The twenty-first century has witnessed a tremendous change in every walk of life. The domain of human knowledge is one of them affected by the huge transformation of traditional human life into technology enabled ways of living to excel in rapid growth, creativity, development of critical thinking, and evaluative and cognitive skills. Considering these aspects, the New Education Policy 2020 focused on a holistic approach to education with the slogan ‘light but tight’ regulatory framework to ensure integrity, transparency, and resource efficiency of the educational system through audit and public disclosure while encouraging innovation and out-of-the-box ideas through autonomy, good governance, and empowerment. This National Education Policy envisions an education system that has its origin in Indian ethos. It explicitly believes in transformation of India education system in an innovative way and encourages sustainability into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high-quality education to all to prepare India a global knowledge superpower. The aim of education should not only be cognitive development, but it should also aim ta building character and creating holistic and well-rounded individuals equipped with the key skills of the21st century learners. The experiential learning will be adopted, including hands-on learning, arts-integrated and sports-integrated education, story-telling-based pedagogy, among others, as standard pedagogy within each subject, and with explorations of relations among different subjects. Further, the NEP states that the curriculum and pedagogy of the higher education institutions must inculcate a deep sense of respect towards the Fundamental Duties and Constitutional values, bonding with one’s country, and a conscious awareness of one’s roles and responsibilities in a changing world among the learners. The vision of the Policy is to instill a deep-rooted pride in being Indian, not only in thought, but also in spirit, intellect, and deeds, as well as to develop knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions that support responsible commitment to human rights, sustainable development and living, and global well-being among the learners to reflect the image of a truly global citizen. The NEP encourages multidisciplinary and a holistic education system across the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, and sports for a multidisciplinary approach to ensure the unity and integrity of all knowledge to enhance competency at the global level. However, the NEP has laid emphasis on the conceptual understanding rather than tradition ways of rote learning or examination-oriented learning. It clearly states the especial attention on ethics and human and constitutional values like empathy, respect for others, cleanliness, courtesy, democratic spirit, spirit of service, self-esteem, respect for public property, scientific temper, liberty, responsibility, pluralism, equality, and justice.

To impart the quality education in the educational institutes and the achieve the goals set by the New Education Policy 2020, the software iCloudEMS plays a significant role in digitalization of learning material, and provides free access anytime, and anywhere. It helps universities and colleges streamline activities—academics, accreditation, admissions, administrative, HR, and outcome-based education. It empowers learners, faculty, and management to collaborate efficiently and use insights effectively, deliver benchmarking quality education while creating personalized learning experience.

Advantages of iCloudEMS to Foster Conducive Learning Environments and Effective Pedagogic Skills

            The educational institutes, especially the higher educational institutes aspiring for providing high quality education to the 21^st century learners can use this Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based software to achieve the goals of the New Education Policy 2020 and benefit their learners in different ways. Some of the remarkable advantages of iCloudEMS are given below:

• The New Education Policy emphasizes holistic development of learners to instill them with a logical decision-making power, from school education to the higher education and the iCloudEMS foster learning environment and opens avenues to access learning material from anywhere, anytime. Consequently, learners get opportunity to enrich their creative impulse and critical thinking.
• The New Education Policy promotes learners’ cognitive skills and comprehension abilities instead of emphasizing of the traditional ways of rote learning. The iCloudEMS helps learners to transform themselves into cognitive learners by inculcating life skills to interact and compete with the global learners.
• The New Education Policy focuses on learners’ critical, analytical, comprehensive, and competency-based learning skills and abilities. While iCloudEMS supports learners overcome barriers in developing these skills and makes learning strategies easier.
• The New Education Policy envisions on the learner-centric learning environments and iCloudEMS facilities learner-oriented classroom in a unique way.  The classic features of the iCloudEMS fulfil needs of learners as well course instructors.
• The New Education Policy promotes outcome-based education where learners and teachers both are aware of the objectives of the outcome based-education, consequently they focus on the desired outcome to make learning comprehensive and effective. The iCloudEMS has been recognized as a milestone in enhancing efficiency and targeted skills of the twenty-first learners.
• As the NEP reiterates on the extensive use of technology in teaching and learning, removing language barriers, increasing access for Divyang students, and educational planning and management, iCloudEMS has proved to be one of the integral tools of imparting teaching-learning activities.
• The iCloudEMS conforms to the NEP (respect for diversity and respect for the local context in all curricula, pedagogy, and policy, always keeping in mind that education is a concurrent subject) and helps the Higher Education Institutes to impart quality education.
• Being one of the technological tools the iCloudEMS established synergy between learners and the course instructors which is core of the New Education Policy 2020.
• The NEP provides flexibility to the learners, so that learners can opt learning programs of their own choice, and thus decide their own paths in life by showcasing their talents and interests. To enrich teaching-learning experience and make learning learner centric, iCloudEMS helps educational institutes to execute the educational strategies of the NEP in an organized way.
• Being an integrated solution to conduct and manage virtual classroom settings and Online examination management for effectual educational activities, the software iCloudEMS fulfills needs of the NEP to conduct online blended and flipped classes. Thus, it caters needs of the stakeholders as well.

Education plays a significant role in shaping the future of the nation and technology plays an important role in restructuring the education practices to improve learning outcomes. Thus, Education and Technology has a mutual relationship that foster the national and global progress.

To deliver high quality education in each part of country,especially the remote cities and villages, NEP 2020 has come up with some major recommendations to bridge the digital divide with the deployment of technology in Education, as only technology has the potent to make it accessible and affordable. It also emphasised the role of EdTechs to elevate the digital preparedness of institutes and their stakeholders.

The outbreak of Covid-19 has impacted every sphere of the world, but every dark cloud has a silver lining and the same has been realized with the Education sector. The global pandemic has demonstrated the different phase of globalization in Education. It has made everyone to accept the deployment of technology in learning to maintain its continuity across borders.

Use of Technology in Higher Education

Higher Education Institutes have always taken prompt actions in adopting the technological advancements and made computers and telecommunications technologies as integrated part of their education system including e-mail, projectors, computers and many more. With the 21^st century Education demands, there is need to reform Higher Educations system by utilizing the latest technologies to remove the space and time barriers and promote lifelong learning.

Technology has not left any stone unturned to impact on teaching-learning practices of Higher Education Institutes. The fusion of technology with classroom learning has made the sessions more collaborative and practical. Similarly, the Online Classes are organized using the advanced digital learning tools, have proved a flexible and cost-effective approach to obtain the 21^st Century skills with innovative and functional pedagogical measures.
Nowadays, the role of instructors has been more inclined as a facilitator who can guide the students to learn the right way to obtain required information from web-based resources that assist the instructors to tailor more active and interactive sessions such as seminars, brainstorming and discussions for better grasping of concept.

The assessment of students has also been computerized with ingenious Online Examination and Evaluation processes, under which the cyberspace is utilized to conduct vigilant examination and the results calculation are also automated that reflect quick and accurate grades computation.

Not only classes and examination but technology has also dramatically changed theway of Institutional managementfor the hassle-free management of human and material resources.

Technology and Globalization in Higher Education

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasised the role of NEP 2020 in creating an Atmanirbhar Bharat. He says NEP 2020 envisages the reformation of Education system to make India a global knowledge superpower by enabling India to play leading role in technology and globalization.

The accelerated use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has created global communication networks and empowered globalization in Education. Globalization removes the boundaries to work worldwide in teams that ensures the global collaboration among the trained and innovative minds to serve local and global needs. The globalization has stretched the wings of the aspiring students to enhance the world-wide interaction, innovation, resources and prospects. UGC has taken many constructive initiatives towards the technological disruptions and globalization for the delivery of affordable and quality online higher education across regional and national borders. This includes the nod to cover 40% of the course curriculum online so that the students can reap the benefits of learning from experts without the need of classroom boundaries.

Role of iCloudEMS in the development of tech-savvy campus

Higher Education Institutes are putting their best efforts in to practice to implement labour-saving mechanism so that the time and energy of stakeholders can be effectively channelized to foster research and innovation at par with global standards. iCloudEMS has always performed exceptional to incorporate digitization in the daily tasks of Colleges and Universities. Our cutting-edge products automate the workflow of the Institutes to empower student-centric learning. Have a look at our major functions that generate a tech-savvy institute keeping the assorted needs of stakeholders in consideration:

• We offer a cloud-based platform to access and process huge amount of data and reports that saves the time and efforts of administration.
• We boost outcomes-oriented education culture by assisting the faculty in designing and mapping of learning outcomes with the academic elements.  
• We automate the imperative functions such as attendance record, timetable preparation, assignment uploading and many more with a few clicks only.
• We encourage the Choice based credit System by simplifying the allotment of desired core and elective courses according to the choice of students.
• We facilitate the groundwork of accreditation computerizing many repeated and tedious tasks.
• We bring the entire academic journey of all students on a dashboard to make it ready for use anytime and anywhere.
• We strive for overcoming the physical barriers in high quality learning and assessment with our Online Classes and Examinations utilities. 
• We make the system user-oriented and convenient for users with our training and assistance team.

Conclusion

Many institutions have technologized their organizational approaches to bring the change in their educational standards and to internationalize their programmes and courses. The NEP’s endeavours such as multi-point entry-exits and credit banks are the provisions to enhance the seamless mobility of students world-wide for a flexible and multi-disciplinary education paradigm. iCloudEMS promises the best efforts to bring the digital revolution in Higher Education Institutes that enable to produce globally adaptive, skilled and responsible workforce.

“Online learning is rapidly becoming one of the most cost-effective ways to educate the world’s rapidly expanding workforce” Jack Messman

To empower technology dynamism with Digital India and to promote digital learning, our Government has persistently pushing its efforts since 2016 into practice to encourage Online Education System and its Digital India Initiatives in Higher Education System.

On July 4^th2018, UGC has taken a remarkable step for the development of Higher Education System and issued regulations regarding Online Courses or Programmes under which Higher Education Institutions are allowed to offer globally recognized online mode of Certificate, Diploma Degree Programmes of those disciplines for which the programmes are existing in offline/classroom mode. There are minimum four quadrants for learning which video lecture, e-content, self-assessment and discussion forum for effective education; and online proctored exams would also be organized.

The effect of advanced technology and innovation has shifted the Educational paradigm in the last couple of years. Now a days, physical classroom learning is not the single way of Education, with the rise of cutting-edge technologies, the access of Quality Education can be done irrespective of time and location; and the benefits of Online Education can be given as:

• Flexibility: Online Education enhances flexibility in teaching-learning practices as both instructors and learners are not required to fix to a specific schedule or miss the deadline, if session cannot be organized. Using comprehensive digital learning tools, the study material can be uploaded and accessed at their own pace and their own space.
• Cost-effective: Education on a digital space has been proved a cost-effective solution due to less expenditure on associated resources, and the valuable assets can be utilized for training and development.
• Extensive learning options: Learning through web space can provide wider range of options regarding courses and learning avenues for both teachers and students where students can be awarded certificate, diploma or degree in line with the program and its duration.
• Self-governance: The teaching-learning without physical boundaries inculcates self-governance in both teachers and students where both are themselves responsible for their milestones and progress. As the instructors expects learner to be independent for basics and use the common time for activity based learning with better time management skills.
• Alliance cultivation: Working together in virtual environment towards the accomplishment of better learning goals, boosts the communication skills and collaboration to discuss ideas, knowledge and activities for more engaging and creative learning.
• Improved tech-skills: Online education requires embracing of latest software and tools for trouble-free and effective learning sessions that make the users tech-savvy and updated.

Similarly, Online Examinations are also getting importance and popularity due to its compatible secure digital features to create, conduct and evaluate examination with the additional benefits of saving paper, time and money. Many Higher Educational Institutes have replaced their traditional examination system with online examination system and incorporated digitization from pre-examination to post-examination activities that also led to a comprehensive, flawless and quick Evaluation as well.

Online Education aspects of New Education Policy 2020

The ‘New Education Policy’ (NEP) 2020’ which is the first education policy of 21^st century has brought new opportunities of the blending technology in Education sector. Following are the fundamental initiatives by NEP to foster digital ecosystem in Higher Education Institutes:

• Digital infrastructure:

NEP emphasizes the development of digital infrastructure in HEIs to remove digital divide in the country and facilitate uninterrupted learning regardless of situations.

• New autonomous body:

A new autonomous body—National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) has been planned to established a central body to discuss and strategize the leveraging new technologies such as blockchain, machine learning, artificial learning etc. at all levels to streamline educational management and execution.

• Virtual labs

More Virtual labs will be created to support empirical learning and by introducing hands-on experiments, virtual field visits and projects to enhance the creative learning skills.

• Virtual classrooms

NEP has also aimed to the availability of online learning through virtual classroom and study material to every student in the nation. Online learning is planned to be the alternative mode of learning in the times of crisis.

• Digital literacy

NEP has futuristic view of producing skilled and computer geek youth whose foundation is planned to be laid in the early age by focusing on improving digital literacy and making the coding and computational thinking part of early age learning.

• Edtechs

The New Education Policy has paved the way for integration of Edtech and Education sectors to accelerate technology driven educational services with innovative digital products to strengthen online education.

On Aug 10, 2021, a national webinar was organised by Education Ministry and UGC, on the theme of ‘Use of technology in Education’ that focused on the adaption of technology to make the Education available to everyone without physical constraints and smoothening the Education system. iCloudEMS is a market leader that offers cloud based classroom and examination services and empowers Outcome Based Education model in HEIs. The Online classes and examination product of iCloudEMS commits to cater the needs of all stakeholders in simplifying the management of classes and examination by:

For Faculty:

• Can use the prime virtual class settings integrated with cloud-based iCloudEMS portal to organize online classes, meetings or group-discussions.
• Can practice the advanced features to use various multimedia formats for making the session more engaging and understandable.
• Can use the innovative Question paper settings mechanism for preparing group wise or difficulty level wise question paper.
• Can consider the extensive Question bank and on portal templates for question papers.
• Can exercise the outcomes designing and mapping approach to construct questions in OBE and Bloom’s taxonomy framework.
• Can use the LIVE proctoring feature for vigilant and transparent examination.
• Can use On-screen evaluation to reduce the turnaround time in evaluation and grading.
• Can deploy the automatic credit counts and storage functionalities to empower flexible academic approach.
• Can use the powerful reporting tools to generate the results and analysis reports.

For Students:

• Can experience creative Online LIVE classes to accomplish their learning goals.
• Can use the customized learning portal to learn at their own pace.
• Can create interactive and learning LIVE sessions with better peer-peer and teacher-student interaction.
• Can access their records and performance matrix to track their learning curve.
• Can observe their learning outcomes accomplishment levels to govern their holistic development.
• Can add convenience of their own space by appearing in exam through Online Exam management system.
•  Can experience the creditable and transparent evaluation system with flawless results.

For Administration:

• Can take well-informed decisions regarding planning and management of available resources to conduct classes and examination.
• Can maintain massive records with quick information retrieval using centralized web-based platform.
• Can leverage digital academic bank to access the students’ credits to award certificate, diploma or degree.
• Can save their valuable time and efforts with digital utilities for seamless workflow management.

For Management:

• Can get a bird’s eye view to the organization of LIVE classes and Examination.
• Can monitor the virtual examination space for the smooth organization.
• Can take prompt action towards the unethical behavior in classes and examination to maintain integrity of system.
• Can promote continuous quality improvement to raise the academic standards at par with global levels.

The use of technology in Education can never be ignored to enhance our education system. India is the second most popular country in using social media. Thus with such large population, there is immense potential to develop and grow in various horizons including Education, if the right fusion of technology is carried out. Keeping the same in consideration our honourable Prime Minister, has taken groundbreaking Digital India initiative like SWAYAM, e-yantra, Swayam Prabha, National Digital Library to bring digital revolution for high quality and a digital literate Higher Education landscape. iCloudEMS offers comprehensive digital strategies to empower Online Education with our versatile Online Classes and Exam Management System to automate various intricacies of classes and examination activities for a disciplined digital governance working towards the globalization of Digital Education.

National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 aims to bring major reforms in the Higher Education System. Multidisciplinary and flexible learning are the key objectives of restructuring the Education System for improved learning outcomes. In accordance with NEP guidelines, students are free to choose their courses and academic pathways in Higher Education, and to support the students’ choice Academic bank of Credit(ABC) and Multiple Entry Exit system are the fundamental recommendations of University Grant Commission(UGC).

Flexible learning paves the way for lifelong learning and to encourage flexible learning in  Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), it is important for the students to choose their academic path leading to the award of certificate, diploma, and degree. There are many circumstances when the learners are required to take a break from their studies, but under present conditions such students are labelled as drop-out students and they get no qualification certificate for the period they were enrolled and studied in HEIs. NEP 2020 offered Multiple Entry Exit System to remove such rigid boundaries of diploma/degree completion years and provided the solution towards reducing the dropout rates with considerable improvement of Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) to ensure no-loss to students in the case of exiting in between.

Let’s deep dive into the Multiple Entry/Exit System

NEP welcomes the urgent need of reducing the dropout rates and adding flexibility in Higher Education learning with its Multiple Entry Exit System (MEES). MEES allows the students to be their own degree-maker and motivates them to resume learning from the point they were required to leave in between and helps them to achieve their goals in life.  According to NEP regulations, undergraduate degree should be either of three or four year duration with multiple entry as well as exit points. Depending on the completion years within this period, one will be able to earn a certificate, diploma or degree. The four year graduation will be a preferred option as it makes the learners experience multidisciplinary and holistic education with the subjects of their own choice. Depending on the degree years of graduation, HEIs have customized options for their Master Degree Programs; A two-year Master’s programme will be offered to those students who have completed three year Bachelor’s programme and a one year programme for those who have done four-year undergraduate degree with research; one more integrated five year Bachelor’s/Master’s programme will also be offered with option to exit at third years of Bachelor’s degree and entry to a Master’s programme. Certificate, Diploma or Degree are organized in levels ranging from Level 5 to Level 10 where:

Level 5 is the Undergraduate Certificate level and is for those students, who exit studies after the first year of graduation;

Level 6 is the Undergraduate diploma level and is for those students, who exit studies after two years of graduation;

Level 7 is the Bachelor’s Degree of three years;

Level 8 is the Bachelor’s Degree (Honours/Research) of four years;

Level 9 is the Master’s Degree One/Two years depending on three/four year’s Bachelor’s Degree respectively.

Level 10 is the Doctoral Degree.

Academic Bank of Credits (ABC)

Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) is a resourceful cornerstone of the Multiple Entry Exit system to promote flexibility in curriculum and institute, ensuring mobility of learners across the HEIs of their choice. There is also an option for students to gain the credits by learning quality Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) from UGC approved digital platforms such as Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM). This national-level credit account will facilitate the digital storage of earned credits from different HEIs and the certificate/diploma/degree will be awarded in line with the accumulated credit in a specific duration at the undergraduate and Master’s levels. HEIs will be required to register in the national ABC framework for the successful implementation of Multiple Entry Exit system and for smooth execution of multidisciplinary and flexible learning with impeccable credit count, credit transfer and credit acceptance from students’ account.

The innovative ABC and MEES projects will serve the following purpose:

• Reduce dropout rate and boost GER.
• Withdraw the fixed boundaries of diploma/degree completion period.
• Allow different discipline combinations such as to enable multiple entry exit points.
• Taking students’ choice of courses in consideration for a flexible curriculum approach.
• A support system towards credit recognition, credit accumulation, credit transfers, and credit redemption to encourage flexible and lifelong learning.

Although these policies boost vocational opportunities and enhance practical knowledge leading to national and global progress,the actual execution of such endeavors may bring real-life issues with them.

Some ground level challenges to be faced by HEI in the course of MEES implementation include:

• Decision of students’ intake can be a dilemma for the HEIs as there will be multiple entry points available for students in every year.
• Admission management with dynamic number of students will be a difficulty for potential lead conversions.
• In accordance to number of students admitted each year, allotting them the courses of their choice in line with Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) norms will also be not easy to handle.
• Once the students choose their courses, next challenge will be with the course and faculty allotment because with such intake uncertainty teacher pupil ratio will also be disturbed.
• The organization of associated attributes of each course such as curriculum, credits, number of lectures/labs/tutorials will require a lot of time and efforts of administration.
• Governance of vital academic elements such as preparation of time table, attendance record, assignments etc. will also be going to be a herculean task as the previous records of the students leaving in-mid will also be required to be maintained along with running batch.
• The Examination and Evaluation related intricacies incorporating the utilization of human and material resources will be a challenging task for HEIs.
• Being accredited is the need of the hour for HEIs, but the preparatory measures of accreditation will not be easy as it requires the data and reports of several years, and with MEES each year will have uncertainties with it.
• Training and placement activities will also be required to be upgraded such that each student irrespective of certificate, diploma or degree holder can get best out of his education.
• The gist of MEES i.e. academic pathway flexibility will generate a massive data of each student to handle for the HEIs.
• With all the above mentioned complexities, no stone should be left unturned in the practice of Outcome based education and Bloom’s Taxonomy framework, which will also be a cause of concern.

iCloudEMS is a market leader in providing unified solutions to cater the assorted needs of HEIs and upgrade their academic level on par with global standards in the world of Information and Communication technology.

How iCloudEMS simplifies the accomplishment of MEES goals in HEIs

iCloudEMS has always assisted HEIs to function in congruence with the visionary norms of the Education System. We always encourage student-centric education in HEIs and provide a digital-driven ecosystem for quick and flawless execution of the requirements. ABC and MEES are revolutionary measures of NEP 2020 to empower skill-based learning. iCloudEMS offers a collaborative cloud-based environment to align the workflow of HEIs ensuring the actualization of such insightful endeavors.

Our following key attributes furnish all the technological requirements for efficient utilization of academic resources, and to bring holistic development of students:

• Integrated managed utilities to support Higher Education ERP for hassle-free management of all pre-admission to post-admission tasks
• Digital-driven course choice and allotment schemes to encourage multidisciplinary and flexible learning.
• Automatic Credit assignment and calculation in accordance with the course chosen by students.
• Personalized Learning management system to enhance students’ engagement and creativity in Outcomes based Education and Bloom’s Taxonomy framework.
• Online Exam Management system to offer digital governance of planning and management of all exam related activities and associated resources.

• Innovative outcomes designing and mapping services to promote student-centric learning in HEIs.
• Smart services to manage and upgrade training and placement services of HEIs taking care to boost career opportunities of each student.
• Student Lifecycle management system to integrate and computerize students’ academic roles and pathways on a common digital platform.
• Cloud-based platform for efficient database management of enormous data and reports of large numbers of students with quick information retrieval options.  

In a nutshell, it can be stated that, the strategic execution of these groundbreaking MEES and ABC projects will provide seamless mobility to learners ensuring their zero-year loss with multiple qualification award options at different points. Students will be their own Academic account holders and experience a transparent and flexible academic environment. iCloudEMS has always been a trustful digital support system of HEIs through the structured realization of student-centric education with such insightful projects to bring holistic development of the Education System.