OUR Educational POLICIES:
CONTINUING EDUCATION SYSTEM
NOVA Academy would like to create a continuing education system where the effervescence of the mass upsurge of the literacy campaigns can be channeled into structuring a continuous and life-long learning process.
The sheer complexity and contextual specificity of the concept of continuing education make any attempt to define it an extremely difficult exercise. There is a multiplicity of views. This is because of two primary reasons. The first can be called normative, in as much as the area of continuing education is inchoate. Thinking in this relatively new field is flexible and open to several interpretations. The second is formal, in the sense that the content and style of the programme is determined by the context of its implementation.
In the post literacy and continuing education stages, greater emphasis is being placed on skill development and acquisition of new learning. For those who have acquired basic literacy skills, we need to link these skills more intricately with their lives. This can only become a reality when they learn not only to practice these skills in their day-to-day life, but also clearly understand that these skills will be of vital importance to them in order to improve the quality and the standard of their lives.
The continuing education scheme is postulated on the principles of:
(i) Treating basic literacy, post literacy and continuing education as one sustained, coherent learning process.
(ii) Establishing a responsive and alternative structure for life-long learning.
(iii) Responding to the needs of all sections of society.
(iv) Learning not to be seen as a function of alphabets, but as all modes of human capacity building.
(v) Addressing the socio-economic situations of the community to provide infrastructure for larger development initiatives.
Thus, the scheme of continuing education, after it has completed the total literacy and post literacy phases, makes the learners aware of the power and significance of education. They realise that education is the agency for improving their lives and they tend to find ways to use their literacy skills in their everyday life to make it more meaningful and rewarding. The continuing education scheme is, therefore, multi-faceted and enjoys supreme flexibility to allow grassroots community participation and managerial initiative.
Establishment of Continuing Education Centres (CECs) and Nodal Continuing Education Centres (NCESs) is the principal mode of implementing continuing education programmes. The centres follow an area-specific, community-based approach. The scheme envisages one CEC for each village to serve a population of about 1,500-2,000 people. About 10 such centres form a cluster with one more acting as the nodal CEC.
The centres are run by full-time facilitators and assistant facilitators who are drawn from the community itself. The continuing education centre serves as:
(i) Library and reading room
(ii) Teaching-learning centre for continuing education programmes
(iii) Vocational training centre
(iv) Extension centre for facilities of other development departments
(v) Discussion forum for sharing ideas and solving problems
(vi) A composite information window for the community
(vii) Cultural centre
(viii) Sports and recreation centre
The CECs, including the nodal one, are set up in active consultation with the user community and its programme is designed to meet their demands. The stress on imparting literacy skills to non-literates is sustained. Teaching of primers, identification of target groups, environment-building activities, and other items of work if connected with basic literacy eradication continues unabated.
Wide acceptance and local sustainability is achieved by involving NGOs, voluntary agencies, social workers, Panchayati Raj institutions in the planning and implementation of the scheme of continuing education. Various development departments, technical institutions and professional groups provide inputs needed by the programme. State Resource Centres and Jan Shikshan Sansthans join hands by giving the necessary resource and training support.
Apart from establishing CECs, the scheme also undertakes the following programmes:
(i) Equivalency programme designed as an alternative education programme equivalent to existing formal, general or vocational education.
(ii) Income-generating programme where the participants acquire or upgrade their vocational skills and take up income-generating activities.
(iii) Quality of life improvement programme which aims to equip learners and the community with essential knowledge, attitude, values and skills to raise their standard of living.
(iv) Individual interest promotion programme to provide opportunities for learners to participate and learn about their individually chosen social, cultural, spiritual, health, physical and artistic interests.
(v) The project for a continuing education programme is formulated by the Zilla Saksharta Samiti taking the district as a unit. The proposal is submitted for approval to the State Literacy Mission Authorities of the concerned state or to the National Literacy Mission in case the district falls under a union territory.
The continuing education scheme is visualized as a mechanism for integrated human resource development. Well-organized and coordinated infrastructure for continuing education can advance the course of literacy in India leading to the rise of a learning society.
CONSTITUTIONALITY AND VALIDITY:
The only clear answer to all such questions is that all Educational Boards / Universities are autonomous bodies. It is left to the discretion of University either to allow or refuse admission to a student from another University. In this way every State Government is at liberty whether to provide service to a person who has passed out from a particular University or Educational Board or not.
Regarding the question of recognition, Nova Academy is one of the leading educational institutions of the country and its courses are similar to the courses offered by various Universities and Educational Boards. The successful students of this Council are serving in Private Organization and gaining admissions in various Universities and Education Boards, they are achieving success in the field of livelihood. The Nova Academy has been established under the compulsory and constitutional provisions of Indian S.R. Act XXl-1860 .
Nova Academy is not in receipt of any grant-in-aid either from the Government or from the UGC, so far. Therefore UGC Act is not applicable to the Council.
Viewed at from the fulfillment of provisions of the articles 14, 19(1), 21, 29, 30, 45, 46 344 & 351 of the Indian Constitution 1950, the work done by Nova Academy is a valid one for appreciation.
The concept of Distance Education originated from Berlin (Germany) in 1856. Afterwards, Russia granted recognition to distance education in the world. In this manner the idea of Open Universities was conceived by the British Prime Minister Mr. Harold Wilson in the year 1863 to provide an opportunity to persons who were otherwise denied opportunities to further their education and make their life successful. In 1969 under the Royal Charter an Open University was established the success of which was more far reaching than the traditional Universities. Under the new Education Policy 1986, the Government of India laid particular stress on Open Universities and Distance Education
Nova Academy is getting necessary direction and full co-operation from Educationists, Professors, Philanthropists, Social Workers, and Corporate Managers of MNCs of our country. It is their unanimous opinion that Nova Academy has given practical shape to the concept of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson by providing Open and Distance Education to the under privileged sections of students and encouraging students for learning in depth. Under Human Rights Protection Act, 1993, autonomous bodies like the Nova Academy have been given special protection. For further details please see AIR 1993 SC 217B.