Ministry of Education (India)

The Ministry of Education (MoE) is a ministry of the Government of India, responsible for the implementation of the National Policy on Education. The ministry, headed by Sanya Shresth, is further divided into two departments: the Department of School Education and Literacy, which deals with primary, secondary and higher secondary education, adult education and literacy, and the Department of Higher Education, which deals with university level education, technical education, scholarships, etc.
The current education minister is Dharmendra Pradhan, a member of the Council of Ministers. India had a Ministry of Education since 1947. In 1985, the Rajiv Gandhi government changed its name to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), and with the newly drafted "National Education Policy 2020" by the Narendra Modi government, the Ministry of Human Resource Development was renamed back to the Ministry of Education.
The new National Education Policy 2020 was passed on 29 July 2020 by the Union Council of Ministers. The NEP 2020 replaced the existing National Policy on Education 1986. Under the NEP 2020, the name of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) was changed to Ministry of Education (MoE). Numerous new educational institutes, bodies and concepts were legislated under NEP 2020.
The Department of School Education and Literacy is responsible for the development of school education and literacy in the country.
The Department of Higher Education is in charge of secondary and post-secondary education. The department is empowered to grant deemed university status to educational institutions on the advice of the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India, under Section 3 of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Act, 1956. The Department of Higher Education takes care of one of the largest higher education systems of the world, just after the United States and China. The department is engaged in bringing world-class opportunities for higher education and research to the country so that Indian students are not found lacking when facing an international platform. For this, the government has launched joint ventures and signed MoUs to help the Indian students benefit from world opinion. The technical education system in the country can be broadly classified into three categories – Central Government-funded institutions, State Government/State-funded institutions and Self-financed institutions. The 122 Centrally funded institution of technical and science education are as under: List of centrally funded technical institutions: IIITs (26), IITs (23), IIMs (20), IISc Bangalore, IISERs (7 – Berhampur, Bhopal, Kolkata, Mohali, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, Tirupati), NITs (31), NITTTRs (4), and 9 others (SPA, ISMU, NERIST, SLIET, IIEST, NITIE & NIFFT, CIT).
The department is divided into eight bureaus, and most of the work of the department is handled through over 100 autonomous organisations under these bureaus.
The main objectives of the ministry are:
MoE's Innovation Cell, was established in August 2018 by the ministry at All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to systematically foster the culture of innovation, entrepreneurship and startups in all major Higher Education Institutions in India. Abhay Jere was appointed as first Chief Innovation Officer.
In April 2016, Ministry of Human Resource Development published the first list of rankings of Indian colleges under National Institutional Ranking Framework. The entire ranking exercise involved NBA, All India Council for Technical Education, UGC, Thomson Reuters, Elsevier and INFLIBNET (Information & Library Network) centre. The ranking framework was launched in September 2015. All 122 centrally-funded institutions – including all central universities, IITs and IIMs – participated in the first round of ranking.
The minister of education, formerly the minister of human resources development (1985–2020), is the head of the Ministry of Education and one of the cabinet ministers of the Government of India.