New Delhi: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has been granted deemed-to-be-university status, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday. The announcement was made by the minister during his address at the 63rd foundation day of the council.
“NCERT has established a formidable presence in research, and actively shaped school education, teacher training and adult literacy. NCERT, on becoming a research university, will offer opportunities for global collaborations and contributions to the global educational landscape,” he said.
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The NCERT, being an apex organisation for school education, carry out various activities and programmes, including educational research and innovation, curriculum development and development of textual and teaching-learning materials.
Officials said that the NCERT has been granted the deemed-to-be-university status in the ‘De Novo’ category. A De-Novo deemed university is an institution that can apply to the UGC for setting up a new institution as deemed-to-be-university, which will undertake study and research in unique and emerging areas of knowledge that are not offered by any existing institution. The NCERT will now be able to award its own degrees to teachers and decide the courses they want to offer the teachers.
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As of now, the graduate and post-graduate programmes, awarded by the NCERT’s Regional Institute of Education (REI), are affiliated with local universities like Barkatullah University, Bhopal, M D S University, Ajmer, University of Mysuru, Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar and the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong.
While emphasising on development of contents in in the mother tongue, the education minister advocated setting up augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence labs in all the seven regional centres of the NCERT.
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“To make India the global hub of research and innovation, these centres should be equipped with the latest technologies from around the world with future-ready infrastructure,” Pradhan said, while urging the institution to to standardise the teachers’ training curriculum for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE).
The minister further said that the children of the country should be ready for Industrial Revolution 4.0. He suggested developing small booklets on varied subjects that will provide facts on subjects like India’s COVID-19 management and Chandrayaan 3 among others.
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“The new generations must be taught about the latest developments as well as Indian values and ethos,” he added.
