Page 38 - EducationWorld Oct 2021

Cover Story

THE VERY EXTRAORDINARY

DR. C. RAJ KUMAR

Within 12 years since it admitted its first batch of 112 students, the
Sonipat (Haryana)-based O.P. Jindal Global University (estb.2009)
is ranked India’s #1 private varsity and among the global Top
750 in the QS World University Rankings 2022. Credit for the
unprecedented evolution of this higher education institution is
mainly due to its indefatigable founding vice chancellor

Dilip Thakore

T HE ILL-CONSIDERED 60-WEEK lock- sions on the country’s human resource pool are likely to be

devastating for years to come. Certainly the national goal of
down of all education institutions
closing the academic gap between India and the developed
countrywide for fear of the deadly
industrial nations of the West, and especially the neigh-
novel Coronavirus — the longest du-
ration pandemic prompted education
bouring People’s Republic of China, has been delayed by
cessation worldwide — has hit India’s
The impact of the unprecedented Covid-induced educa-
pre-primary and K-12 children hard-
est. A string of impact studies con- several years, if not decades.
tion lockdown on India’s 42,343 undergrad colleges and
ducted by Unicef, Unesco, Pratham Education Foundation 1,043 universities has been less catastrophic. The country’s
and a recent SCHOOL (School Offline and Online Learning) estimated 38.5 million students in higher education tend
survey published on September 6, indicate that in some to be more ICT (information communication technology)-
parts of the country, 70-80 percent of youngest children savvy and better prepared to learn from home, and the
haven’t learned anything at all during the past 18 months, majority of public and private HEIs (higher education in-
with millions of them in danger of having forgotten what stitutions) are relatively well equipped to provide digital
they had learned in the pre-pandemic years. online education. In particular, the country’s 54 Central
Moreover, with the great majority of 80 million infants government and 514 private universities have been able to
and 220 million children in 1.6 million government angan- substantially maintain teaching-learning continuity during
wadis (early childhood nutrition centres for newborns and the protracted pandemic crisis.
lactating mothers), and 1.2 million government primaries Within the minority of HEIs that have been success-
entitled to a free-of-charge in-school mid-day meal, having ful in weathering the Covid-19 storm, the private Sonipat
suffered continuous nutrition deprivation, the repurcus- (Haryana)-based O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU,

38 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2021