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Table of contents:

• Introduction
• Recommendations of the National Education Policy
• Main goals of NEP 2020
• The concerns regarding NEP 2020
• Implications of NEP 2020
• FAQs

 

Introduction

The Union Cabinet of India launched the National Education Policy of India 2020 (NEP 2020) on July 29, 2020, outlining the goals for the country's future educational system. The National Policy on Education, 1986, has been replaced by the current policy. The strategy provides a thorough framework for vocational training and education from elementary school to higher education in both rural and urban areas of India. By 2030, the initiative hopes to change India's educational system.

The administration quickly made it clear that no one would be forced to study any specific language and that English would not be replaced with any regional language as the medium of teaching. It is up to the states, organizations, and schools to determine how to apply the language policy in NEP, which is intended to be a wide set of recommendations. In India, education is a topic on the concurrent list.

The "Unified District Information System for Education Plus" (UDISE+) 2020–21 stipulates that more than 28 languages must be used in teaching and learning for students in grades 1–5. This information was released by the Press Information Bureau on August 1, 2022. The languages spoken are English, Bodo, Khasi, Garo, Mizo, French, Hmar, Karbi, Santhali, Bhodi, Purgi, Odia, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Meitei (Manipuri), Marathi, Nepali, Maithili, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Bodo. The broad formula (5+3+3+4) is the foundation of the new education policy. It is focused on the student and does not rely on government employment in order to launch a business. The student's two biggest changes are that they are picking a different stream after eighth grade and learning a foreign language.

 

Recommendations of the National Educational Policy

1. School education

• Focus on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy: The policy gives attaining Foundational Literacy and Numeracy top importance by all pupils by Grade 3. The strategy says, "achieving universal basic literacy and numeracy in primary school by 2025 will be the highest priority of the education system. Only if this most fundamental learning need—that of reading, writing, and arithmetic at the foundational level—is first fulfilled will the remainder of this Policy become pertinent for our kids. Thus, the Ministry of Education will set up a National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy on top priority. All State/UT governments shall so promptly develop an implementation plan for achieving universal basic reading and numeracy in all primary schools, set stage-wise targets and goals to be reached by 2025, and closely track and monitor progress of the same". The NIPUN Bharat Mission (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) then started on July 5, 2021, aiming to reach this target.
• "5+3+3+4" model will take place instead of the "10 + 2" framework. One will apply this as follows:
  Foundational Stage: Two further divisions split this: Three years of preschool or anganwadi, then classes one and two in elementary school. This will cover three to seven year olds' children. Research on activity-based learning will take the stage.
  Classes three through five, covering the ages of eight to ten years, are preparatory. Subjects including speaking, reading, writing, physical education, languages, art, science and mathematics will be introduced progressively.
  Classes 6 through 8 cover youngsters between the ages of 11 and 13 in middle stage. It will present to students the more abstract ideas in disciplines of mathematics, sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities.
  Classes 9 through 12 span the ages of 14 to 18 years, in secondary stage. It is split once more into two: classes 11 and 12 covering the second phase; classes 9 and 10 covering the first phase. These four years of education are meant to promote depth and critical thinking together with diverse study. There will be several choice of subjects available.
  Schoolchildren will only attend three tests, in classes 2, 5, and 8 instead of tests held every academic year.
  Though they will be re-designed, board exams for classes 10 and 12 will remain ongoing. An evaluation body called PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) will set criteria for this. These tests would be taken twice a year, with pupils given up to two attempts, to simplify things. Two sections of the test would be the objective and the descriptive ones.

This policy seeks to lighten student curricula so that they can be more "inter-disciplinary" and "multilingual". "If a student wants to pursue fashion studies with physics, or if one wants to learn bakery with chemistry, they'll be allowed to do so," one said. Report cards will be "holistic" providing details on the student's competencies.
From class 6, coding will be taught; experiential learning will be embraced.
Breakfast will now be included under the Midday Meal Scheme. Using counsellors and social workers can help to give students' health—especially mental health—more attention.

 

2. Higher education

• It suggests a 4-year undergraduate degree in multidisciplinary science with several exit points. These will be carried out as follows including both professional and vocational spheres:
  a certificate following a one-year of study.
  a diploma once two years of study have come to pass
  A Bachelor's degree following three years of study
  A 4-year multidisciplinary bachelor's degree—the recommended choice
• Higher education will be under control by an India Higher Education Commission (HECI). The aim of the council is higher gross enrollment ratio. The HECI has four verticals:
  While excluding medical and legal education, National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC) oversees higher education including teacher education.
  " meta-accrediting body" National Accreditation Council (NAC)
  Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC), for financing and support of colleges and universities. This will superseded the current University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education, and National Council for Teacher Education.
  General Education Council (GEC) frames "graduate attributes," more precisely the intended learning outcomes. It will also be in charge of designing a National Higher Education Qualification Framework (NHEQF). As a professional standard establishing body, the National Council for Teacher Education will be housed under the GEC.
• Professional bodies such Veterinary Council of India, Council of Architecture, Indian Council of Agricultural Research and National Council for Vocational Education and Training would also be included among PSSBs.
• Apart from the JEE Main and NEET, the National Testing Agency will now have the extra responsibility of doing entrance tests for admittance to colleges all throughout the nation.
• The policy suggests that institutions of higher education such as the IITs adjust their policies in respect to the variety of learning.
• The policy suggests to globalize Indian education. Foreign colleges are able to open campuses in India nowadays.
• Public and private university fees will be set in same manner.

 

3. National Research Foundation: The NEP advised to raise the standard of Indian research by creating a National Research Foundation: It would be an autonomous agency providing mentoring, financing, and capacity building for Indian quality research.
4. Education governance: Under the name Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog or National Education Commission, the NEP advised creating an apex organization for education headed by the Prime Minister. It also implied renaming the Ministry of Human Resources & Development the Ministry of Education.
5. Following a failed attempt in 2012: the NEP 2020 revived the initiative by officially permitting foreign universities to establish campuses in India as well as offering authorization for IITs to open campuses abroad. Reaffirmed by India's vice president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, who voiced a wish to establish India to draw worldwide academic talent, the strategy sets a grand goal of using international education to restore India as a Vishwa Guru (or world teacher). Scholars have questioned the concept of bringing foreign higher education institutions in order to forward a goal of establishing the nation as a world teacher.
6. EdTech: EdTech companies and startups are given required rules and incentives under NEP 2020 to create learning management systems, ERP software, assessment tools, online labs etc. for colleges and universities. Additionally established to help in the sharing of ideas on technology use to enhance learning is the autonomous National Educational Technology Forum (NETF). In accordance with NEP, NITI Aayog teamed with Byju's to give engineering hopefuls from 112 districts free access to its tech-driven learning programmes.
7. Financing education: One of the key suggestions of the NEP 2020 is doubling public funding for education. NEP 2020 insisted on funding education with six percent of the GDP. It advised doubling the present 10% of public spending to 20% in the following ten years.
8. The NEP: recommended establishing an autonomous agency to help with decision-making on the deployment, induction and use of technology, therefore addressing national mission on education through information and communication technologies. NEP claimed that the following actions would help to reach this:
   
   Establishing the National Education Technology Forum: Under this objective would be managed the suggested autonomous entity. It will also incorporate remote access virtual labs in many fields.
9. Recommendations of NEP 2020 concerning vocational courses might be compiled as follows:
   
   Higher Education Institutes must also offer vocational courses that are linked with National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF), Schools should build expert curriculum delivery methods that are aligned with competency levels, Students in classes 9 to 12 must receive vocational education on at least one vocation.
10. Indegenious Knowledge: In this sense, several Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) projects have been undertaken to lead research and spread understanding of indigenous knowledge; the NEP stresses the relevance of India's original knowledge traditions and encouraging Indianness in individuals.

 

Main goals of NEP 2020

1. This approach will concentrate on a strong basis for every student and foster general development.
2. Their major goal is to raise vocational learning by fifty percent till 2025.
   This new approach will also guarantee that every student may access quality education by means of digital learning through digitalization.
3. The new education policy will also promote equity that guarantees everyone, regardless of caste, gender, social, physical, or financial aspects, quality education.
4. Under the new education policy, students will be taught coding from a very early age; all schools will be digital; also emphasizing regional language, development of virtual hi-tech labs, students can choose any subject; also, e-learning rather than textbooks, digital academic credits.
5. Along with several educational cheap loans and financial assistance will be given to support the financially backward students so now one can lack a quality education; so, under this strategy, everyone would receive a flexible and inclusive education.

 

The concerns regarding NEP 2020

The 2019 Draft NEP was challenged for several grounds. A social media campaign objected to the southern Indian states' Hindi inclusion in educational policies. According to the Student's Federation of India, commercialized education compromised independent research activities and challenged the federal character of the educational system. Frontline's Madhu Prasad noted how the merit-based college admissions criterion of the draft failed to consider reservations and the caste-based prejudice and persecution many people in the nation experience. DP Sharma connected the self-dependent India mission with the present initiative of end to end transformation of Indian education system but highlighted his worries regarding the implementation with care and honesty and.

For undergraduate programs, multiple-exit options provide institutions cover to stop monitoring students leaving owing to socioeconomic concerns and instead overlook such events as personal choice. Some analysts contend that globalization might not help the whole nation, thereby maybe favoring mainly the rich. India's status in higher education should be improved by means of collaborations with foreign academic publications. More advantageous would be establishing institutions under the names of these publishers, giving them brand value, and paying a percentage of profits made from using their instructional solutions—textbooks, learning support websites, and assessment tools. These publishers can also offer competent program frameworks depending on their vast subject-specific resources, thereby guaranteeing that people acquire internationally recognized education.

Because of the rich content and support these publishers provide, such collaborations naturally boost the quality of domestic teaching staff and help prevent outsourcing of teaching positions to foreigners by internationalization. Furthermore, this strategy could drive more foreign businesses to India attracted by the availability of top-notch personnel at a somewhat cheaper cost. Should all states follow this approach, the cost of education would be much less than those of private universities. Strategic improvement of the higher education scene in India might be achieved by forming agreements with publishers such as Wiley, Routledge, and Pearson and providing them with significant advantages.
Furthermore raising questions is the National Testing Agency's increasing scope of responsibility. In Western nations, where many institutions are phasing out such assessments in the post COVID-19 age, conducting entrance exams for university admissions has been progressively seen as unscientific and impracticable. Because of the great time and money needed to invest, these tests are discovered to be simply gatekeepers of higher education and do not reflect a person's actual capacity. Western colleges find higher indicators of graduate school success in past academic performance, research activity, and extracurricular activities. Frequent test cheating incidents call into doubt the validity and efficacy of tests like JEE Main and NEET, which are run by the National Testing Agency, therefore undermining their credibility. With direct, socially structured, and traditional learning reserved for those with greater privilege through either specialized institutes or private universities; they also consider the transfer of instructor duties to private edtech companies over academic professors and online modules as stressing a distributed learning framework centered on training and skilling the masses.

In summary, following were the major pitfalls in the 2020 NEP:

1. Rising Student Pressure and Competition: With a high emphasis on standardized tests, the policy might raise student pressure while so compromising general well-being.

2. Narrowing of Subject Choices: Stressing vocational education could restrict subject choices, therefore influencing intellectual and artistic development.

3. Lack of Teacher Training and Support: The policy can affect the quality of education by lacking explicit rules for teacher training.

4. Digital Infrastructure: The policy's focus on digital education exposes a digital divide, therefore disadvantageous for economically struggling pupils.

5. Standardization Problems: A national standardization strategy could ignore regional variances, therefore influencing particular student needs. The policy runs the danger of confusing and distributing unequal implementation around the nation without a clear execution plan. Although the New Education Policy 2020 brought about good changes in the Indian education system, stakeholders had to aim at a new education policy that promotes inclusive growth, equality, and equal opportunity for everyone.

 

Implications of NEP 2020

 

Let us consider and project several consequences of this NEP:

1. Emphasizing holistic development and universal access to education, the policy seeks to produce well-rounded people ready with not just academic knowledge but also practical skills and social-emotional competences.

2. Emphasizing native languages as the medium of education until Grade 5, ideally till Grade 8, helps to preserve linguistic variety and cultural diversity. This strategy guarantees improved knowledge and retention of ideas as well as helps pupils to develop their sense of identification and belonging.

3. Multiple exit choices in undergraduate degrees and the early incorporation of vocational education give students diverse learning paths. < This enables individuals to investigate several interests and professional paths, therefore honoring their unique abilities and goals.

4. The emphasis on basic literacy and numeracy, experiential learning, and technological innovation of the policy seeks to improve the quality of education. Encouragement of critical thinking, problem-solving techniques, and practical learning opportunities helps students to be more suited for the fast changing environment.

5. By means of programs including mandatory education, encouragement of universal access to education, and phase-out of college affiliations, the policy aims to lower differences in educational possibilities. It seeks to build a more fair society by giving equal access to quality education across socioeconomic backgrounds.

6. Early incorporation of vocational education into the curriculum helps to close the gap between academic knowledge and practical ability. By meeting the need for trained labor, this not only improves employability but also encourages entrepreneurship and helps to boost the economy.

7. Encouragement of international cooperation, technological innovation, and norms of open and online learning would help India become more globally competitive in the sphere of education. This helps India's status as a knowledge economy and gets students ready to shine in a globalised environment.

8. The cooperation of the Centre and State governments to raise education expenditure to attain 6% of GDP shows a dedication to improve the infrastructure of education. Improving infrastructure, increasing access, and guaranteeing the effective execution of the policy efforts depend on this investment.

 

9. The application of India's New Education Policy 2020 has far-reaching consequences for education in general including elements of access, quality, equity, flexibility, and global competitiveness. By tackling these important areas, the policy seeks to change the scene of education and equip next generations to flourish in a world always changing.

 

FAQs

1. What is the new education system proposed?

Ans. From the inflexible 10+2 system to a more flexible 5+3+3+4 structure, the NEP 2023 gives elementary and secondary school flexibility. The four stages—which are classified as basic, preparatory, middle, and secondary stages—are conceptual ones. At every school level, this framework gives basic skills and life competencies great importance.

2. What is the holistic development expected in the NEP 2020?

Ans. This policy emphasizes inclusive education and extracurricular activities like art and culture, design and craft, music, dance, and sports. These exercises give pupils analytical ability, critical thinking, and decision-making capacity.

3. What is the main objective of NEP 2020?

Ans. The new NEP 2020 suggests that Indian educational institutions ought to offer a high caliber academic program. Foreign nations are also free to set their campuses here. The NEP also published recommendations on the fee policies for public and private institutions.