The Odisha government is pleased with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which was approved by the Union Cabinet. However, the state has asked for some budgetary clarifications ahead of its implementation.
State School and Mass Education Minister, Samir Ranjan Dash, commended the plan to encourage vocational education for students. However, he has expressed concern over adequate funding for the implementation. “A clarity on the funding of different programmes would be essential for proper implementation of the policy”, Dash said.
Meanwhile, the Odisha government has made a provision of Rs 17,458 crore for the School and Mass Education department. This amounts to about 14 percent of its total budget. Dash suggested that the Centre should also increase its funding in the education sector.
Meanwhile, the minister has expressed concerns over internationalization of education as that might lead to commercialization of the sector.
Odisha State Higher Education Council Vice Chairman, Ashok Das, informed that the State very clearly emphasized a few points including research grants and funding on which it may seek more clarifications. “We had suggested that state universities must be given priority in research funding as they cater to around 90 percent students as compared to the national institutions”, he said. He too expressed concern about the source of funding to ramp up the infrastructure.
The Vice-chancellors of various state universities have expressed their active support to the NEP 2020. The Central University of Odisha Vice-Chancellor, Professor I Ramabrahmam, accepted the categorization of universities into research-intensive and teaching-intensive universities. He believes this could help ease the burden on a large number of application-related matters that are contradictory to their research and academic progress.