Vice Chancellor of Sher-i-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir (SKUAST-K), Prof Nazir Ahmed Ganai has presented the working model of implementing NEP-2020 in agricultural universities at a conference at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi.
The conference was attended by vice chancellors of more than 70 state agriculture universities (SAUs) together with Director General, Deputy Director General, Asst Director Generals of ICAR and Directors/Joint Directors of various ICAR-Institutes. While many universities are still grappling to understand the National Education Policy, SKUAST-Kashmir has already prepared the frame-work to implement NEP-2020.
SKUAST-K has found itself ahead of the curve because of the learning it already had through the implementation of Institutional Development Plan under the World Bank-ICAR funded National Higher Education Project (NAHEP).
In the conference, Prof Ganai presented the main highlights of Working Model prepared by SKUAST-K including empowering students with skills, mainstreaming skill education with the university curriculum and providing flexibility to students to decide their own curriculum. The concepts like UG Degree by Design, and Postgraduate degree in sandwich mode Next Generation Student Transcript (NGST©) have been introduced for the first time and a complete protocol for entry and exit at different levels have been provided in the working model.
SKUAST-K’s working model allows UG students to select from a wide array of courses that include skill courses, higher-order skills, language, liberal arts, leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship courses. Sandwich Postgraduate and Doctoral degree model calls for spending some part of degree course (6 months in Masters and 1 year for Doctoral students) in universities & research institutions across the nation and abroad. Other features of the working model include the Foundation Programme at the beginning of the degree, industrial externships, deep rural exploration, innovation and ideation workshops during the degree and alumni engagement for institutional development. Chairing the session during which the working Model was presented by Prof. Ganai, the Director General of ICAR, Prof Trilochan Mahapatra hailed the vision and far sight of SKUAST-K.
