Education Ministry to hold India G20 4th Education Working Group meeting from June 19

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Education will host the fourth and final Education Working Group (EDWG) meeting in Pune, Maharashtra from June 19 to 21. The fourth and final EDWG meeting will be held under the theme of “Ensuring Foundation Literacy and Numeracy, especially in the context of blended learning” and culminate with the Education Ministerial meeting on June 22.

As a run-up to the main event, a two-day National Conference on Foundation Literacy and Numeracy, ‘Creating the Base for Lifelong Learning’ will also be organised between June 17 and June 18 at Savitribai Phule University, Pune.

The conference seeks to identify and discuss the best practices states are adopting in creating an environment that facilitates foundational literacy and numeracy in young learners.

Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Sanjay Kumar today briefing the media today said that the objective of the conference is to reflect on two important themes: teaching-learning approaches and pedagogy for FLN in the context of multilingualism and capacity building and training of teachers in blended mode.

Experts from various fields have been invited to share their experiences and learning with the audience to identify the areas of joint initiatives, cross learning and the challenges in the implementation, Kumar added saying that representatives from the education departments of all states and UTs in India, knowledge partners of Government of India (UNESCO and UNICEF) and civil society agencies will be participating in this event.

He also said that to involve people from all strata of life, numerous activities, including Janbhagidari events, workshop, exhibitions, seminars and conferences have already been started from June 1 at the state, district, block, panchayat and school level to involve people from all strata of life in the run up to the fourth Education Working Group Meeting of G20

In addition to Sanjay Kumar, secretary, higher education, K Sanjay Murthy and secretary, skill development and entrepreneurship, Atul Kumar Tiwari was also present during the briefing today.

Murthy said that like the previous meetings, a seminar will be preceding the main EdWG Meeting and it will be based on the priority area of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy. He further informed that at the moment, countries such as Spain, Australia, Indonesia, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China and UK have all expressed their interest in the topic of the seminar and will be participating as panellists.

He explained that as a precursor to the G20 EdWG meeting, the Department of Higher Education is organising a seminar in collaboration with ELSEVIER on 16th June at IISER, Pune. The seminar will be held on the theme 'Accessible Science: Fostering collaboration'. This event will convene stakeholders across the scientific community to discuss best practices for accessible Science, how accessible Science can be applied across individual nations with differing local capacities, and ways to utilize science practices to support global progress, he added.

In addition to this, education ministry has launched a pledge titled ‘Shiksha Sankalp’ on mygov.in portal to encourage students, teachers and the general public to pledge to pursue education and lifelong learning to contribute towards the progress of the nation and to keep on developing skills and knowledge to become a responsible citizen of India, the statement added. More than 1.5lakh people have taken the pledge so far in less than a week’s time.