YS Jagan wants integration of school, higher education with emerging technologies

AMARAVATHI: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy called upon the high-power Working Group on Future Technology Skills to submit its recommendations on integrating the present school education reforms with higher education, introducing Artificial Intelligence (IA) and related verticals in curriculum and changing the teaching methods, examination and evaluation systems at school and college levels.

Addressing the Working Group members at the Camp Office here on Thursday, the Chief Minister called upon them to prepare an action plan by next meeting.

Aiming at shaping students into global citizens by making them competitive with proper training in emerging and future technologies, the Chief Minister constituted the Working Group last month to make necessary recommendations. It consists of senior officials and representatives of global tech companies like Google, Microsoft, NASSCOM, Dataviv Technologies and Primus Partners India.

“As part of the reforms in higher education, we need to work on including augmented reality, virtual reality and related subjects into the curriculum and introducing necessary verticals like AI in every course in majority schools and colleges for turning our students into experts of various emerging technologies,” he told them, stressing on the need to train the faculty also with the expertise of teaching these subjects.

While taking up these reforms on a large scale, school and higher education systems also should be integrated along with the curriculum, he said.

If these subjects were taught to one generation of students, it would continue further and the state could produce necessary experts in emerging and future technologies so that the students could compete globally, he added.

The main challenge was taking the present reforms in school education to the next level and integrating them with higher education, he said, adding that teaching methods, examination and evaluation systems in schools and colleges also should be changed in tune with the emerging and future technologies.

“Since we are in the age of the International Baccalaureate (IB), our students can't compete globally unless we bring out the necessary changes,” he said.

" By taking forward these changes and integrating them with the higher education, we can turn our students into global leaders and IT experts. To achieve this objective, I am seeking your cooperation," he said.

In cooperation with IB, Oxford and Cambridge, “we are going to change the curriculum and teaching methodology which would be a benchmark for the entire country,” he said, asking them to keep the on-going digitalisation in Government schools in mind while making suggestions.

If there state could extend the training of future technology skills to the students of higher education from the school level, the students would be able to get good jobs when they completed graduation, he said, adding that virtual content and virtual teaching should also be introduced in all higher educational courses including engineering and medicine.

“There is a need to introduce robotics also wherever necessary in higher education,” he said adding that a policy is needed to implement the changes.

The aim behind this exercise was that Government wanted students to acquire knowledge of high-end technologies during their education and gain top notch posts at international level after completing the courses, he said.

Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana, Chief Secretary Dr KS Jawahar Reddy, Microsoft Learning and Skills Director Dr Vinni Jauhari, Intel Senior Director (Asia Pacific and Japan) Sweta Khurana, NASSCOM Vice Presidetn Dr Sandhya Chintala, Primus Partners India co-founder & MD Charu Malhotra and Education Consultant Puja Katra, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research founder president Dr Jaijith Bhattacharya, Amazon Web Services Head of Skills to Jobs (India and South Asia) DP Singh, Google Lead Education Srinivs Garimella, Microsoft Skills Program Manager Kishore Garg, Dataviv Technologies MD Vedant Ahluwalia & Board Member Atul Kumar, School Education Principal Secretary Praveen Prakash, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan Project Director B. Srinivasa Rao, Midday Meal Scheme Director Nidhi Meena, School Education Commissioner (Basic infrastructure) K. Bhaskar, Higher Education Council Chairman Hemachandra Reddy, APEWIDC MD N. Diwan Reddy and other senior officials were present.