Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has instructed the education officials to work towards introducing International Baccalaureate (IB) syllabus in government schools and colleges after a thorough study on the purpose and objectives of students and the needs of educational system.
Addressing a review meeting on the Education Department at his camp office at Tadepalli near here on August 14 (Monday), Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said that the study should include the steps needed for introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a subject in higher education, besides sharpening teaching abilities of the faculty.
The study should serve the purpose of shaping the students into ‘world-class products’ in tune with the changing trends in science and technology, business, research and economic fields, he said, adding that students from the State should be recognised across the world.
“Unlike the previous TDP government that had neglected the requirement of students, we are striving for improving the creativity of students. People who desire to be leaders should welcome such revolutionary changes being introduced. Education should be job-oriented and the examination system should be able to assess the practicability of what the students have learned in schools and colleges. Awareness should be created among the parents as well. Our aim is to make teaching in government schools and colleges world standard,” said Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that steps were being taken to set up Centres of Excellence for research in AI and introduce foundation courses in higher education during last semester. As many as 1,17,012 students who have enrolled for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have learnt 1.5 lakh courses and achieved 5.09 lakh credits, they said.
In response, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said, “More topics in AI should be included in the syllabus with the support of famed organisations of international academic community such as IB for improving creativity levels of students. AI should be introduced as a pilot course first before introducing it in a full-fledged manner.”
Bi-lingual content
The available AI material should be used to improve teaching and learning methods of various subjects to deal with the scarcity of faculty and content. The comprehensive AI foundation course will have digital and bi-lingual content which is being developed with the cooperation of international institutions. Steps are also being taken to develop AR, VR content and digital infrastructure and use AI teaching methods and research. Computer vision zones, image processing zones and metaverse learning zones will be established at the university level soon, besides developing faculty application programmes with the use of AI tools, the Chief Minister said.
Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana, Principal Secretaries Praveen Prakash (School Education) and J. Syamala Rao (Higher Education), School Education Commissioner S. Suresh Kumar, Higher Education Council Chairman K. Hemachandra Reddy, Finance Secretary K.V.V. Satyanarayana, Commissioners Sourabh Gour (Intermediate Education), P. Bhaskar (College Education) and K. Bhaskar (School Education Infrastructure), Sarvadiksha Abhyan State Project Director B. Srinivas Rao, Mid-day Meals Director Nidhi Meena, APEWIDC MD C.S. Diwan Reddy and other senior officials were present in the review meeting.
