Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, on Wednesday, hailed the National Education Policy-2020 for its ground-breaking approach to education and spelling out engaging educational institutions directly in the national development.

Naidu was addressing students and staff of the Lawrence School at Lovedale in the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu during his visit to the school. He said, “Once NEP is applied in letter and spirit in schools, colleges, and universities across rural and urban India, it is set to revolutionise education in our country, making it more accessible and inclusive.”

Elaborating on his views, the Vice-President said that “an important dimension of NEP is that it seeks to restructure our educational institutions and orient them towards the challenges of the knowledge economy.”

Referring to the role of schools in this context, Naidu said that they play a key role in nation-building and are destined to be a critical component of this knowledge revolution. He exhorted students to join the national effort to make education more inclusive by taking it to the underprivileged and needier sections of society.

Pointing out that the Government is making every effort to change the educational landscape of the country and to make it more equitable, inclusive, and accessible, he said, “We should be mindful of the fact that we cannot afford to let any section of society fall behind when it comes to education and socio-economic development.”

The Vice-President described education as the most powerful agent of change which can lend an impetus to the pace of the country’s development while giving it a qualitative thrust. He said India was once a cradle of knowledge and home to great centres of learning, such as Nalanda and Taxashila, which had earned it the status of Vishwaguru.

The Vice-President said that the colonial rule not only exploited the Indian economy but also destroyed its education system. There was a need to break away from the colonial mindset still finding favour with some people.

Stressing the need to build upon the ancient education tradition and parampara, Naidu called for Indianising the education and not blindly aping the west.