The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 emphasises the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its role in school education. Under Para 4.24, the Policy envisages concerted curricular and pedagogical initiatives, including the introduction of contemporary subjects such as Artificial Intelligence at relevant stages to develop essential skills among students at all levels. In alignment with the vision of NEP 2020, which emphasises the integration of emerging technologies in education, including Artificial Intelligence, the Ministry of Education has undertaken several initiatives to equip teachers, school heads and teacher educators with the necessary competencies for AI-assisted pedagogy.

Strengthening of teacher education and continuous professional development is supported under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Samagra Shiksha, aligned with NEP 2020. The Scheme provides support for strengthening the physical infrastructure of Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs), including State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs) and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs); strengthening the academic and professional capacities of teacher educators; providing continuous academic support through Block Resource Centres (BRCs) and Cluster Resource Centres (CRCs); and supporting inservice training of teachers, school heads, teacher educators, resource persons, master trainers and newly recruited teachers through the approved Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWP&B) of the respective States/UTs. Further, the Ministry implements Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and digital initiatives under Samagra Shiksha to strengthen digital learning in Government schools by supporting digital infrastructure, digital boards, virtual classrooms, training resources and other emerging technologies.

The Department also implements NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads' and Teachers' Holistic Advancement), a flagship teacher capacity-building programme under Samagra Shiksha. The programme includes dedicated modules on AI in Education, digital pedagogy and educational technology. Subject-specific Level-II Educational Technology modules include digital tools for Mathematics, Science, Languages and Social Sciences. NISHTHA is delivered through the DIKSHA platform, enabling teachers to access self-paced digital learning resources.

Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA), the Nation's digital platform for school education, provides quality digital content, QR-coded Energised Textbooks (ETBs), teacher training resources and digital learning materials for States/UTs. DIKSHA has evolved into a robust Learning Management System (LMS) supporting end-to-end digital learning through course creation, content delivery, learner engagement, assessments, progress tracking and certification. The platform incorporates personalised and AI-enabled learning support and currently hosts more than 350 live courses, including about 59 courses on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Learning, thereby supporting continuous professional development of teachers and promoting AI-enabled teaching-learning practices.

To ensure that educators remain abreast of emerging technologies, the Ministry of Education and NCERT organise regular capacity-building programmes, consultation workshops and webinars covering Artificial Intelligence, Content-Pedagogy-Technology integration, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Open Educational Resources and AI-enabled teaching-learning practices. Recognising the critical role of teachers in leveraging technology to improve learning outcomes, NCERT has been continuously organising AI-related training programmes, benefiting more than 96,000 participants. Further, NCERT regularly conducts AI Awareness, Ethical Usage and AI Tools training programmes. CBSE and NCERT also offer self-paced online courses on Artificial Intelligence. AI capacity building programmes for teachers are also organised by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) through reputed institutions.

Further, under the National Mission for Mentoring (NMM), envisaged under Para 15.11 of NEP 2020, AI in Education has been identified as a dedicated sub-domain under the Digital Literacy domain to enable teachers to receive focused mentoring on the pedagogical and ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in classrooms.

The National Programme on Artificial Intelligence (NPAI) Skilling Framework recognises Artificial Intelligence as a compute-intensive domain requiring robust digital infrastructure, access to high-performance computing resources and a conducive ecosystem for research and innovation. In this context, the IndiaAI Mission aims to facilitate access to quality datasets for AI research and innovation, develop a skilled AI talent pool, make AI compute and critical infrastructure widely accessible, promote core and applied AI research across sectors, support scaling of AI-based solutions, and establish governance mechanisms for the responsible, ethical and trustworthy development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Education Shri Jayant Chaudhary, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

*****

RRTN

(रिलीज़ आईडी: 2291332) आगंतुक पटल : 360