The New National Educational Policy 2020

A National Educational Policy is a comprehensive framework formulated by the Government of India to guide the development of education, which covers elementary school to colleges across the country.

The new National Educational Policy (NEP 2020), which plays a crucial role in transforming India, was approved by the Union Cabinet on 29 July 2020 under the chairmanship of Kasturirangan. It has replaced a 34-year-old National Educational Policy passed in 1986 under Rajiv Gandhi. It introduces a wide range of reforms making the current Indian Educational System more contemporary and skill-oriented.

The policy welcomes a learner-centered, holistic, and flexible system that transforms India into a vibrant knowledgable society. It balances the rootedness of India and the acceptance of the best ideas of learning across the globe. It proposes crucial changes, including opening Indian higher education to foreign universities and introducing the multi-disciplinary undergraduate program with multiple exit points. At the school level, the policy focuses on decreasing the curriculum more straightforward exams, retaining core skills, and thrust on critical thinking.

HIGHLIGHTS OF NEP – 2020:

• The new policy aims to universalize education at all levels with 100% of Gross Enrollment Rate (GER) by 2030.

• The present 10 + 2 schooling structure is changed to new 5 + 3 + 3 + 4 system corresponding to various ages.

• It is to bring around two crores of children who are out of schools back to the stream.

• The new system will have 12 years of schooling with three years of pre-schooling and expand the 6 – 14 years of mandatory education to 3 – 18 years.

• The new policy has done significant work on bringing the bagless days to the school-going children with a ten-day informal internship where they intern at local vocational experts like carpenters, gardeners, etc.

• There would be no rigid separation of the academic streams, extracurricular and vocational streams.

• Students are introduced to vocational courses from class 6.

• Teaching in mother tongue / regional languages at least up to class 5.

• Students are free to choose subjects from class 8 to 11.

• All government, private, deemed, open, vocational universities will have the same grading rules.

• The new policy envisages the multi-disciplinary, holistic undergraduate program with flexible curricula with various subjects and multiple entries and exit points with appropriate certification.

• The most appealing feature in the new policy is introducing computer programming as a subject from class 6. In this new technologically growing era, students being well-equipped with this ensures no hindrances to innovation, promoting creative and logical thinking.

• A new autonomous body, the National Educational Technology  Forum (NETF), will be created as a platform for exchanging ideas on the usage of technology, assessment, learning, etc.
  

NEP promotes active pedagogy development of core and life skills, critical thinking, including 21st-century skills. It recognizes the importance of teachers in building the future of the nation. It puts focus on teachers’ empowerment, redefining their recruitment procedures, eligibility criteria, service conditions, and career progressing opportunities at all levels.

CHALLENGES OF NEP-2020

Many activists, teachers, and great thinkers have expressed their concern over the importance given to vocational education, stating that it will end up sustaining the existing inequalities in access to education. There is high stress on the government to change the perception of vocational education being inferior to mainstream education.

The government has introduced vocational and polytechnic courses to the school children at an early grade of 6 along with internships, which may end up distracting students from mainstream education. Students opting for such subjects certainly may not be from a privileged background. Economically backward children struggle in English coding, etc. may end up taking these streams. These courses may become a barrier for first-generation learners and thus end up having no access to higher education. This may also increase the dropout rate.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the New Educational Policy, apart from its few loopholes, is revolutionary. It supposedly envisages the decolonizing the young mind. But, it is also necessary to improve infrastructures and resources, the efficiency of educators for the effective implementation of policy, and to deliver quality education. The scenario of interdisciplinary, holistic, multi-disciplinary, logical, and creative thinking, professional learning could be the front to cover all the aspects. It takes years to implement the policy altogether. Its method of implementation determines its success. However, the flaws in the system are needed to be addressed with deliberation with proper conduct to reduce the shortfalls.

- Rohit Kumar Gattu