Inclusive and accessible education: G20 EdWG meeting enters 2nd day

CHENNAI: The second day of the G20 Education Working Group commenced here on Tuesday. During the event, K Sanjay Murthy, secretary of higher education, Ministry of Education, Iwan Syahril, co-chair of Indonesia and Natalia Cabral de Rego Barros, co-chair of Brazil took part in the meeting along with representatives of UNESCO, UNICEF and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Additionally, L Murugan, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying took part in the event.

Addressing the audience Murugan said, "The aim of the education working group is to work collectively and evolve solutions that will help all countries and societies to strengthen their education system and attain the targets under the UN sustainable development goal."

"As education is a key factor for development and keeping the same in mind, India has launched National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Under NEP, initiatives have been rolled out for making education more inclusive, accessible, affordable and relevant,” added Murugan.

According to the minister, the Union government is keen in addressing issues of early childhood care and education, preventing school dropout, introducing innovative pedagogies, focus on teachers training, making higher education multi-disciplinary and flexible and extensive use of technology to improve the teaching learning process and more.

After the second day meeting, nearly 80 delegates were taken on a tour to Mahabalipuram, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. Besides this, the delegates also witnessed various traditional Tamil art performances like nadaswaram and thavil.

The first day event held at IIT-M research park focused on technology-based learning in school education, higher education and skill development. Delegates and officials insisted on the need to adopt ways to integrated technology, skill and education to prepare the youth for the future.