Within under 24 hours of the announcement of the New Education Policy by the HRD minister, Mr. Ramesh Pokhriyal and the Information and Broadcasting minister, Mr. Prakash Javadekar, the policy has caught the attention of almost everyone across the nation. The new policy which will replace the previous policy which was announced in 1986 and was modified in 1992, by its first look, seems very promising majorly because of the targets it has set to achieve in their stipulated time frame which, if happens, would revolutionize the education sector of the country which has been long criticized for having too many loopholes and hence not been serving its intended purpose all this time.
Before we get into the details of what this new policy has in store for the students and their family members, in turn the whole of the country, I think it's important I point it out that this bill was given clearance from the cabinet, chaired by the PM Mr. Narendra Modi, without it being brought into the Parliament for discussion. Well it's understandable that the Parliament is currently dominated in numbers by the current ruling party, the BJP, still there would not have been any harm by putting this before the Parliament for discussion first and then passing it in a constitutional process. Nevertheless, the ship has already sunk and hence there's not much benefit of digging too much into why this policy was considered to be skipped from the Parliament.
Also it's important that we note here that the current post of HRD minister, which was earlier called the Education minister before the predecessor of this new policy had changed its name, will now again be called the Education minister. So, congratulations Mr. Ramesh Pokhriyal for the new title, old wine in new glass, but still.
Now getting into the details, let's try and understand some of the key features of this policy. This policy will implement a new 5+3+3+4 years of school curriculum. Breaking it down further, the Playgroup of 1 year followed by Nursery and Kindergarten and classes 1 and 2 for the first 5 years are intended to involve children into activities to help them reach a foundation stage upon which they can build a strong career for themselves.
Classes 3, 4 and 5 would be the preparatory stage where children would be taught basic literary skills like speaking and writing languages, drawing, dancing and other stuffs. These three years would be intended to prepare the children for their future career prospects.
Class 6 onwards, these children would be taught coding which is considered an analytical and an essential skill now along with them having opportunities to opt for vocational trainings and internships. There would be agencies which would help these children get funding also for some of the remarkable tasks they do in such early stages.
The last 4 years of schooling, 9 to 12 is where there won't be any division into streams now. Earlier where children had to opt for either Hindi or Sanskrit in class 9 or Maths or Biology or Arts or Commerce in class 11, there wouldn't be any such division now and instead, they would now be able to choose among various combination of subjects as per their preference. So maybe 20 years down the line, if my child decides they want to study mathematics with biology and history or maybe any other combination, they would be able to do so.
The board exams of class 10 and 12 would still remain though. But to reduce the hype around these one shot exams, children might find these exams happening twice a year, and the results of all the exams in each year containing their self evaluation, evaluation from their peers and teachers in addition to the marks scored by them in their subjects in various examinations spanning over the entire year.
Children, atleast till class 5 would be able to learn in their regional languages as well. And over the entire school life, they would have the option of choosing Sanskrit as a subject for themselves.
Now, the challenges, as I can see here are in the implementation. Whether a student from Bihar with Maithili as his mother tongue be provided with an option of learning in his language in a school in Delhi, where he lives now with his family, is something I look forward to. For that to happen, the teachers would have to be knowing different languages to teach students in different languages. In current scenario where the student to teacher ratio in schools are too high, this will be a difficult task to implement. The other drawback that I see is that this policy doesn't address on more important challenges like the lack of infrastructure and resources in many schools in different regions. At some places, the teachers don't have much facilities to teach, in some cases they lack proper training. The policy doesn't address on these factors.
Now, moving to higher education, a Higher Education Commission of India would subsume the current regulators like UGC, AICTE and NCTE. The HECI will frame regulations for, provide funds, and accredit institutions. Except for legal, dental and medical education, there would be one Common Entrance Test to get into the institutions for highest education. The children here as well would be able to choose different combination of courses to pursue higher studies. In addition to that, they would now be able to drop out of a college in any year and get a certification for their degree till that year. The grades earned by them till that year would be stored into their account in the records and if they rejoin the course, maybe in that same college or any other college, they would not have to start from the first year again, rather they would be able to join from where they had left, with their previous grades taken into consideration. Exiting with a certificate at the end of the first year, with a diploma at the end of the second year, a bachelor's degree at the end of the third year and a bachelor's research degree at the completion of the fourth year provides students with opportunities to decide for themselves which stage of higher education they would want to continue as per their preference.
Here again, it will be interesting to see how these plans are implemented because of various current challenges in the education structure. And whether all these steps would be able to curb unemployment and improve the number of students opting for research will be a deciding factor for the success or failure of this policy.
With varying duration of undergraduate course, the MA and MSc courses too will have varying durations now. MPhil has been decided to finally put into infinite sleep. Rest in Peace, mate!
The policy’s long term objectives include ending the practice of colleges getting affiliated to universities. This aims to universalize education by reducing the difference in the curriculum between different universities. The goal of six per cent of the GDP to be spent on education which is mentioned in the policy is not something new, rather it was first articulated in 1948. In the past six years of the Modi Government, the education budget had actually reduced. So keeping those things into consideration, we can only hope these points are not the usual jumlas but are supposed to be real targets. The other targets of this policy are of having 50 percent gross enrolment ratio in higher education and 100 per cent in secondary schools by 2035 which definitely are very promising but would be very tough as well since these percentages are somewhere around 25.8% in higher education & 68% in Class 9 currently.
Lastly, to sum up, the policy is certainly something that was much needed as the current education policy has not been serving its intended purpose for a long time now. But just by having a policy like this on paper doesn't solve all the problems and there would be many more problems to realizing all the proposed targets as well. What would be important is to see how this policy changes the education scenario of the nation and helps talent and knowledge realize its potential and recognition.
As the saying goes, "Padhega India, tab hi to badhega India!".
I hope you had a good read and enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Comments
Post a Comment