Guidelines for foreign universities to set up their campuses in India to be notified soon said Education and Skill Development Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. In an interview with PTI, the Education Minister said, "We are going to make a paradigm shift. So, we will go ahead after exploring all possibilities and clearing all doubts. The guidelines are under deliberation and I am confident that the UGC will notify them soon". Pradhan further said two IITs including Delhi and Madras are in progressive stages of setting up their offshore campuses and India is in talks with several other countries who have expressed interest. He said The Ministry of External Affairs along with Minister S Jaishankar is overseeing the project and coordinating it with several options and combinations being deliberated upon.
When the Education Minister was questioned about the decision of states like Karnataka and West Bengal were not going to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) he said that their objections are political instead of being academically motivated. He added, "I have still not been able to understand what their actual objection is about. West Bengal has taken out an alternative document. We have seen that and it is 99 per cent similar to the NEP". According to Pradhan, Education and skill development ministries have been working together to nurture students. “To achieve this, we are creating synergy between education and skills to provide students with both academic and practical skills". He said there are around 1,000 skill hubs with one lakh candidates enrolled in them and they further plan to establish 5,000 such centres.
He added, "The Academic Bank of Credit enables students mobility across Higher Education Institutions and helps in seamless integration of skills and experiences into a credit-based system". Pradhan also mentioned the issue of 'dummy schools' as a major concern that has arisen over the years. He said students will be given the option of appearing for class 10 and 12 board exams twice similar to engineering entrance exam JEE where best score will be chosen. This update was announced under New Curriculum Framework (NCF) that was released by the Ministry of Education in August this year.
