What is it that lags us behind? We produce CEOs who lead multimillionaire firms globally but if we can lead Google, why can’t we create one? Many of us have been ruminating about these questions. With the declaration of the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, it is clear that successive regimes failed to address the fundamental problems in the education system of India.
We didn’t have a Central ministry for education. It fell under the Union Human Resource Development Ministry. The fact is that our education system promoted a rat race and didn’t build the unique persona of each child. With an obsolete testing methodology, pedants following the rulebook of clichés where teachers themselves were not trained and efficient, lack of flexibility in the system, medium of language of instruction, education irrelevant to job market, missing innovation and creation, we were only aping the West and the students were happy in getting a 6-digit salary job and lacked the ambition to become entrepreneurs themselves. Formulae won over concepts, rote learning won over critical analysis, marks won over knowledge, theory won over practice and there was no end to social disparity. In totality, we have been focusing on everything except research and training.
This is not meant to criticise the hitherto establishments. Obviously, not to criticise the lack of importance given to educational reforms and certainly, not to sing any paean song for the Modi government. As an educator and social activist, I am just propounding my take on the NEP 2020. To me, this represents the collective conscience and ethos of the nation. It is an inflexion point. Developed through pervasive consultations, it is a sweeping overhaul of an archaic British colonial system, inept for our needs. It brings about transformational and revolutionary changes.
As per the NEP document, it is the first education policy of the 21st century, and aims to address many growing developmental directives. In the dynamics of the global ecosystem of innovation, education must move towards less content, and more towards learning about how to think, how to be creative and multi-disciplinary, and how to innovate, adapt and absorb new material in new and changing fields. It counsels the revision and revamping of all aspects of the education structure, including its administration and governance, to create a new system that is aligned with the aspirational goals of the 21st century, while remaining consistent with India’s traditional value systems. NEP 2020 lays particular emphasis on the development of the creative potential of each individual, in all its richness and intricacy. It is based on the principle that education must develop not only cognitive skills but also foundational skills of literacy and numeracy, higher-order cognitive skills such as critical thinking and problem solving and also social and emotional skills which are also referred as soft skills including cultural awareness, empathy, perseverance, teamwork, leadership, communication, among others.
Apart from ‘Universalisation of Early Childhood Care Education’ (ECCE), major changes include a new pedagogical and curricular structure of school education (5+3+3+4 instead of 10+2); curriculum and pedagogy to be transformed by 2022 to integrate 21st century skills in teaching, learning and assessment; mathematical thinking and scientific temper, textbooks imbibing local content and flavour; medium of instruction up till grade 5, and preferably till grade 8 will be home/local/ mother language; no rigid separation between Arts & Sciences, between curricular and extracurricular activities, between vocational and academic streams; vocational integration from class 6 onwards; attainment of foundational literacy and numeracy by grade 3; 360 degree holistic progress card of child, among others.
The other features include tracking student progress for achieving learning outcomes; Gender Inclusion Fund; settingup of National Centre for Performance Assessment, review and analysis of knowledge for holistic development (PARAKH); board exams to be conducted twice a year (each board exam could have two parts — one part of an objective type with multiple-choice questions and the other of a descriptive part).
At the higher level, the National Testing Agency will offer a common entrance exam for admission to Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs); National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST). Likewise, some of the revolutionary proposed reforms encompass holistic and multidisciplinary education with flexibility of subjects. Multiple entry/exit points with appropriate certification; academic bank of credits to be set up to enable digital storage of credits to be transferred; UG programme (3 or 4 year), PG programme (1 or 2 year), integrated 5-year course; dumping M.Phil; Model Multidisciplinary Education and Research University (MERU) in every district; single regulator for higher education including teacher education (excluding legal and medical); special education zone for disadvantaged regions are other important changes. Meanwhile, common norms for public and private HEIs, private philanthropic partnership, fee fixation within broad regulatory framework; setting up of National Research Foundation (NRF); internationalisation of education; focus on Indian knowledge system, culture, literature and scientific vocabulary of Indian languages; promoting traditional arts through Lok Vidya, etc, are also major updates.
All this, of course, will happen keeping a resonance with technology. Use of technology in education and also in planning, teaching, learning and assessment, administration and management, regulation will play a pivotal role. Self-disclosure and minimum human interface, increasing access for disadvantaged groups, divyang-friendly education software, e-content in regional languages, virtual labs, national educational technology forum (NETF) to promote use of technology, digitally equipping schools, teachers and students, etc, are areas where technology will be used.
If one considers the proposal of promoting Indian languages, obviously it would include Sanskrit too. One would realise the spirit of “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat” along with taking us back to our forgotten roots. Behind the multiple entry/exit points, one can sense the purpose of empowering students to continue their graduation, notwithstanding any difficulties or even with a sabbatical gap. Replacing 10+2 structure with 5+3+3+4 curricular seems to be in tune with the global practices for mental development of a child. The curricular and pedagogical structure of school education will be reconfigured to make them responsive and relevant to the developmental needs and interests of learners at different stages of their development, corresponding to the age ranges of 3-8 years, 8-11 years, 11-14 years, and 14-18 years, respectively.
The Gender Inclusion Fund and Special Education Zones will focus on inclusivity and accessibility of education and so forth. The teacher and the teacher’s condition must and will be at the centre of these changes. A common guiding set of National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) will be developed by 2022, by the National Council for Teacher Education in consultation with NCERT. Teachers will be given constant opportunities for self-improvement and to learn the latest innovations and advances in their profession. To ensure that every teacher has the flexibility to optimise their own development as teachers, a modular approach to continuous teacher development will be adopted.
What one needs to ponder and applaud at this juncture is the vision envisaged by the Modi government in implying these radical but necessary reforms. According to PM Modi, NEP 2020 is based on the pillars of access, equity, quality, affordability and accountability. We see that the utmost importance is given towards ensuring universal access to school education. There is emphasis on better infrastructure, innovative education centres to bring back dropouts into the mainstream, facilitating multiple pathways to learning among others.
Yuvraj Pokharna is an engineerturned-educationist and social activist from Surat who keeps a keen eye on contemporary issues including social media, politics and government policies.
