By Our Correspondent
BUBANESWAR: G20 India’s 3rd Education Working Group meeting concludes Friday in Bhubaneswar with a commitment to ensure the betterment of learner’s with respect to skilling, upskilling and reskilling. The 3 day seminar and meeting held from 26th-28th April 2023 had discussions focussed around priority area 3 ‘Building Capacities, promoting life-long learning in context of future of work’ in the seminar.
Shri K. Sanjay Murthy, Secretary Higher Education, Shri Sanjay Kumar, Secretary School Education and Literacy and Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary Skill, Development and Entrepreneurship and senior officials of the Ministries attended the meeting. 60+ Delegates from 27 countries including G20 members, invited and International Organisations including United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) were present.
The three-day event commenced with a seminar around the topic of the future of work in collaboration with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. It was divided into three sessions of panel discussions. The themes of the panels were ‘Building an agile response to the needs of labour markets and institutional capacity building in the context future of work: enabling high quality technical and vocational education’, ‘Creating pathways between higher and vocational education’ and ‘Equipping children with a range of future skills to set them on course of lifelong learning’. Delegates shared their policies and initiatives in Vocational Education and Training. They also acknowledged the importance and the constant need to upskill and re-skill in order to keep up with the evolving world. They also discussed challenges that their countries are facing with respect to the future of work.
On the sidelines of the 3rd EdWG meeting and seminar, included a multimedia exhibition on the same topic. Key participants in the exhibition were NCERT, MEITY, IKS (Indian Knowledge System), TRIFED, Singapore, UNICEF, Meta, IIT Bhubaneswar, IIM Sambalpur, NIT Rourkela, CSIR-IMMT, Auroville Foundation and many other from Industry, Academia, Government Agencies, Multilateral Agencies, Startups, etc. along with Experience Zone on Future of Work and large technology exhibits. The exhibition was open to local institutions, students, academicians and researchers from 23rd-25th and 27th -28th April, 2023.
Day 1 of the event began with the inaugural address by Union Minister of State for Education, Shri Subhas Sarkar. He spoke about the importance of investing in education and skill development in order to ensure that people are equipped with knowledge, capabilities, skills and attitudes to succeed in the 21st century. The meeting observed G20 members and invited countries discussing on the outcome documents in preparation for the Education Minister’s Meeting in June, which continued to the last day.
The meeting concluded with an excursion component. Delegates were taken to Konark Sun Temple, followed by cultural performances in Puri. Delegates were given patachitra paintings as a memorable token for their visit to Bhubaneswar.
The 3rd EdWG meeting was successful in raising the awareness about G20. Various Jan Bhagidari Events were also organised starting from Utkal Diwas till 22nd April. Several Mock G20’s were conducted across the state which included 590 student participation. About 1 lakh + citizens participated in about 1,235 Jan Bhagidari events making Indias G20 Presidency a truly People’s Presidency
