Lok Sabha Question No. 2464 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-08-01
Subject: School Innovation Council
Ministry: Education
Asked by: P.P. Chaudhary

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2464 TO BE ANSWERED ON 1 st  August, 2022

## School Innovation Council

2464.  SHRI P.P. CHAUDHARY:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a)  whether  any  steps  have  been  taken  by  the  Government  to  introduce  School Innovation Councils (SIC) in the schools in all States including Rajasthan;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

- (c) whether the SIC incentive is included under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020;
- (d) whether the Government has put in place measures to ensure that teachers who are recognized as Innovation Ambassadors are competent to provide children with the skills of ideation, innovation, and entrepreneurship at the school level; and
- (e) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (SMT. ANNPURNA DEVI)

(a)  and  (b):  School  Innovation  Council  (SIC),  an  initiative  taken  by  the  Ministry  of Education's  Innovation  Cell  (MIC)  was  launched  on  1  July  2022  and  has  been introduced  to  all  schools  of  all  the  states  including  Rajasthan.  It  is  a  council  of teachers,  students,  and  experts  from  industry  and  academia  to  conduct  round  the year  activities  for  students  and  teachers  on  Innovation  and  Entrepreneurship, monitored through the SIC portal of the MIC, to record the influence at the ground level.

SIC will  enable  mindset  change,  awareness,  and  training  on Ideation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship , design thinking, Intellectual Property Rights, startup  finance,  and  HR  among  teachers  and  students.  It  will  also  enable  the  ranking system for schools on the level of innovation-oriented activities. To implement the SIC council in all schools across the nation, SIC portal has been developed where schools can register themselves. All registered schools are encouraged  to  perform  innovation-related activities as per  the  SIC  Calendar Activities  that  includes  Leadership  talk,  motivation  sessions,  webinars,  sessions, awareness,  boot  camps  inviting  innovative  ideas  from  the  student,  developing  the prototype, and national level exhibition of the best prototypes etc. (for complete info refer section XI in SIC document under download section, https://sic.mic.gov.in/). (c):  NEP 2020 envisages the education system to include a '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. Besides,  NEP  has  a  provision  for  School  Complex  Management  Committees  for more  robust  and  improved  governance,  monitoring,  oversight,  innovations  and initiatives by local stakeholders.

(d) and (e): In order to strengthen the mentoring capacity of teachers for cultivating and handholding innovative and ingenious ideas from students, the School Innovation  Ambassador  Training  program  (SIATP)  was  launched  through  online Mode. Under SIATP, teachers undergo 72 hours of training, and those who qualify all the five modules i.e. 1. Design Thinking & Innovation;  2. Idea generation & Idea hand-holding; 3. Finance/Sales/HR; 4. Intellectual Property Rights(IPR); 5. Entrepreneurship  and  Prototype/  Product  Development;    with  a  minimum  50%  as passing  marks  are  recognized  as  'Innovation  Ambassadors'  which  makes  them competent to nurture the young school students on Ideation, IPR, product development, design thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking and skills of entrepreneurship.

******