NEP a game-changer: Preparing for a knowledge economy
Author: Dharmendra Pradhan
New Delhi: When the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) was launched in 2016 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, our greatest challenge then was reaching the last woman standing in the queue in remotest recesses of the country with LPG cylinders. With a dedicated workforce and tremendous political will, the success of PMUY and the significant impact it had on lives of the most vulnerable has given me confidence that we will be able to undertake the challenging task of implementing the new National Education Policy 2020 that envisages sweeping changes in the sector making our students more equipped to face the challenges of 21st century knowledge economy.
India is one of the youngest countries with more than 50 per cent population below 30 years. The benefit of a potential demographic dividend is obvious. But this potential will not remain with us forever. And nor is the translation to a dividend an automatic process. It needs concerted efforts and policy interventions. In fact, some experts suggest that India would be an aging society by 2050, with nearly 20 per cent of the population above 60 years. Assuming this is true, a simple calculation indicates that we have about a little more than two decades to tap fully into the potential of the youth, or what Prime Minister Modi refers to as the Amrit Kaal, the 25-years leading up to the 100 years of independence. Hence, we cannot have an incremental approach but an overhauling of the system to cater to the needs and aspirations of various categories of our youth.
NEP 2020 is one such transformation in our nation’s journey. In the words of Prime Minister Modi, NEP 2020 will serve as the foundation of an Atma Nirbhar Bharat, a self-reliant India. NEP restructures our education ecosystem at all stages from pre-primary to higher education, also reconfiguring it with a skills and research ecosystem. It stands on the four principles of access, quality, equity and affordability. NEP aims to enhance the gross enrolment ratio in higher education to 50 percent by 2035 from the current level of 27.1 percent instituting the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) — a single regulatory body in place of the University Grants Commission (UGC). It will ensure that regulation, accreditation, funding, and academic standard-setting are performed by independent and empowered bodies. Some of the many progressive recommendations that the NEP makes are experiential learning at all stages, innovative and activity-based pedagogies, multiple entry/exit options in higher education, multidisciplinary education and establishing an academic bank of credit. There is also much emphasis on internationalization of education and study in India programs with corresponding policy reforms to accommodate these sweeping changes.
While NEP stands for an aspirational education system of the 21st century, it also recognizes immediate challenges. It calls for urgently ensuring that every student attain foundational literacy and numeracy by Grade 3. The national mission on foundational literacy and numeracy called NIPUN Bharat has been launched so that every child in the country attains foundational literacy and numeracy in Grade 3 by 2026-27. It calls for governments at all levels to ensure that the medium of instruction up to at least Grade 5 be in the mother tongue/local language for smoothing the process of learning for children. Our government also focuses on local languages in higher education. This is because the Union government considers all languages as national languages. More than 200 technical books in local languages at the undergraduate level and for diploma courses have recently been launched. The government is consciously trying to promote textbooks including in engineering, medical and legal disciplines in local and official languages.
Efforts are being made to make entrance examinations also available in all major languages. At present, engineering and medical entrance exams are conducted in 13 languages to ensure that English doesn’t become a hurdle in access to quality education. Teachers shape the future of our nation. We need to restore the high respect and status of the profession to inspire and motivate our teachers. Our government is focusing on providing opportunities for self-improvement and continuous professional development. Not only in school education, but the faculty of our colleges and universities shall learn about the latest technologies and innovations and different forms of pedagogies. We are building world-class centres of teacher training across the country. The current budget has also made provisions for digital teachers allocating Rs 6 crores for the purpose. The last two years have been unprecedented owing to a pandemic running into its third year consequently disrupting social life as well as unexpected geopolitical events.
However, the only positive part is that such times give birth to innovations. If we look around, the spirit of our youth to innovate has only increased. There are a number of innovative models that came up during the peak of COVID-19 aftermath in our educational institutes. Based on the principle that global-standard technology is a great equalizer and enabler, the Union budget has made provisions for 200 new TV channels for education dissemination, allocating about Rs 930 crores in five years. The world is at the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution. While we may have missed the first two and tried catching up with the third, we need to ensure that we are leading in the fourth one. Emergent technologies like AI, robotics and automation throw up ample opportunities as well as challenges, also because scores of traditional jobs may fade away. But it will also bring roles more adapted to a new division of labour between humans, machines, and algorithms. Hence, the window of opportunity to reskill and upskill workers has become shorter, and one must act in the here and now, also ensuring that such initiatives are made at scale to train the vast chunk of the youth.
The 21st century is a century of knowledge. India is one of the oldest civilizations and a knowledge society has a natural advantage to become a ‘captain’ in navigating emerging economies towards a prosperous future. I believe after the Constitution, the NEP 2020 is one document which has been shaped after multiple levels of deliberations, discussions, and participatory dialogues across the country. Similar to the Constitution, the NEP 2020 will lead us out of decades of dilemma and doubt and inculcate a deep-rooted pride in being Indian in thought, spirit, intellect, and deeds. It integrates students, teachers, parents and society for holistic development and achieving their full human potential. Our youth aspires for work as not just job-seekers but job-creators as well. If we can provide them quality knowledge and skills of today, we will be able to bring India as a Vishwa Guru our freedom fighters dreamt of. The NEP 2020 is designed to do just that. This will be our contribution to nation-building as we mark 75 years of our independence.
(The writer is Union Minister of Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The views are his personal)
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NEP-2020 aspires for inclusive excellence in school education
Rajeev Ranjan Roy
The New Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020), unveiled recently, aims at achieving excellence in school learning by imparting quality, affordable and inclusive education to all, with an extra emphasis on those children coming from socially and educationally disadvantaged groups of the society. It is a futuristic endeavour towards building Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat. The previous education policies largely focussed on the issues of access and equity in giving school education, while the NEP-2020 commits to laying the foundation of a vibrant Bharat where no one is devoid of a kind of school education, which helps every student become an asset for the nation in a true sense. The unfinished agenda of the National Policy on Education 1986, which was modified in 1992, has been effectively dealt with in the NEP-2020 along with the vision behind the Right to the Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which “laid down legal underpinnings for achieving universal elementary education.”
Given the undisputed role of education in nation building, the NEP-2020 rightly lays the stress on standardization and accreditation of school infrastructure and teachers as well, since education with accountability, transparency and affordability is the need of the hour, and hence the need to “empower schools, teachers with trust, enabling them to strive for excellence and perform at their very best, while ensuring the integrity of the system through the enforcement of complete transparency and full public disclosure of all finances, procedures and outcomes.” Since private sector is significantly present in the field of school education, the idea to promote ‘not-for-profit’ entities is a unique feature of NEP-2020, which at the same time intends to promote private philanthropic efforts for quality education, thereby affirming the public-good nature of education, while protecting parents and communities from arbitrary increase in tuition fees.
An equally important area, which has got due attention in the NEP-2020 is the need for efficient resourcing and effective governance through school complexes and clusters, a significant initiative in view of the fact that nearly 28 per cent of India’s public primary schools and 14.8 per cent of upper primary schools have less than 30 students. The average number of students per grade in the elementary schooling system – Grades 1 to 8 – is about 14, with a notable proportion having below six students during 2016-17, the year which also had 1,08,017 single-teacher schools, and majority of them – 85,743 – being primary schools taking care of Grades 1-5 children. It was, therefore, a pressing need to evolve a mechanism for establishing a grouping structure, say, school complexes, consisting of one secondary school together with all other schools, which lead to greater resource efficiency and more effective functioning, coordination, leadership, governance, and management of schools in the cluster. This will not only ensure optimum utilisation of resources, but will also foster the sense of oneness and togetherness among the school children, who are the future of the nation.
What further makes the New Education Policy-2020 uniquely special is its pledge for equitable and inclusive education for all, one of the great dreams of our founding fathers. Education, as the NEP-2020 rightly envisions, is “the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and quality.” Inclusive and equitable education, indeed an essential goal in its own right, is also critical to achieving a social order where every citizen has “the opportunity to dream, thrive, and contribute to the nation.” Quality, affordable and ethical education to all is the first move to break multiple social and economic barriers, which sow the seeds of exclusion, discrimination and exploitation against our own people on different parochial considerations.
Needless to say efforts were made in the past as well to bridge the educational chasm between socially and educationally disadvantaged groups (SEDGs) and the children of top social strata, but the desired results remained elusive. SEDGs account for the country’s overwhelming population, but their children’s share in quality school educational institutions has been minimal over the years. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) needs to be handled more comprehensively. According to the Unified-District Information System for Education (U-DISE) 2016-17 data, about 19.6 per cent of students belonged to Scheduled Castes (SCs) at the primary level, but this fraction fell to 17.3 per cent at the higher secondary level. These enrollment drop-outs were more severe for ST students (10.6 per cent to 6.8 per cent), and differently-abled children (1.1 per cent to 0.25 per cent), with even greater declines for female students within each of these categories. Thus, there is no scope for any complacency on the part of the government. A series of interventions including better facilities, more and more hostels, scholarships and other enabling support have been provisioned in the NEP-2020 so that the idea of ‘learning for all’ is realised in a more comprehensive manner.
Teachers are not only an integral part of an education system, but the most important stakeholder in the entire gamut of things. Their quality and ability to teach school students, when they are in their formative age, become something of paramount importance. From their recruitment to training, every precaution needs to be taken to ensure that school education is not rendered to a mere formality, but becomes a game changer. The New Education Policy-2020 comes with a basket full of tools and parameters to ensure holistic training and upgradation of teachers and their teaching skills in a sustainable manner. From continuous professional development (CPD) to career management and progression (CMP), the NEP-2020 vouches for a set of common guidelines – National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST), which will be put in place by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) in its restructured new form as the Professional Standard Setting Body (PSSB) under the General Education Council. This exercise will be carried out in consultation with National Council Educational Research and Training (NCERT), SCERTs, teachers from across levels and regions.
The teacher education will also undergo a sea-change. By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. that teaches a range of knowledge content. Today B.Ed. teaching is most poorly regulated in our country ever since the standalone B.Ed. colleges were allowed to be opened up in the private sector. It is high time to take B.Ed. teaching more than seriously. The NEP-2020 stipulates that by 2021, a new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE-2021) will be formulated by the NCTE. NCFTE, which will also factor in the requirements of teacher education curricula for vocational education, will be revised once every 5-10 years.
In conclusion, the NEP-2020 visualizes to impart a school education which lays the foundation of a self-reliant India and also to help our country emerge as a knowledge hub. From the foundation of learning to foundational literacy and numeracy to checking drop outs and ensuring universal access to education for all and at all levels to the restructuring of school curriculum, India is in for a metamorphosis in the field of school education, recognizing, identifying and fostering the unique capabilities of each student. Tools such as multi disciplinarity, emphasis on conceptual understanding, creativity and critical thinking, ethics and human and constitutional values, full equity and inclusion, and light but tight regulatory framework are bound to do wonders. Education is a public service, a rare pursuit in nation building, which should be holistic and inclusive and must make one take pride in India and its rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and tradition. The NEP-2020 aspires so, indeed!
( The writer is a senior journalist and author. The views expressed are strictly personal.)
NEP-2020 aspires for inclusive excellence in school education
Rajeev Ranjan Roy
The New Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020), unveiled recently, aims at achieving excellence in school learning by imparting quality, affordable and inclusive education to all, with an extra emphasis on those children coming from socially and educationally disadvantaged groups of the society. It is a futuristic endeavour towards building Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat. The previous education policies largely focussed on the issues of access and equity in giving school education, while the NEP-2020 commits to laying the foundation of a vibrant Bharat where no one is devoid of a kind of school education, which helps every student become an asset for the nation in a true sense. The unfinished agenda of the National Policy on Education 1986, which was modified in 1992, has been effectively dealt with in the NEP-2020 along with the vision behind the Right to the Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which “laid down legal underpinnings for achieving universal elementary education.”
Given the undisputed role of education in nation building, the NEP-2020 rightly lays the stress on standardization and accreditation of school infrastructure and teachers as well, since education with accountability, transparency and affordability is the need of the hour, and hence the need to “empower schools, teachers with trust, enabling them to strive for excellence and perform at their very best, while ensuring the integrity of the system through the enforcement of complete transparency and full public disclosure of all finances, procedures and outcomes.” Since private sector is significantly present in the field of school education, the idea to promote ‘not-for-profit’ entities is a unique feature of NEP-2020, which at the same time intends to promote private philanthropic efforts for quality education, thereby affirming the public-good nature of education, while protecting parents and communities from arbitrary increase in tuition fees.
An equally important area, which has got due attention in the NEP-2020 is the need for efficient resourcing and effective governance through school complexes and clusters, a significant initiative in view of the fact that nearly 28 per cent of India’s public primary schools and 14.8 per cent of upper primary schools have less than 30 students. The average number of students per grade in the elementary schooling system – Grades 1 to 8 – is about 14, with a notable proportion having below six students during 2016-17, the year which also had 1,08,017 single-teacher schools, and majority of them – 85,743 – being primary schools taking care of Grades 1-5 children. It was, therefore, a pressing need to evolve a mechanism for establishing a grouping structure, say, school complexes, consisting of one secondary school together with all other schools, which lead to greater resource efficiency and more effective functioning, coordination, leadership, governance, and management of schools in the cluster. This will not only ensure optimum utilisation of resources, but will also foster the sense of oneness and togetherness among the school children, who are the future of the nation.
What further makes the New Education Policy-2020 uniquely special is its pledge for equitable and inclusive education for all, one of the great dreams of our founding fathers. Education, as the NEP-2020 rightly envisions, is “the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and quality.” Inclusive and equitable education, indeed an essential goal in its own right, is also critical to achieving a social order where every citizen has “the opportunity to dream, thrive, and contribute to the nation.” Quality, affordable and ethical education to all is the first move to break multiple social and economic barriers, which sow the seeds of exclusion, discrimination and exploitation against our own people on different parochial considerations.
Needless to say efforts were made in the past as well to bridge the educational chasm between socially and educationally disadvantaged groups (SEDGs) and the children of top social strata, but the desired results remained elusive. SEDGs account for the country’s overwhelming population, but their children’s share in quality school educational institutions has been minimal over the years. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) needs to be handled more comprehensively. According to the Unified-District Information System for Education (U-DISE) 2016-17 data, about 19.6 per cent of students belonged to Scheduled Castes (SCs) at the primary level, but this fraction fell to 17.3 per cent at the higher secondary level. These enrollment drop-outs were more severe for ST students (10.6 per cent to 6.8 per cent), and differently-abled children (1.1 per cent to 0.25 per cent), with even greater declines for female students within each of these categories. Thus, there is no scope for any complacency on the part of the government. A series of interventions including better facilities, more and more hostels, scholarships and other enabling support have been provisioned in the NEP-2020 so that the idea of ‘learning for all’ is realised in a more comprehensive manner.
Teachers are not only an integral part of an education system, but the most important stakeholder in the entire gamut of things. Their quality and ability to teach school students, when they are in their formative age, become something of paramount importance. From their recruitment to training, every precaution needs to be taken to ensure that school education is not rendered to a mere formality, but becomes a game changer. The New Education Policy-2020 comes with a basket full of tools and parameters to ensure holistic training and upgradation of teachers and their teaching skills in a sustainable manner. From continuous professional development (CPD) to career management and progression (CMP), the NEP-2020 vouches for a set of common guidelines – National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST), which will be put in place by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) in its restructured new form as the Professional Standard Setting Body (PSSB) under the General Education Council. This exercise will be carried out in consultation with National Council Educational Research and Training (NCERT), SCERTs, teachers from across levels and regions.
The teacher education will also undergo a sea-change. By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. that teaches a range of knowledge content. Today B.Ed. teaching is most poorly regulated in our country ever since the standalone B.Ed. colleges were allowed to be opened up in the private sector. It is high time to take B.Ed. teaching more than seriously. The NEP-2020 stipulates that by 2021, a new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE-2021) will be formulated by the NCTE. NCFTE, which will also factor in the requirements of teacher education curricula for vocational education, will be revised once every 5-10 years.
In conclusion, the NEP-2020 visualizes to impart a school education which lays the foundation of a self-reliant India and also to help our country emerge as a knowledge hub. From the foundation of learning to foundational literacy and numeracy to checking drop outs and ensuring universal access to education for all and at all levels to the restructuring of school curriculum, India is in for a metamorphosis in the field of school education, recognizing, identifying and fostering the unique capabilities of each student. Tools such as multi disciplinarity, emphasis on conceptual understanding, creativity and critical thinking, ethics and human and constitutional values, full equity and inclusion, and light but tight regulatory framework are bound to do wonders. Education is a public service, a rare pursuit in nation building, which should be holistic and inclusive and must make one take pride in India and its rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and tradition. The NEP-2020 aspires so, indeed!
( The writer is a senior journalist and author. The views expressed are strictly personal.)
