G20 education meets have helped in sharing best practices from across globe: Union Education Minister

PUNE: The G20 Education Working Group (EWG) meetings have helped in sharing some of the best practices from across the globe in the areas of tech-enabled learning, skilling and strengthening research, and promoting innovation, Union Education Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi said on Saturday.

The minister was addressing the inaugural session of a two-day national conference on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) here ahead of the precursor event for the fourth G20 Education Working Group meeting (EWG) meeting.

“The EWG meetings have helped share some of the best practices from across the globe in the areas of tech-enabled learning, skilling and strengthening research, and promoting innovation. The present Working Group Meeting is an opportune moment to organise various events to create more awareness on India’s G20 presidency as well as renew our resolve towards universal attainment of FLN skills,” Devi said at the conference ‘Teaching-Learning Approaches and Pedagogy for FLN.

Devi inaugurated the multimedia exhibition showcasing best practices in education, FLN, digital initiatives, research, and skill development.

Over 100 exhibitors, including Google, UNICEF, NSDC, NCERT, National Book Trust, Indian Knowledge Systems Division (IKS), startup initiatives, and all State Governments took part in the exhibition. It will be open to local institutions, students, academicians, and researchers from June 17–22.

The EdWG event, which is being hosted by the Ministry of Education, will be followed by the meeting of education ministers from G20 countries on June 22.

Maharashtra’s Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil said “Multilingualism is the key that empowers us to navigate through the growing diversity of our world and the need to teach our young generation the skills to choose the right path in this multilingual world while recognizing their own diverse linguistic backgrounds, as talked about extensively in the National Education Policy, 2020.”

“The conference will help identify and discuss the best practices states are adopting in creating an environment that facilitates foundational literacy and numeracy in young learners. The aim of the conference is to reflect on two important themes – teaching-learning approaches and pedagogy for FLN in multilingualism and capacity building and training of teachers in blended mode,” said School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar.

The first meeting of the G20 Education Working Group was held in Chennai in January followed by a second meeting in Amritsar in March and a third in Bhubaneswar in April.