‘Create positive atmosphere’: Education minister at meeting with IIT, NIT directors

NEW DELHI: Amid the brutal second wave of coronavirus, Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ lauded the innovations done by the prominent technical institutions to tackle medical emergencies on Thursday.

The meeting was attended by directors of various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore.

Ramesh Pokhriyal also “impressed that the positive thinking and positive reactions to the current situation could avoid unnecessary anxiety among the students and teaching community.

An effort by the institutes would be helpful in creating a positive atmosphere in the society”, said a statement from the education ministry. The IITs, including IIT Delhi and IIT Roorkee, have had hundreds of cases of COVID-19 infections on campus and have even lost a few students to the pandemic. IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur have both taken measures to ease the academic burden on students who are either infected themselves or maybe dealing with infections within the family.

COVID-19 innovations

Ramesh Pokhriyal commended the institutes for developing low-cost RT-PCR machines, kits, ventilators, mathematical modelling of predicting the trend of the spread of COVID-19 among other initiatives.

Pokhriyal also enquired about various measures taken to provide uninterrupted education amid the pandemic. Some of the institutions informed the minister about a dedicated application developed to facilitate online teaching and evaluation. For students who do not have access to high-speed internet, the institutions have made downloadable lecture content.

The minister emphasized on the need to implement the National Education Policy to make way for a “world-class” education system. In line with the multidisciplinary courses proposed in NEP 2020, IISc Bangalore and IIT Kharagpur are soon to start courses in medical sciences. Many of the institutions have already started new departments or introduced multi-disciplinary programs.

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