Babu Tangewala
The Ministry of Education, in association with the All India Council for Technical Education, has launched the National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT 2.0) on February 16, 2021.
The event which was held at the AICTE Auditorium, New Delhi was blessed with the presence of several eminent personalities including the honorable Minister of Education Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ , Professor Anil D Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE, Professor MP Poonia, Vice Chairman of AICTE, Rajive Kumar, Member Secretary, AICTE and Shri Buddha Chandrasekhar, CCO, NEAT, AICTE.
During NEAT 2.0 launch 48 + EdTech Companies signed MoU with AICTE. These Edtechcompanies products numbering 79 had gone through four rounds of evaluation, to onboard on NEAT Portal. More than 2500 evaluations were carried out by the experts to evaluate these products. These Edtech companies offer courses on the categories like e-content for niche areas having highly marketable skills, Certification courses, Assessment tests, Psychometric tests/ Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tests, Laboratory tools, Coding skills and testing, Learning games, Career counseling, Internship support, Placement support, Aptitude Test, Cognitive skills, Mathematical Skills, Management, Accounting and finance and courses related to the degree/diploma of engineering/pharmacy/management students.
Through NEAT 1.0 – 60,000 + Free seats were provided to the students during Lockdown across the country.
Inaugurating NEAT 2.0 , Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal, Honorable Minister of Education, Government of India, said, “This is a great initiative from the Ministry of Education and AICTE. I hope NEAT 2.0 will be a new beginning in the history of Indian education. This will help millions of students to upgrade their skill sets as per Industry needs. This initiative has proved to be a great blessing for lakhs of students and it’s a big step towards Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative as NEAT helped home grown edutech Companies to grow on global level. ”
After launching NEAT 2.0 Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe told that this portal is going to revolutionize the future of online learning in India, especially after the coronavirus pandemic outbreak.
“The launch of NEAT 2.0 is creating new hopes in the Indian educational sector. I strongly believe that this portal is going to bring revolutionary changes in online learning. The new portal that makes use of artificial intelligence tools will help to offer a personalized learning experience to students which will bring better outcomes for students,” said Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE.
During the speech, Professor M P Poonia revealed that NEAT 2.0 will help to verify, aggregate, and deliver EdTech solutions directly to the students, thus giving them a huge choice to select a technological requirement that will suit their requirements, which will, in turn, improve the overall learning outcome.
“The future of education will be blended with technology. I believe the implementation of advanced technological tools will reshape the way in which people learned in the past. The employment opportunities of people can be also elevated with NEAT 2.0 platform, and it will also help to tone their skills,” said Rajive Kumar, Member Secretary, AICTE.
Buddha Chandrasekhar, CCO, NEAT, AICTE revealed that more than 2 lakh students have registered in the NEAT portal. He also added that 64940 students made use of online courses, and the new NEAT 2.0 program is expected to cater to the needs of thousands of economically backward students.
Ramana TSV, CEO of Code Mantra said, “NEAT 1.0 was the first of its kind initiative, where thousands of students across the country were exposed to the best of the tools and technology platforms in the EduTech Sector through NEAT.”
“Through NEAT, I was able to access multiple courses on a single platform and enhance my skill. I thank AICTE for developing the platform,” said Sainath, a student from Andhra Pradesh. Praneetha, a student from West Bengal revealed that NEAT helped her to finetune her skills effectively, as the course was designed in a personalized manner.