THE ART OF READING

 The Art of Reading

To practice the art of reading, develop a hungry, curious, questing mind and then seek your answers in books...You open doors when you open books...doors that swing wide to unlimited horizons of knowledge, wisdom and inspiration that will enlarge the dimensions of your life...

   Through books you can live a thousand lives in one. You can discover America with Columbus, stand with Lincoln at Gettysburg, work in the laboratory with Edison and walk the fields with St. Francis...

   Through books you can encompass in your imagination the full sweep of world history. You can watch the rise and fall of civilizations, the ebb and flow of mighty battles and the changing pattern of life through the ages...

   Through books you can enrich your spirit with the Psalms, the Beatitudes, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians and all the other noble writings that are touched with divine fire...

   Through books you can know the majesty of great poetry, the wisdom of the philosophers, the findings of the scientists...

   Through books you can know the majesty of great poetry, the wisdom of the philosophers, the findings of the scientists...

   Through books you can start today where the great thinkers of yesterday left off, because books have immortalized man's knowledge. Thinkers, dead a thousand years, are as alive in their books today as when they walked on the earth.

  Through books you can orient your life to the world you live in, for books link the past, the present and the future.

Read, then, from the vast storehouse of books at your command! 

Read several books at a time, turning from one to the other as your mood changes....a biography, a novel, a volume of history, a book about your business.

Read with a red pencil in your hand, underlining the important passages, so you can quickly review the heart of the book.

Read something each day. Discipline yourself to a regular schedule of reading. With only fifteen minutes a day you can read twenty books in a year...

Read to increase your knowledge, your background, your awareness, your insight....

Read to lead....read to grow!

- WILFRED A. PETERSON

 

NEW EDUCATION POLICY 2020

 NEW EDUCATION POLICY 2020

Ministry of Education has announced the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) on 29.07.2020. The special features of NEP 2020 include:-

1. Ensuring Universal Access at All Levels of schooling from pre-primary school to Grade 12;
2. Ensuring quality early childhood care and education for all children between 3-6 years;
3. New Curricular and Pedagogical Structure (5+3+3+4);
4. No hard separations between arts and sciences, between curricular and extra-curricular activities, between vocational and academic streams;
5. Establishing National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy;
6. Emphasis on promoting multilingualism and Indian languages; The medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/mother tongue/local language/regional language.
7. Assessment reforms - Board Exams on up to two occasions during any given school year, one main examination and one for improvement, if desired;
8. Setting up of a new National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development);
9. Equitable and inclusive education - Special emphasis given on Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups(SEDGs);
10. A separate Gender Inclusion fund and Special Education Zones for disadvantaged regions and groups;
11. Robust and transparent processes for recruitment of teachers and merit based performance;
12. Ensuring availability of all resources through school complexes and clusters;
13. Setting up of State School Standards Authority (SSSA);
14. Exposure of vocational education  in school and higher education system;
15. Increasing GER in higher education to 50%;
16. Holistic Multidisciplinary Education with multiple entry/exit options;
17. NTA to offer Common Entrance Exam for Admission to HEIs;
18. Establishment of Academic Bank of Credit;
19. Setting up of Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities(MERUs);
20. Setting up of National Research Foundation(NRF);
21. ‘Light but Tight’ regulation;
22. Single overarching umbrella body for promotion of higher education sector including teacher education and excluding medical and legal education- the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI)-with independent bodies for standard setting- the General Education Council; funding-Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC); accreditation- National Accreditation Council (NAC); and regulation- National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC);
23. Expansion of open and distance learning to increase GER.
24. Internationalization of Education
25. Professional Education will bean integral part of the higher education system. Stand-alone technical universities, health science universities, legal and agricultural universities, or institutions in these or other fields, will aim to become multi-disciplinary institutions.
26. Teacher Education - 4-year integrated stage-specific, subject- specific Bachelor of Education
27. Establishing aNational Mission for Mentoring.
28. Creation of an autonomous body,the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) to provide a platform for the free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration. Appropriate integration of technology into all levels of education.
29. Achieving 100% youth and adult literacy.
30. Multiple mechanisms with checks and balances will combat and stop the commercialization of higher education.
31. All education institutions will be held to similar standards of audit and disclosure as a ‘not forprofit’ entity.
32. The Centre and the States will work together to increase the public investment in Education sector to reach 6% of GDP at the earliest.
33. Strengthening of the Central Advisory Board of Education to ensure coordination to bring overall focus on quality education.
34. Ministry of Education: In order to bring the focus back on education and learning, it may be desirable to re-designate MHRD as the Ministry of Education (MoE).

 

Click here to view: NEP 2020 pdf