Imphal: Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Education Dr Rajkumar Ranjan Singh Monday said that despite various improvements in the status of academic profession, faculty motivation in terms of teaching, research and service in higher education remained far lower than the desired level.
Each faculty member is supposed to be happy, enthusiastic, engaged, and motivated towards advancing her/his students, institutions and professions, he added.
Speaking at the International Faculty Development Programme 2022 of Chandigarh University, the Union Minister said the most important factor for success of higher institutions is the quality and engagement of its faculty.
Moreover, Ranjan said, curriculum, pedagogy, continuous assessment, and student support are the cornerstones for quality learning. The National Education Policy, 2020 places enormous challenge and responsibility on institutions and faculty as they have been given autonomy to innovate on matters of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment within a broad framework of higher education qualifications while ensuring consistency across institutions, programmes and modes, the minister contended.
Accordingly, curriculum and pedagogy are to be designed by institutions and motivated faculty to ensure a stimulating and engaging learning experience for all students, and continuous formative assessment needs to be used to further the goals of each programme by continuous and comprehensive evaluation, he said.
Faculty should develop the capacity and get training to be able to approach students not just as teachers, but also as mentors and guides.
All programmes, courses, curricula, and pedagogy across subjects, including in-class, online, and in ODL modes as well as student support should aim to achieve global standards of quality.
Stating that a robust ecosystem of research is perhaps more important than ever with the rapid changes occurring in the world today, the minister said despite this critical important of research, the research and innovation investment in India is , at the current level, only about 0.70 per cent of GDP as compared to 2.8 per cent in the USA, 4.3 per cent in Israel and 4.2 per cent in South Korea.
The minister hoped that the implementation of establishment of a National Research Foundation under National Education Policy 2020 will further boost the research activities as it will ensure a merit-based and equitable peer-reviewed research funding and as NRF will carefully coordinate with other funding agencies such as DST, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Biotechnology, ICAR, ICMR, ICHR, UGC as well as various private and philanthropic organisations to ensure synergy of purpose and to avoid duplication of efforts.
Earlier, RK Ranjan Singh also appreciated the Chandigarh University for its inspiring tradition of organising Annual International Faculty Development Progamme to give an international exposure to their faculty.
