AN ANTIDOTE TO THE OUTMODED EDUCATION SYSTEM…

Kudos to the ‘New Education Policy’ of India

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After receiving 2.25 lakh suggestions, the draft policy is finally approved by the Cabinet as the New Education Policy 2020. It provides for a comprehensive road map to achieve a holistic updation of our education system as per modern times, needs, and aspirations.

So, lets’ dig a little deeper and understand the new policy guidelines in detail!

Post-independence, the first education policy came in 1968 and then in 1986. In 1968, the Indira Gandhi led-government brought an education policy that was famously called ‘radical restructuring’. The policy came up with provisions like the outlining of the 3- language formula (Hindi, English, and regional language)in secondary education, it pivoted the teaching of Sanskrit language and marked attention to free and compulsory education up to 14 years.

Then in 1986, the Rajiv Gandhi led-government came up with a policy that focussed upon the ‘removal of inequalities and disparities’ thereby providing equal opportunities to women, ST/SC communities. Wherein, ‘Operation Blackboard’ became one of the characteristic features of the policy with its attempt to expand ‘primary education’ across the length and breadth of the country.

Thirty-Four years later, we now have a new brand of Education policy. Yes…an the education policy of the ‘21st century’ that has taken quite a quantum leap in its attempt of transforming the present educational inefficiencies and turning India into a ‘global knowledge superpower’. The policy 2020 aims for an equitable, accessible, suitable, affordable, and accountable education system. So let’s find out more about it.

Do we need a new policy for a new India?

Even after 73 years of Independence, aspirations like ‘quality education’, ‘skill development’, and ‘accessibility’ in our knowledge sector seemed to be a distant reality. For eg. amid the COVID crisis, the realization of lack of technological reach became evident when the online mode of education or per se ‘e-education’ was the only way out to get the education at the doorstep, and many students especially children living in rural areas and those belonging to the socially and economically disadvantaged sections faced problems like low-speed internet connections or unavailability of feasible electronic gadgets like computers, tablets, etc.

Another major issue which is being faced by the youth of the country is the lack of skills which have led to unemployment figures to go up. The habit of ‘rote learning’ and emphasis on getting ‘marks’ rather than achieving a skill or concrete practical based knowledge has had a detrimental impact on the knowledge base of our youth. The notion that a ‘topper’ has more knowledge and hence is more creative has jammed the minds of the parents and teachers in the society. A need has been felt to change the present environment — where English has become the ‘sole’ liberating language of the masses and ‘Science and Maths’ as the only career options.

It’s not that only higher education students or university level adults have been facing difficulties. We have to understand that the problem is deep-rooted. One of the most critical challenges is being phased by young kids between 3–6 years of age. This age group is the most ‘crucial phase’ in human development as 90% development of the mental faculties takes place till the age of 5. One of the recent reports revealed that a good number of children in the age bracket of 4–8 years couldn’t solve simple 2 digit sums, or identify letters. Also, more girls were enrolled in government schools as opposed to boys who were preferably sent to private institutions.

The deep-rooted issues:

— Technological: Many Indians are still deprived of smooth and high-speed internet connections and the availability of devices like computers, laptops, and tablets. Though internet penetration into our rural India has been fast-paced and is growing exponentially, the technical know-how and good quality services are still missing in hinterlands.

— Infrastructural: Unless the school is within the reach, the parents refuse to send their children to school due to security concerns. Girls have to bear the brunt the most as infrastructure like well-built toilets, nearby school buildings, safe transportation, sanitation facilities (most crucial for their health, hygiene, protection, and overall development of well-being) are still missing in many regions of our country.

— Social and Behavioral: Somehow private educational institutions are biased towards well off and rich parents. The environment of these schools doesn’t let children from a humble background, survive the imbalanced and indiscriminate competition. The hefty price that is taken by them as fees (also the donations) remains a cause of concern. One of the major behavioral issues is ‘gender discrimination’. For eg. if the poor parents are in a position to send only one of their children to school, more often than not, they prefer sending boys to school over girls. Where mothers are working outside, girl child takes care of the younger siblings and do the home chores.

— Economic: When parents from very poor to poor social structures like daily wage earners, construction workers, work to earn their daily bread (especially when much of their work is seasonal), fulfilling food, clothing, and shelter needs are given preference. Needs like getting a good education doesn’t seem to be an important thing. And so, the children get compelled to become a helping hand for their parents and work in low skilled jobs for money.

— Political: The ‘42nd Constitutional amendment act’ of 1976, placed ‘Education’ in the concurrent list under the 7th Schedule, which means both Centre, as well as the state, have the power to legislate on the subject. Clashes between the center and the states can be seen now and then in terms of implementation of various policies and programs. For eg. a constant indifference over a notion that the present government may be trying to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states through its three-language formula. Such a misunderstanding needs a permanent solution for the peace and harmony of the nation.

— Cultural: Language is an important component of any culture. In a diverse country like India, cultural clashes due to differences between languages have been a major point of conflict. Be it between the people of north and south — trying to seek jobs in different parts of the country with different cultures and languages, or between political parties at the center and state, or among parties of different states. The sheer competition for jobs and survival that had led to ugly clashes between people of different regions and languages has been seen quite frequently.

— Skill-based: Due to the lack of attention given to the development of a robust system of vocational education, and less importance to training in industry-based skills has given way to a ‘low skill base’ among the youths of our country.

The Fresh Policy Document — a few highlights

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1. 5+3+3+4 Structure: The new structure emphasizes a system where ‘playschool learning’ would come under the ambit of formal education. Earlier, the 10+2 structure didn’t cover children in the age group of 3–6 years. This would promote Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE).
2. Internship after class 6: The children would now have to pay attention to learning at least one skill through internship thereby gaining practical knowledge and attaining employable skills. A 10-day bagless period sometime between Grades 6–8 for training as an intern by some local experts in skills like pottery, gardening, etc would be added. The system would be open for students of Grades 6–12 as well. Students would also be taught ‘coding’ as a 21st-century skill from Grade 6 onwards.
3. Teaching in Mother Tongue or Regional Language: Children up to the Grade 5 and preferably till Grade 8 would be taught in their mother tongue or regional language.
4. Universalization of Education: The policy aims to achieve a gross enrollment ratio(GER) of 100% by 2030
5. Foundational Literacy and Numeracy: This would help children develop their cognitive, mental, and reasoning abilities thereby polishing the ‘fundamental skills’ from the very beginning of their learning ages.
6. Holistic Progress Card System: It would give a 360-degree review of their progress status to achieve — outcome-based results. Here, not only teachers, parents, and peers but the student herself/himself would review one’s progress.
7. National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education: It would be formulated by NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education) and NCERT. The aim is to have good quality trained teachers so that they do overall justice to the ‘responsible job’ of ‘shaping the future of our younger generations’. This would make sure that every teacher has completed a minimum of 4 years B.Ed degree by 2030.
8. Flexible Under-Graduate Curricula: Multiple entries and exit points with appropriate certification like a certificate, diploma, and degree as per the number of years of completion of graduation. The credits of what all they have learned would be transferred to the ‘Academic Bank of Credits’ so that the students/drop-outs can resume their studies from where they left. This would lead to optimal utilization of education gained at each level. The hardcore separation between ‘curricular’, ‘extracurricular’, or ‘co-curricular’ would be done away with.
9. Multidisciplinary Educational and Research Universities: These Universities would be based on providing the best multidisciplinary education on par with global standards. Its importance lies in the understanding of the fact that a person is better off as a ‘jack of all trades’ as ‘knowledge of multiple disciplines’ is much better than a compartmentalized understanding, for inculcating the habit of a holistic analysis before any decision making. The policy encourages the Universities to tune in their ‘single-stream’ structure to become ‘multidisciplinary’
10. National Research Foundation: This would give the much-needed impetus to our research and development sector. A ‘culture of Innovation and research’ would be propagated among University-level children. At the school level, the government is already pursuing a flagship program of NITI Ayog, the ‘Atal Innovation Mission’ to help tinker the young minds towards innovation, research, and development.
11. Higher Education Commission of India: An umbrella body with its four verticals would be set up to oversee the entire higher education system except for medical and legal education. A single overarching body as a regulator, fund provider, and as an accreditor would keep a ‘light but tight’ check thereby simultaneously giving the Universities the desired freedom.
12. Autonomy to Colleges: This would make colleges free from gaining affiliations and promote flexibility like in deciding the number of seats and courses as per their accredited score. Not to mention, such autonomy is vital in achieving the ambitious aim of raising the ‘Gross Enrollment Ratio’ (GER) to 50% by 2035 in higher education institutions.
13. National Educational Technology Framework: It will be a platform for the exchange of innovative technological ideas.
14. Gender Inclusion Fund: This would make education more equitable thereby promoting gender equality.
15. Promotion of Multilinguisim: To promote multilingualism, the National Institute for Pali, Prakit, and Persian and Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation would be set up. There would be special care given to the learning of ‘Sanskrit’ language.
16. Increase in Expenditure: The budgetary allocation to the education sector would be raised to an ambitious 6% from the present 1.7% of the GDP.
17. Single Fee structure: A fixed fee structure would be followed by all educational institutions. This would help rein in the private sector from charging huge fees from students and would further benefit children from economically weaker sections.
18. Adult Education: ‘School complexes’ and ‘library spaces’ would be utilized for adult education post-school hours.
19. Indian Sign Language: NIOS would prepare modules to facilitate the learning of different subjects among special children/ children with disabilities. The ‘hidden potential’ among ‘children with disabilities’ would be taken care of gently. Also, assistive devices, technology-based tools, and tailored made mechanisms would be used to support the special needs of these children.
20. National Cadet Corps: States are encouraged to continue NCC wings under the aegis of the ‘Ministry of Defence’ in secondary and higher secondary schools with special emphasis on tribal-dominated areas.
21. Boarding Facilities: Boarding and residential school like facilities with a particular focus on students from disadvantaged backgrounds would be provided.
22. E-education: A digital infrastructure would be strengthened to promote online/ e-education. E-education becomes even important after experiencing a crisis like the recent pandemic in the face of the corona. Also, an overhaul in the digital system would enrich our nations’ preparedness towards any future calamity, epidemic, or catastrophic events. It should be the prerogative of the government to save the crucial time of students without any undue blockades and breaks in regular education. To promote the same, ‘e-content’ not only in English and Hindi but in 8 more languages will be provided.
23. National Scholarship Portal: An approach to reward the meritorious students belonging to SC, ST, OBC, and SEDGs (socially and economically disadvantaged groups).
24. A new 3-Language Formula: The choice of languages would be left on children, where a minimum of two languages out of three have to be Indian Native languages.
25. Experiential Learning: It will give impetus to hands-on learning, learning by doing, story-telling- based pedagogy, competency-based learning, problem-solving, inquiry-based, discussion-based learning, and developing critical thinking.
26. Nutrition and Health: The policy takes care of the nutrition and health of children through regular meals, timely health check-ups, and maintaining health cards for the same. For eg. a right eye check-up at an early age of around 3 years can save a child from many eye problems later.
27. Balvatika: Before going to ‘class 1’, children would take up a preparatory class called ‘Balvatika’ and would be taught by an ECCE- qualified teacher.
28. Board Exams: There would be different options provided like annual, semester, or modular board exams to be conducted by the schools.
29. National Testing Agency: A hearty welcome to an agency with the role of organizing a common aptitude test or specialized exams for university-level exams. This would lessen the burden as children now don’t have to run for attempting one exam to another for getting admissions.
30. Exchange of Best Practises: The high performing Indian Universities would be given a chance to set up campuses outside the country. And the gates for ‘Top 100’ Universities will be opened to operate in India and share the best global practices.

Questions that are still left to be answered…

1. As the level of our current fiscal deficit stands at 4.6% of the GDP, the question that remains is how will the government be able to spend 6% of its GDP on education?
2. Education being a concurrent subject, can be governed by the Center and states efficiently together only through mutual consensus and support.
3. Even though we have regulators, regulating Universities at the present level too but still, much of the unaccounted donation looted by some private institutions go unregulated.
4. Who will be the top 100 Universities that would start their operations in India? Will they be selected as per the ‘QS University Rankings’ which are also the basis for the selection of Indian Universities for awarding the ‘eminence status’ under the ‘Institute of Eminence Scheme’.
5. The top 20 global Universities like Yale, Cambridge, Stanford, etc have not shown much interest in extending their campuses in India. How will this be taken into considerations remains unanswered?
6. There is no mention of the insertion of studies like gender studies and cultural studies into the curriculum.
7. Multilingualism means a good number of teachers have to be trained and a good amount of right literature has to be prepared. Seeing the present shortage of ‘qualified language teachers’, handling multilingualism at the level of school looks herculean.
8. Does the removal of ‘Hindi and English’ as compulsory languages under the ‘3-language formula’ have any impact on our future dealings in the official work of Parliament, Supreme Court, state assemblies, and multiple ‘Sarkari Daftars’? Will we be amending our ‘Official Languages act as well?
9. How well are we prepared to tackle the infrastructural and logistics bottlenecks. Because if it is all about children, to be able to reach the children becomes the topmost priority.

What can be the Road Ahead?

The policy sort to bring expansive changes in our education system and should be given compliments for its ‘longterm’ vision and ‘wide-ranging’ provisions.

A policy in itself always brings with it an imagination, a will, and a freshness. It provides comprehensive guidelines that should be taken as a ‘torchbearer’ in shaping the future of a country. But at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that the real success of a country doesn’t lie in formulating far-reaching, policies alone. Rather the actual accomplishment lies in ‘implementing’ it in a best-intentioned, collective, dedicated manner, and true spirit.

Jai Hind…