Guidelines on Lifelong Learning and Extension During the XI Plan Period

Abstract

It was mainly after the launching of the National Adult Education Programme (NAEP) by the Government of India in 1978 that the UGC began to encourage the universities and colleges to participate in Lifelong Learning programmes and started funding it. Although the programme made a beginning with adult literacy, its scope was gradually widened over the next three decades to include, post literacy, Continuing Education, Population Education, refresher courses and a variety of extension and field outreach activities. Simultaneously the UGC encouraged and funded the universities to institutionalize the programme by setting up separate Departments with core faculty to undertake teaching and research. With the beginning of the Eleventh Five Year Plan the UGC would accord maximum priority to Lifelong Learning with a view to meeting the demands of emerging knowledge society and facilitate the process of developing a learning society.