Education Minister Pradhan Launches ‘Future of Learning Collaborative’ at Anant National University

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated ‘Future of Learning Collaborative’ at Anant National University yesterday, March 28. Anant National University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, USA, launched the Future of Learning collaborative to address critical challenges and devise plausible solutions to deliver high-quality education. The three-day conference, which started on March 28 will end tomorrow, March 30.

Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman of the University Grants Commission, and 28 delegates from five continents, including Europe, South America, North America, the Middle East, and Asia we also present at the event.

Speaking on the occasion Pradhan said that the 21st century is the century of empowerment through knowledge. He said that people-centric solutions is the core of education for a sustainable future and holistic thinking is the pathway. The Minister highlighted that the Indic way of living and knowledge traditions are based on the concept of ‘Samagra’. Modern day holistic thinking is nothing but an expression of Indic traditions. Design thinking today gives us an opportunity to reinvent the Indic process for human welfare, he added.

“With the implementation of NEP 2020, we are intertwining our centuries-old tradition of ‘Ideate, Create & Test’ to reform and reimagine our education and make it more practice-based and human-centric. We need to create a holistic, ‘Samagra’ darshan,” he said.

Pradhan expressed his confidence that this discourse will suggest scalable ways to keep the public purposes of education at the centre of learning and for economic empowerment.

“The purpose of the collaborative is to explore the role, purpose, reach and dissemination of education and learning in the context of a world that is changing fast for reasons such as climate change, geo-political conflicts and technical disparities and to recommend steps and ensure that the future of learning is relevant, equitable and inclusive, solution-oriented and impactful across contexts”, said Dr Anunaya Chaubey, Provost, Anant National University.

As per the official release, the Future of Learning Collaborative aims to create a foundation for reinforcing transnational collaborations that redefine learning and chart an innovative future. The central tenet of the collaborative is that the participants will challenge the outdated models and paradigms and develop scalable efforts that are transformative across the lifespan of education, from childhood to adulthood. Learning that not only realises the importance of local context but leverages it as foundational to the student experience.

“Today’s youth are aspirational. They are lifelong learners, creative, innovative, problem solvers and leaders. They are risk-takers who learn from their failures and essentially want to become a good human being. The National Education Policy is designed to fulfil these aspirations. I am positive that the deliberations from the Future of Learning conference will touch upon these points for holistic development”, said Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, UGC Chairman.

Through this collaboration, Anant National University aims to create networks of motivated professionals to look for, develop, evaluate, and promote pathways to better education. The members attending the collaborative will form the ‘Ignite Group’ that will frame and structure meaningful conversations on the future of learning. The ‘Ignite Group’ will consist of diverse individuals working to advance educational-related innovations in their contexts across the globe. This design collaborative will issue a white paper with a set of plausible solutions for the challenges discussed. These solutions will be tried across the world, and their outcomes will be evaluated in the next collaborative in 2024. The overarching premise of the forum is to design better learning environments for future generations of learners.

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