New Delhi: Secretary, Department of School Education & Literacy, Anita Karwal said that the 8 September was declared by UNESCO as International Literacy Day to remind the international community of the importance of literacy for individuals, communities and societies, and the need for intensified efforts towards more literate societies.
Ms.Karwal then informed that the theme of World Literacy Day for the year 2021 is ‘Literacy for a human-centred recovery: Narrowing the digital divide’ and, today’s webinar on National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) is organized on this date as it has strong linkage with achieving the goal of digital literacy.
She said that NDEAR is product based on the recommendation of NEP that aims to bring resilience in school education. She further said that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has launched 5 major initiatives in the field of Education aimed towards implementation of NEP 2020 and during his address the Prime Minister has highlighted the importance of NDEAR in education and compared it with the revolution UPI brought about in financial transactions in our country.
Ms.Karwal emphasized that the today’s connected world is driven by digital technology, so, the definition of literacy includes digital literacy, financial literacy, and other such life skills for ease of living. She stressed that our aim should be to achieve 100% literacy of citizens.
During his introductory remarks, Rajender Sethi DDG NIC gave a brief background about NDEAR. He said that the challenges in Indian education system are varied, complex, and requires diverse approach. Technology is known to be an enabler in achieving the goal of quality universal education, he added.
He further said that the pandemic has shown that technological solutions are scalable and stakeholder – students, teachers, parents are able to adapt to technology in a short span of time. There is a need for a technology framework, architecture and an ecosystem approach to allow different stakeholders to participate in and create solutions in an exponential manner, to nurture our young to achieve their potential, he added.
Rajnish Kumar, Director, Digital Education, Ministry of Education mentioned that the National Digital Education Architecture comes with a vision to create a unifying national digital infrastructure to energise and catalyse the education ecosystem.
He highlighted that the NDEAR will pave the way to achieve learning outcomes by offering solutions to learners and teachers. He stressed that the Digital Ecosystem of Education needs to take a long-term view of aspects like interoperability, data governance, data quality, data standards, security and privacy, besides promoting open innovation.