5TH FICCI Arise ‘Reboot-Re-imagine Rebuild’ 2022 Annual Flagship Conference concludes with productive brainstorming sessions; highlights the imperative need to increase the share of GDP spending on education

NEW DELHI : Graced with the esteemed presence of Mr.Sanjay Kumar, Secretary, School Education, and Literacy, Ministry of Education, Govt of India, the 5th FICCI ARISE School Education Conference 2022 highlighted the necessity of a holistic collaboration between government, industry, and society to achieve the ambitious objectives of NEP 2020.

”The NEP 2020 (New Education Policy) envisages that we should be spending at least 6 percent of our GDP on education. Currently, we are spending only 4.6 percent of our GDP on education. It is imperative that while the economy is growing, we need to invest more on education,” said Mr. Kumar.

Addressing the ‘5th FICCI ARISE School Education Conference 2022’, Mr. Kumar also emphasised the role of technology in the education landscape and called for the re-imagination of our system.

“We are moving away from the book-based education system and technology is playing a key role in it. Also, liberal arts need to regain its ground and the industry, and academia must work towards it. Let us reimagine our system before we reboot,’’ said Mr. Kumar.

The secretary also stated that there are around 260 million students from classes 1 to 12 in the country who are attending 1.48 million schools of which 1.05 million are government schools. According to him, there are around 9.6 million teachers who are part of these schools, and hence it is crucial to address their training and infrastructure requirements.

”The government is committed to offering the necessary support to the sector and this is the time when we must start looking and capitalising on the NEP,” added Mr. Kumar.

Underlining the importance of the New Education Policy(NEP) 2020, Mr. Kumar said that the NEP 2020 incorporates the DNA of the society and how a society has to develop and build itself around education is envisaged in it.

”The NEP also focuses on foundational literacy and numeracy and looks at children till the age of 8,” said Mr. Kumar.

The two-day inclusive conference kick-started with two comprehensive master classes-: School Improvement Framework and School Safety & Child Protection. The masterclasses focussed on the imperative need of establishing frameworks that are simple to understand and improve education delivery in schools. The masterclasses also pressed on creating an environment that ensures the safety & protection of children.

The second day of the annual flagship conference 2022 commenced with a welcome note by Mr. Subhra Kant Panda, President-elect, FICCI and Managing Director, Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd. who highlighted the four pillars of the National Education Policy(NEP) 2022.

”It is important to have the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn at every stage of life. “FICCI will be happy to collaborate with the government in working towards developing an effective implementation framework of the National Education Policy,” said Mr. Panda.

Besides conducting extensive education research, FICCI Arise also works towards mobilising consensus amongst stakeholders to address policy and regulatory issues, implementation of best practices, and offering solutions for implementation challenges.

Sharing his valuable insights and the contribution of FICCI Arise in transforming the education segment in India, Mr. Shishir Jaipuria, Chairperson, FICCI Arise & Chairman, Seth Anandram Jaipuria Group of Institutions said, The school eco system in India is unique compared to the global context where the government sector and the non-governmental sector cater to almost equal number of school going students. There lies huge opportunity to transfer best practices from either side and combine our forces towards taking this nation forward. Furthermore, both sectors need to understand and be facilitative of each other.”

The conference also witnessed Mr. Praveen Raju, Co-Chair, FICCI ARISE & Founder, Suchitra Academy sharing his perspective on school education.

On the concluding day of the conference, FICCI ARISE also released three knowledge reports that cut across diverse aspects of education including- ‘FICCI ARISE- EY Parthenon School Quality Assessment and Accreditation (SQAA) Framework; FICCI ARISE – EY Parthenon Report on ‘K-12 Education in India: Vision 2047’ & FICCI ARISE Report on ‘School Safety and Child Protection

Furthermore, to recognise the contribution of eminent personalities in the education domain, ”FICCI ARISE Excellence Awards” were announced during the event along with the launch of the FICCI ARISE mobile application.

The key elements of the reports include-:

1. FICCI ARISE- EY Parthenon School Quality Assessment and Accreditation (SQAA) Framework

FICCI ARISE in collaboration with EY-Parthenon has designed School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Framework for the holistic assessment of schools on a diverse set of metrics which is a combination of both input and output-based criteria and is in sync with both Indian (CBSE, NABET) and Global Standards (IB, NEASC, CIS etc.).

2. FICCI ARISE – EY Parthenon Report on ‘K-12 Education in India: Vision 2047’

The FICCI ARISE-EY Parthenon knowledge report ‘K-12 Education in India: Vision 2047,’ endeavours to address the key structural and implementation challenges of school education. The report has also explored opportunities and suggested recommendations that would build an equitable, inclusive, and globally competitive K-12 education system. The report reiterates student centricity, robust infrastructure, teacher quality, and professional development, and Governance and Investment Framework to significantly transform the future of the Indian K-12 education system.

3. FICCI ARISE Report on ‘School Safety and Child Protection

FICCI ARISE after a comprehensive review of the Ministry of Education Child Protection guidelines, together with NCPCR and NDMA reports has framed the FICCI ARISE School Safety and Child Protection Manual that incorporates the following:
● Extensive Child Safety Guidelines that states can prescribe
● Draft Child Protection Policy that schools can adopt – covering POCSO, POSH, JJA etc
● Safety Checklist that schools can fill periodically
● Compliance mechanism