Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh says, National Education Policy (NEP-2020) supplements Start-Up ecosystem with promise to open new career and entrepreneurship opportunities for students and youth in India

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Science and Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Earth Science; MoS of Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today said that the new National Education Policy (NEP-2020) supplements Start-Up ecosystem with the promise to open new career and entrepreneurship opportunities for students and youth in India.

Referring to the launch of Madhya Pradesh government’s `Start-up Policy 2022′ on 13th May, wherein Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed that the number of Start-Ups in India has grown to 70,000 from about 300 to 400 in the last decade, Dr Jitendra Singh said, North India and particularly Punjab must come forward fast to promote Start-Ups as alternate source of livelihood.

Addressing the 50th Convocation of DAV College, Hoshiarpur, Dr Jitendra Singh said, Punjab must reclaim its past glory as a premier education hub of India and recalled that even in the pre-Independence India, Govt College Lahore and Punjab University were among the leading education institutions in the entire subcontinent. He pointed out that NEP-2020 coupled with the current StartUp surge offers Punjab a rare opportunity.

Dr Jitendra Singh reminded the academia and students of the historical context and said that until independence in 1947, the University of the Punjab fulfilled the educational needs of a vast region of the Subcontinent, but the partition has somewhat reduced the geographical limits of the jurisdiction of the University. He said, after Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, Punjab University was established in 1882 and contrary to the three previously established universities, which were only examining institutions, the University of the Punjab was both teaching as well as examining bodies right from the beginning. Similarly, Lahore College for Women University was established in May 1922 as an Intermediate residential college and was affiliated with the University of the Punjab.