Govt plans to launch a virtual university soon: Education Minister

The Ministry of Education, Government of India is planning to set-up a virtual university soon. This will be in part of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

While heading a high-level meeting of stakeholders, Union Minister of Education, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank informed, “Government will soon take necessary steps to establish Virtual Universities, which is different from the concept of open universities, will help in achieving the desired GER in higher education as envisaged in NEP.”

The meeting chaired by Pokhriyal was also attended by senior officials of the ministry. The officials also reviewed the implementation of New Education Policy 2020. Among other major announcements, the National Education Technology forum (NETF) was asked to “start the work immediately”. The NETF is



expected to be seeded in UGC/ AICTE.

The minister called for using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology for imparting studies in mother languages in higher education.

Pokhriyal said that the branding of Study in India programme should be taken up on a wider scale. He asked the committee constituted for the Stay in India programme to work in a mission mode and submit the report within 15 days. He said the committee should analyse the reasons behind students going abroad for pursuing studies.

Pokhriyal has directed the appointment of nodal persons in all the concerned ministries for coordinating the seamless implementation of the policy. For all the 181 tasks identified for implementation in higher education, every task must be led by its own team leader, he added.