New Delhi, Sep 7 (IANS): The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has thrown its weight behind the government's National Education Policy (NEP), with its key affiliate in the education sector -- the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan -- tasked with kickstarting a pan-India awareness campaign on the NEP from September 11.

While it will hold detailed discussions on the scope, scale and impact of the reforms under the NEP, Vidya Bharati will also hold a MyNEP Competition involving a NEP-themed popular online contest, September 25 to October 2.

"Our mass-awareness campaign involves popular participation centred around a series of NEP-themed contests for both, school and college students as well as the interested citizenry," said Vidya Bharati General Secretary Shriram Araowker. However, the focus of the awareness campaign is going to be the government's thrust on mother language, which Vidya Bharati will stress upon.

Elaborates Araowker, "The NEP has recommended the mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction for enhanced learning outcomes. In a similar spirit, most of the contests under the MyNEP Competition will be held in 13 regional Indian languages including Hindi and English to reach out to students from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Participation itself will be an enriching experience for the contestants."

The MyNEP Competition will be held on four sub-themes: India-Centric Education, Holistic Education, Knowledge-Based Society and Quality Education. It will be conducted across three categories: for studying in classes 9-12, the Undergraduate and Postgraduate and finally, the Citizen Category.A

While "significant cash prizes" will be awarded to the winners in each category, the amount has not been made public, yet. Meanwhile, Vidya Bharati says it has decided to give every contestant a participation certificate, regardless of their performance.

Handmade paintings, meme-making, letters to the PM, speech-making, essay writing, short film making, digital designing and Twitter thread compositions will be held under the competition. In addition to these category-specific contests, an interactive quiz on the various facets of the National Education Policy will also be conducted online. The names of the winners will be announced by October 5.

An interesting aspect of the competition is that Vidya Bharati has handed over the responsibility to spearhead the NEP awareness campaign to young volunteers. So elaborate is the plan of the RSS-linked body that it has also decided to appoint NEP Ambassadors whose job will be to "manage and lead" online activities related to the MyNEP Competition.

Meanwhile, it added that schools and higher education institutes can also take part in this "awareness movement". However, as a precondition, they have to take what it calls a "NEP pledge" to support the latest policy.