Orientation session on Adult Education Program

Age is no bar for education and NEP 2020 policy has focused on it too very closely. To facilitate community with the education and betterment of all, National Education Policy 2020 has come up with a defined structure for adult Education. As per the UGC guidelines, Universities have to integrate formal and non-formaleducation by opening their doors to adult learners for life-long learningprogrammes and by making the University an adult learner friendlyinstitution.

To understand various dimensions of adult education program an orientation session was organised by NSS unit of IIS (Deemed to be University) on 17^th Feb, 2023. The resource person for the session was Dr.SayadaBarath, Former Director, Saksharta Mission, Adult Education Department.

He began his talk with Total literacy Mission which was launched since 1988 under the aegis of the National Literacy Mission and then he explained the five types of programmes recommended in NEP, 2020 that would be included by NCERTin thecurriculum framework for adult education.Besides fundamental literacy and numeracy skills he suggested to involve adults in skillsfor income generation, entrepreneurship development, family life education, value education or can be based on social issues.

The role of University, teachers and students in facilitating adult education was discussed by Dr.Barath. He also advised to conduct a survey first in adopted urban slums and villages to identify adult learners in the community and then involve the students in one-to-one teaching. Information related to online portals (Diksha), primer for guidelines and resource materials was shared by him. To take the literacy at further level for learners successfully completed the first level, Mr Barath suggested to enrol them with NIOS.

During the discussion faculty members also suggested few points for smooth conduction of the program:

• Registration of learners after their identification
• Data related to basic information about the learners such as age, gender, category, literacy level etc.
• Attaching Aadhar card as identity proof of learners
• Adult education program shall be taken at basic level in the first phase and then it could be progressed further.
• Adult education program shall be introduced as an annual program for the students of the University
• Distribution of credits and assessment of students of the University for this Program.
• There shall be one faculty mentor allocated for five students for proper monitoring

The discussion ended with a decision to organise one or two orientation sessions with Dr.Barath for students of NSS in the coming weeks.