Education Minister to Discuss College Reopening With Vice-Chancellors

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will hold a virtual meeting with Vice-Chancellors of the 45 Central Universities under the Ministry of Education today, 3 September 2021. The objective of this online meeting is to discuss the reopening of educational institutions for the upcoming academic session. This will be the first time that Dharmendra Pradhan and the Central University Vice-Chancellors will meet in a formal capacity.

Earlier in the year, Minister Pradhan took part in an evaluation regarding the pandemic’s effect on schools. Thus, in the past few months, several educational bodies have re-opened their doors in a limited state. Therefore, it is likely that other colleges will also resume physical learning in some capacity, albeit under pandemic safety guidelines. Colleges and universities were first shut down in mid-March 2020 due to the original government-sanctioned lockdown. Afterwards, the schools have not opened fully since the initial closing. However, many states have recently given instructions to resume offline classes due to the falling rates of COVID-19 cases.

In addition, the minister and vice-chancellors will discuss the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 today. Although the groundbreaking policy was first put into law nearly a year ago, real-world applications are still faltering amid the pandemic. Moreover, they will likely go over current hot-button topics within the educational sector such as the Academic Bank of Credit, multiple entry-exit systems, open and online education, and glue grants.