BY NAZIR AHMED GANAI
National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is a comprehensive framework that seeks to bring sweeping changes to the Indian education system. The policy drafted in line with India’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goal-4 of the 2030 Agenda, which seeks to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’.
It highlights the importance of continuous learning, upskilling and reskilling for competence and relevance for the emerging job markets. It seeks to build upon 4Cs viz., critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration among faculty members and students.
SKUAST-K, a reform-ready institution of higher learning, has always been at the forefront of implementing reforms initiated at the national level, which helped it stay relevant as an institution with promise and potential.
Much before the draft of NEP-2020 was unveiled for public opinion, the reform window provided to SKUAST-K by the ICAR-World Bank-funded National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP) helped the university to formulate the vision for higher education that is future-oriented, innovative, transformative, inclusive and sustainable.
The Institutional Development Plan under NAHEP was based on the futuristic education model that sought to bring the same structural, functional and governance changes as are envisaged in NEP-2020. Riding on its institutional commitment towards a reformed higher education, SKUAST-K embarked upon an ambitious set of changes in structure, operation and governance around three main pillars of institutional excellence viz., faculty, student and ecosystem.
In fact, much of SKUAST-K’s institutional progress in the last two years has been a result of innovative and futuristic approaches in teaching, research and outreach, with a strong reflection that shaped the university’s education system to be multidisciplinary, choice-based and skill directed aimed at developing global citizens as has been envisaged in the NEP-2020.
When NEP-2020 was unveiled SKUAST-K found itself in a comfortable stage of operation with many reforms already having taken off in the university showing tangible impacts in terms of improved student performance in scholastic endeavours.
SKUAST-K has been able to submit operational frameworks for implementing NEP to the J&K government. The working model developed for the purpose stands submitted to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi and deliberated upon in the 6th Dean’s Committee meeting held at Srinagar.
The SKUAST-K model has been received well and shall form the basis of the Revised Curriculum for Agriculture and Allied Disciplines.
Proposed Model of Agricultural Education
The existing curriculum for agricultural and allied sectors for undergraduate and PG degree programmes warrants a complete overhauling as the challenges, priorities and opportunities for Indian Agriculture are different now than what they were a few years back.
New Education Policy-2020 has made it mandatory for all educational institutions to revamp the present educational system in light of the NEP and develop the pedagogy and curriculum in such a way that accommodates high flexibility for the students to tailor their degree programmes most conveniently.
Gave them a number of options to choose the courses according to their needs, choices and professional requirements and stimulate and nurture the individual capabilities and faculties of the students in the best possible manner and enabling ecosystem.
While restructuring the education system in light of the NEP-2020, SKUAST-K opted for complete and radical reformation as given in the Implementation Strategy document published by the ICAR.
With a new mindset having sought innovative, skill, entrepreneurship and outcome-based, quality, internationalized, ITK and IT-oriented time-tested interventions through IDP-NAHEP project during the last two years achieving tangible results on the objectives of the Project, majority of which found its parallelism with the objectives of NEP-2020.
The working model encompasses the modalities on:
1. A flexible curriculum with the concept of cafeteria courses both online and offline for wider choices for the students
2. Structured mechanism for multiple entry and exit (MEE) options with each year comprising of a complete module with defined skill sets
3. Certificate and Diploma in agriculture focusing on skills and vocational training to empower and enable the students to start their entrepreneurship ventures.
4. An apportioned Student Ready programme with comparable credit distribution across a four-year period instead of staked in the 4th year
5. Shuffling of approved courses in a manner befitting the requirements of the certificate and the Diploma in Agriculture
6. Skill-based courses and courses with the entrepreneurial potential to be streamed during 1st and 2nd year of the graduate programmes in place of fundamental type of courses
7. Hard core science-based and advanced type of courses to be aligned during the 3rd and the 4th year of the programmes
The key features of this model are as under:
A. Foundation Programme
It is an innovative immersion programme designed to integrate multiple stream students at the beginning of admission and aims at instilling life skills, identifying diverse potentialities and creating a platform for students to learn from each other’s life experiences.
It will comprise sessions from alumni, business leaders, outstanding achievers in diverse fields, and people with inspiring life experiences. During the programme, the students will also know about the operational framework of the academic process in the university, the challenges of being a science student and the opportunities that they can explore in life.
B. Restructuring Curriculum
The aim is to make the curriculum Flexible, Choice-based and Inter-disciplinary to
1. Create a window for multiple entries and exit system (MEES) and develop core skill-based Certificate and diploma courses.
2. Promote Soft Skills (reflecting social, life, communication, and leadership skills);
3. Promote Higher Order Skills compliant with the 4th industrial revolution driven by artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT and robotics, satellite-driven agriculture, precision farming, bioinformatics, computational biology etc
4. Business and entrepreneurship skills to enhance employability in high-paid industry and to groom them as entrepreneurs
5. Creativity and Innovation Skills to unleash his/her potential to provide new solutions to the problems of society and the industry
6. National / International Internship for better exposure
To achieve this goal total credit load of 180 hours during a four-year degree programme has been suggested to be redistributed, as under:
» Core Credits of UG degree program: 120 credit hours
» Designer Courses: Elective courses drawn from a cafeteria of course modules that define specialisation and skill sets of certificate and diploma programmes apportioned in the first four semesters 20 credit hours
» 20 credits for soft skills, higher order skills, business and entrepreneurial skills, creativity and innovation skills, national/international internships
Both options are for Degree by Design:
1. The students leaving the programme after completing the certificate and diploma can join back the degree programmes.
2. Student READY per se needs to be dispensed with in the new setup. However, these vocational credits are proposed to be distributed during the first two years as a part of the Certificate and Diploma modules.
3. Each student leaving after 1, 2 or 4 years will have an option to do an internship for 03-06 months for having proficiency in the specific area of their interest.
C. Concept of the cafeteria courses
It is a concept that provides a platform to the students for utilising the option and flexibility for designing their degree programmes and the skill sets they wish to hone.
Faculties and colleges will develop a large Cafeteria of Courses to accommodate optional Choice based components comprising of
» Subject Domain courses on electives
» Vocational modules on skill development
» Courses on leadership, communication, culture and Indian languages
» Courses on creative and critical thinking, innovation skills, Higher order skills, Data science, artificial intelligence, Precision farming, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Nanotechnology etc
» Online Courses on a variety of subjects as additional optional courses
» Additional noncredit courses audited by the students to hone the special skills will be developed or identified by the Faculties or the online sources
All these courses can be developed by the Dean’s Committee to have uniformity across course numbers, titles and contents in all SAUs or Universities are given the option to formulate their own cafeteria of courses under their IDP.
D. UG Degree by design
The focus of the NEP-2020 is on the holistic development of graduating students which includes “arming them with new-age skills that drive the Agri-4 revolution globally, and can help lay the foundations of a knowledge-based and technology-driven agri-economy in the country”. The existing system of agri- education is uniform and inflexible with a rigid structure with no choice for the students to harness his / her individual creativity creating a huge mass of unemployable graduates. The result is that India lags behind innovations and tech-based entrepreneurs. Students will create an approved program of study that fulfils their academic and career goals
SKUAST-K has proposed the “DEGREE by DESIGN Model”, in which the student shall complete all the core courses required for a degree program in 120credit hours. The remaining 40-60 Credits shall be distributed as outlined above. The concept empowers students with a value-added graduate degree with add-on specialization in a specific sub-sector of his/her interest that they would otherwise acquire after post-graduation. To make this possible some re-distribution of the courses is required. The proposed Scheme of courses is as under:
» Core courses (Common for all): 120 credits
Add-on Elective courses from a specialised stream: 20 Credits
» Personality Development/Entrepreneurship/Innovation/Life-Skill courses: 20 Credits
» Option for additional audit courses to cater to the special needs of the students through online or offline mode
Examples of Degree by design in Agriculture & Horticulture
Agriculture
• BSc Agriculture (Seed Production)
• BSc Agriculture (GIS and RS)
• BSc Agriculture (Organic Input production)
• BSc Agriculture (Integrated Farming System)
Horticulture
• BSc Horticulture (Commercial Floriculture)
• BSc Horticulture (High Tech Nursery management)
• BSc Horticulture (Protected Vegetable Cultivation)
• BSc Horticulture (Precision Farming)
• BSc Horticulture (GIS and RS)
Similar designer UG degrees shall be offered in other Agri-allied disciplines.
E. Multiple Entry & Exit System (MEES)
The multiple entry and exit system as envisaged in NEP 2020 poses an important operational challenge before institutions to ensure a module for certificate and diploma courses that is laden with specific skill sets to address the basic bottleneck of education-skill disconnect identified in NEP-2020. SKUAST-K has developed a model restructured undergraduate programme that is front-loaded with skill-based programmes and ensures that students exiting at certificate (1 year) and diploma (2-year) programmes are adequately skilled to be employable or can create their own entrepreneurship. The restructured model not only addresses core skills but also provides an option for students to choose from a cafeteria of structured skill-based courses that can add value to their education at an early exit. The model also contains a framework for lateral/Re-entry for the students that opt to join after a specific time lag.
F. Next Gen Student Transcript©
This is the working model for the Academic Bank of Credits. Next Gen Student Transcript© is SKUAST-K’s innovative concept reflecting the ultimate outcome of the NEP-2020. It is a comprehensive record of the student life, social and technical, innovative and entrepreneurial skills acquired by him/her in a flexible choice-based credit system. It can also be said as the student customized document containing the breakup of his/her academic achievements in the core subjects which the university prescribes as the minimum requirement for the award of a graduate degree plus a record of additional optional (audit) courses undertaken by the student for honing his/her life, social and technical skills required in his/her future endeavours and overall personality development from among the cafeteria of courses.
G. Postgraduate Programmes In Sandwich/Twinning Mode
It is a concept towards improving the quality of education, student research and exposure to other institutions where the two universities sign an MOU to host the PG students of each other. The duration of stay will be 06 and 12 months for M.Sc. and PhD degrees respectively. A consortium of institutes and universities is being formed that shall come together under a multilateral Memorandum of Agreement to collaborate in running the postgraduate programme in twinning/sandwich mode.
Other initiatives that align agricultural Education to NEP-2020 on cards at SKUAST-K include:
Bachelor of Vocational Programmes (B. Voc.): Bachelor of Vocational Programmes is a type of Degree with Honours or specialization in a particular vocation or electives to be chosen by the student. He/she will be required to do the internship in that vocation during his /her graduation and awarded BSc.(Hons) Agri/Horti (Nursery Management/Mushroom Cultivation) etc. SKUAST-K has drawn an ambitious plan to establish a separate Vocational College with support from the Department of Higher Education Govt. of J&K.
Making Faculty Multi-disciplinary: NEP-2020 seeks to make universities multidisciplinary. It recommends including basic sciences, social sciences and humanities and frontier sciences, Indian languages and culture and skill training centres as a part of the agricultural education system to improve the quality of education and basic and applied outcome-based education. SKUAST-K is in itself a multidisciplinary University that offers 7 Undergraduate and more than 50 Master’s and Doctoral Programmes at its 5 faculties of Agriculture, Horticulture, Veterinary and Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Forestry, and two colleges of Sericulture and Agri-Engineering. Perspective plans are in place to further diversify by adding colleges of Community Sciences, Liberal Arts, Dairy Technology, and Business and Media studies.
Innovations, Entrepreneurship and Skill development as a part of formal Education:
Besides domain area courses in Agriculture and allied sciences, these cafeteria courses will include courses on higher order skills, viz., artificial intelligence and machine learning, ICT, data science, blockchain, IoT, robotics, drone technologies, hydroponics and vertical farming, precision and smart agriculture, nanotechnology, biotechnology, mathematics, entrepreneurship and innovations; product development, branding, digital marketing; design thinking; business development; green marketing; market analytics and intelligence; Agri-preneurship; agro and food processing industries, on soft skills; communication; leadership; Indian languages, art and culture; History; ITK; Humanities, critical and creative thinking and some advanced basic science be a part of the Cafeteria. Business Incubator and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) is being established for incubating innovations into Startups.
Two years of learning from the implementation of the World Bank-funded NAHEP has placed SKUAST-K at a higher pedestal and given it a head-start to lead the region and the nation in the implementation of NEP-2020.
Over the SKUAST-K has demonstrated its ability to emerge as a front-runner among the Universities in J&K and Agricultural Universities at the National Level.
It has consistently improved its ranking over the years to become the 6th best State Agricultural University accredited as Grade A by ICAR and has been graded BAND EXCELLENT under the Atal Innovation ranking of the Ministry of Education.
It has been able to build an idea bank of 100 innovative ideas, nurture 10 startups, acquire six patents and win numerous faculty and student awards. With all these strengths, SKUAST-K is poised to emerge as the first innovation-led farm university of the country and become a preferred destination for agricultural education.
Nazir Ahmed Ganai, Vice Chancellor SKUAST-Kashmir
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.