberations and discussions makes us to understand, she also emphasised on the important role of Language and Arts in NEP 2020

Title: “Research and Innovation”
Date: 9 August 2021.
Resource Person: Dr. Kallol Roy, Outstanding Scientist, Former Chairman and Managing Director, Bhavini, Kalpakkam.
Programme Coordinator: Dr.K. Nandakumar, Director Research, HITS.

Dr. Kallol Roy gave an overview of academic research vs industrial progress and requirements, monitoring and clustering of academic work, impact of technology growth the connect of academia and the requirements of industry in research perspective and also emphasising about the interdisciplinary research that is exactly mentioned in NEP 2020 document. He emphasised the need for high quality interdisciplinary research across all fields and derive solutions to societal problems. Therefore, research in arts and humanities, along with innovations in sciences and social sciences are extremely important for the progress and enlightened nature of a nation.

Title: “Use of Technology in Education”
Date: 10 August 2021.
Resource Person: Dr. G. Janardhanan, Associate Professor, Centre for Environmental Management/Centre for International Affairs.
Programme Coordinator: Dr. Angelina Geetha, Dean E&T, HITS.

Dr. G. Janardhananfocused on adopting ICT Tools in Teaching Process, He also explicitly explained the Educational Tools for TL Process, and briefed on the Architecture of National Education Policy. He alsodiscussed on the Primary Locus for Learning- Classrooms/Workshops/Practical Laboratory and Library. He involved the participants with hands on experience in use of technology tools in teaching learning process and also briefed about the ICT Tools and its Usage of Technology in Education.

Title: "Youth Empowerment and Sports Development”
Date: 12 August 2021.
Resource Person: Dr. S. Alagesan, Director, Swami Vivekananda Cultural and Heritage Centre Chennai.
Programme Coordinator: Dr. B. Selvamuthukrishnan, HOD, Physical Education, HITS.

Mr. Abraham, Sports Advisor, HITS for introduced the Chief Guest. He also mentioned that its noteworthy that the resource person is working on the sports curriculum in line with NEP 2020 for TN govt. Dr. S. Alagesan, Direc spoke on Youth Empowerment and Sports Development , his explained on the role of the institution to encourage and motivate the students learning experiences, with appropriate resources such as fitness centre, physical infrastructure facilities and also counselling centre one of the vital need for the present generation in order to attain optimal outcomes in both domains physical and sound mind. 100% literacy is the final expected outcome of NEP 2020. Strength is in developing values, and develop all the aspects of learners that should be the goal. The importance of imbibing values in all aspects of varied disciplines.

Title: “Quality Education, Accreditation and Teacher Development”
Date: 13 August 2021.
Resource Person: Mr. Ritin Malhotra, Regional Director, South Asia, Times Higher Education, World University Rankings, Singapore.
Programme Coordinator: Dr. A. Sherine Joy, Head Languages & Rankings, HITS.

Dr.R. W. Alexander Jesudasan, Pro Vice Chancellor delivered the welcome address. He spoke about the importance of the teacher development. Quality education and teacher development if it goes hand in hand then accreditation will excel. Dr.Pon Ramalingam, Registrar, HITS expressed his happiness that Dr KCGVerghese HELM centre Head Dr, Sherine Joy and Dr. Sudalaimuthu, Head IQACfor their tireless efforts successfully conducting the webinar series NEP 2020 for the benefit of students, staff and external participants. He also introduced the Resource Person Mr. Ritin Malhotra, General Manager and Regional Director for Asia at Times Higher Education. He oversees THE's strategic partnerships and commercial initiatives in Asia, and leads the team from the Asia Headquarters. Ritin works closely with governments, higher education institutions, media and news agencies, and corporations, to establish partnerships and sponsorships, while supporting universities, governments and corporations to advance their research and sustainability goals, as well as initiatives on internationalization.

Mr. Ritin Malhotra during his presentation dealt with the importance of rankings and linked it with NEP 2020. He highlighted that it’s important to establish multidisciplinary and research-intensive universities as mentioned in the NEP. Key emphasis should be on internationalisation and research collaborations, introduction of online programmes with lifelong measures should be initiated. He emphasised that institutions should strive for achieving institute of eminence and the focus should be on quality teaching and research. . He also reiterated that there should be a good proportion of foreign qualified faculty and good mix of domestic and foreign students. FSR should not be less than 1:20. The institutions should excel in THE Sustainable Development Goals SDGs, and strive to achieve social impact by engaging in applied research and innovations in issues of concern to developing societies. He appreciated HITS for participating in THESDG and securing good ranking in SDG6. He focussed on four aspects of theory of change, Research, stewardship, teaching and research for an institution to achieve World Rankings.

Dr. Sherine Joy, Programme Convenor of the NEP 2020 web series summarised the webinar series events and thanked the Management and the Administration Team for encouraging to host the webinar series on completion of one year of NEP 2020.