Inclusion of knowledge under NEP

Para 4.27 of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 refers to the traditional knowledge of India that is both sustainable and strives for the welfare of all. In order to become the Knowledge power in this century, it is imperative that we understand our heritage and teach the world the ‘Indian way’ of doing things. Ministry of Education has established Indian Knowledge System (IKS) Division in AICTE in 2020 with a vision to promote interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on all aspects of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), preserve and disseminate IKS knowledge for further research and societal applications.

The National Curriculum Framework has a list of 25 areas Identified for the Focus Group Papers and Knowledge of India is part of Cross-cutting theme. Draft Position papers have been prepared at National and State level.

In order to incorporate these elements in a scientific manner, IKS division of Higher Education Department has already established l3 IKS centres in different part of lndia. The IKS centres have been established for  research, education, and outreach activities through Research Program across the country under wide categories of subject such as Science, Engineering, Technology, Health and wellness through Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Psychology, Linguistics, Phonetics, Epistemology, Language technology, Management, Administration, Law, Governance, Literature, Education, Philosophy, Indian Classical Music, Drama arts & Aesthetics and Folk culture, Environment and ecology and their preservation, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Indian traditions, Indian Traditional Knowledge Base.

This process has already been commenced in 2020 itself. It is deemed more efficient to give the freedom to choose the IKS materials to be incorporated into the textbooks to the individual textbook authors as they seem appropriate instead of writing textbooks for each material for each class/curriculum.

Authentic, well-researched, and comprehensive material related to the IKS knowledge corpus can serve as the reference material for the textbook writers for various school textbooks and other subject experts.

The information was given by the Minister of State for Education, Smt. Annpurna Devi in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.