NEP 2020 focuses on large, well resourced, multidisciplinary Institutions: IIT Ropar Director

PATIALA: IIT Ropar has hailed the NEP2020 maintaining that it focuses on large, well-resourced and multidisciplinary institutions which will enable IITs to spread their wings into domains such as Business school, Healthcare studies, Law and Liberal Arts.
IITs were created as single disciplinary technological Institutes which over last six decades developed significantly in the domains of Basic Sciences and somewhat restrictedly into Business and Humanities studies.However, the main plank of IITs is still Technology.
Director IIT Ropar Prof. Sarit K Das, opined that the second generation IITs are better placed to expand in this direction, compared to the older established ones. “This is because of the fact that with younger faculty members they are more flexible in approach and they are still in the expansion mode having enough space and scope to develop into multidisciplinary Institutions. The “Single Regulatory Agency” and the “National Research Foundation” are the two major aspects in which the IITs are capable of playing key roles for improvement of the quality of Higher Education in the country”, said Prof. Das.
He added that vocational training at the school level is a necessity and in the developed countries these are imparted in the school as survival skills. He observed that every person in Germany, irrespective of their gender can perform works such as Electrician, Plumber, Carpenter or machinist.
“Due to the lack of these skills at our school levels, we have been wasting a lot of time in engineering schools to impart these skills. Once vocational training is introduced in schools, the Engineering schools can concentrate on higher skills such as CNC Machining, Programming, Analytical Laboratory techniques, handling of lasers and working with precision Instrumentation."said IIT Ropar Director
Prof. Das added, “A single regulatory body called HECI (Higher Education Commission of India) will be a game-changer in improving and sustaining the quality of education. Our multiple bodies such as AICTE, UGC, NBA, NAAC etc not only create confusion but also give opportunities for Institutions to escape through their gaps. For eg: many of the deemed universities avoid NBA accreditation and embraces NAAC, arguing that since they are universities, they need to only take NAAC even for technical education. However, the majority of them, in reality, wants to avoid NBA accreditation because it is tougher to get. A single regulatory body will avoid this type of confusions and set a single benchmarking standard for all Institutions in the country. NEP 2020 is a revolution in the field of education in India.”