University Grants Commission (UGC)’s draft ‘Guidelines for Incorporating Indian Knowledge in Higher Education Curricula’ proposes these initiatives to help colleges and universities to improvise courses and programs based on Indian Knowledge System for students.

The students will have an understanding to how the knowledge of the past can be linked with the contemporary education which will help them find new perspectives to build sustainable human communities. It was introduced as a concept in the NEP 2020.

IKS can be defined as a body of systematized disciplines of knowledge developed to a high degree of sophistication from ancient times and of all traditions and practices that various communities of India, including the tribal communities of India have practiced, , evolved and preserved for generations.

Every student is required to take credit courses in IKS, which at least amounts to 5 percent of their total mandate courses. It is only a student is able to obtain a degree. The 50% of the total credits for IKS must be related to a major and is also to be accounted to that particular major discipline.  That is, if a student who pursues BSc in science with Maths as his/her major, then he or she is required to take up a course related to IKS. In this case, it might be ‘numbers, fractions, and geometry in Vedas’.

For students who pursue modern medicine, a credit course has been proposed in the first year by the UGC and a two semester credit course on ‘theory and practice’ of Naturopathy, Ayurveda, Siddha, Homeopathy, Yoga, and Unani.

“ancient records of the observation of the motion  of celestial bodies in the Vedic corpus”, “ astronomy as the science of determination of time” , “place and direction by observing the motion of the celestial bodies” are some of the suggested courses by UGC in the field of astronomy. The other courses suggested as per the guide lines include “Splendid geographical isolation of India and the uniqueness of Indian culture”, “Ramayana and Mahabharata, and their important regional versions”, “Puranas”, Foundational texts of Indian Philosophies”, including the “Jaina and Bauddha”, and “foundational texts of Indian religious sampradayas, from the Vedic period to the Bhakti traditions of different regions”.

UGC has made the draft public to receive feedback till April 30. It has also has also sent the guidelines to universities and colleges for their suggestions.

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Keeping relevant alignment to the NEP (National Education Policy) 2020, which promotes “no hard separations” between vocational and academic courses, the NCrF was launched by the UGC in October 2022. According to this framework, the school education system can be brought under a single credit system.

The framework allows students to earn credits through school education, higher education, and vocational and skill education. A total of 30 hours have been allotted for learning each credit and will vary based on the learning hours from Class 5 to PhD level.

Credits will be rewarded based on the assessment of a large number of skills, including classroom learning/teaching,  laboratory work, games and sports, yoga, performing arts like music, dance, etc; fine arts like painting, handicraft; social work, NCC, and many more.

UGC Chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar has stated that students will now get a chance to study the IKS as a part of their school curriculum.

The final draft of the NCrF has included IKS under the “special achievers” category, unlike its first draft released in October. It has named 18 “vidyas” (or theoretical disciplines) and 64 “kalas” (applied sciences, vocational skills and crafts) as eligible for creditization.

According to the final document, the 18 major sciences in ancient India were formed on the basis of a number of texts, including the four subsidiary Vedas – Ayurveda (medicine), Dhanurveda (weaponry), Gandharveda (music) and Shilpa (architecture); Purana, Nayaya, Mimansa, Dharmashastra, Vedanga, the six auxiliary sciences, phonetic, grammar, metre, astronomy, ritual, and philosophy.

The UGC Chairperson had also added that plans of integrating IKS to the higher education systems were also in full swing.

Besides IKS, the other skills that are eligible for creditization are personalized arts; master craftsmen of heritage and traditional skills; social work in high-impact areas such as education, health care, and anti-drugs; innovation and start-ups. The final draft of the NCrF has stated that the credits must be awarded on the basis of a pre-defined requisition to hone any skill, along with the criteria for “special achievements” in all skills.

The draft further clarified, “The special achievement could be winning medals or holding positions in national or international events, Padma or other awards conferred by central or state governments or other recognised bodies, high-impact high-priority social work which could be duly assessed through independent assessment methods.”

The Ministry of Education has been planning on integrating the IKS into the educational curriculums for a fairly long time, and this draft poses as one of the many initiatives for that purpose. The government has already been proactive in creating an IKS division in the AICTE since 2020, to promote interdisciplinary research based on types of indigenous knowledge. This division in the AICTE has accelerated the growth of research centres and designed various IKS courses for students to pursue.

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