New education policy to rejig educational framework in India

Coding, vocational training from Class VII onwards, state boards to be phased out, no M. Phil

@hepzia

Mumbai: India introduced a revised National Education Policy (NEP) after 34 years which could strongly rejig the existing educational framework in India. English education will be replaced with teaching in mother tongue or local language for students till Class V or maximum till Class VII, and pre-primary education will begin from age-3 onwards. The existing 10+ 2 system of education will be replaced with 5+3+3 +4 system, that will include three years of pre-primary education  (age 3- 8) and subsequent phases in age-group of 8-11 years, 11-14 age group and then 14-18 age group. 

Vocational education and coding will also be part of curriculum from Class VI onwards with 10-day no-bags internships allowed with local traders or craftsmen. School examinations will be held in Class III, V and VIII conducted by appropriate authority. Assessments will not be just numerical figures but a holistic report card with AI to be used to identify specific aptitudes attained. 

Though the Class X and XII board exams will continue, it will be replaced and redesigned for holistic development with a National Assessment Center (NAC) entrusted with the task of being the standard setting body for assessments pan-India. The board exams will be split into objective and descriptive exams, modular, low-stake and based on conceptual knowledge and its applications. 

Special provisions will also be kept for talented students. The curriculum load will be reduced to just teaching core concepts to ensure that students are given enough space to take up projects or activities to develop their critical thinking, Anita Kanwal, secretary of school education informed. 

While the three language policy will be followed and Sanskrit has been made mandatory to be given as an option right through till higher education, the NEP clarifies that no language shall be imposed on students. There will be no rigid compartmentalisation between streams, like Arts and Science, between academic and vocational or that between extra-curricular and curricular subjects.  

A separate Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) will be set up as a single umbrella body to handle the entire gamut of higher education excluding medical and legal education. 

Students will get option to enter or exit higher education with appropriate certification issued at various points, like diploma on completing first year, advanced diploma on completion of two years, a bachelor’s degree after three years and bachelors with research degree on completion of four years of higher education course. 

There will be a common entrance exams conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission to universities and higher education institutions, while MPhil courses will be discontinued.

An Academic Bank of Credit will be established to track and collate academic credits from different Higher Educational Institutes (HEI) so that these can be transferred and counted towards the final degree earned. Scholarships will be streamlined by a single body and special education zones will be set up for disadvantaged regions and groups. 

Member of the legislator council from Teachers constituency, Kapil Patil noted that the new NEP would deprive the marginalised from English and equitable educational options, create disparity in classrooms between the haves and have-nots, shrink educational aid, increase burden of education for the middle classes and even reduce the number of teachers in the system. National president of the Students Islamic Organisation (SIO) Labeed Shafi termed the revised draft of NEP as “anti-federal, anti-Constitutional and promotes commercialisation of education in India.” 

He said that the NEP fails to act against many of the existing measures that led to commercialisation of education, while actively proposing a market model of education in the policy. The SIO argued that the creation of centralised bodies under the policy such as Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (RSA), National Testing Agency (NTA) and National Research Foundation (NRF) under one command is against the federal structure of the Indian Union and the Constitution, as education is both a State and Union subject. Such over-empowered centralised bodies will inevitably fall prey to the political expediency of ruling parties, Shafi said.