5+3+3+4 Education Structure

The NEP is breaking down the existing structure of India’s K-12 education. There’s no more 10+2 — 10 years of primary and secondary education followed by 2 years of higher secondary education. Schools in India will now follow the 5+3+3+4 structure.

But wait- 5+3+3+4= 15. Does this mean students are now required to spend 15 years in school?

Well, they already do. You see, most children start their education by the age of 3 through playschools. The new structure is simply bringing playschools into the formal education ambit, and dividing the school structure based on the developmental stages of children.

So for the first 5 years, children aged 3 to 8 years will enter the foundational stage. Since maximum brain development happens at these ages, the curriculum will focus on learning languages, playing, and activities. After 5 years of this, these kids will enter grade 3, where the focus will shift to discovery, and interaction-based classroom learning. Linguistic and numeracy skills will be honed at this stage.

One contentious point here was the medium of instruction. There was some confusion that lessons till grade 5 would be taught strictly in the mother tongue or the local language prevalent in the region. But that’s not entirely accurate. According to the policy, “Wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the mother tongue… Thereafter, the home/local language shall continue to be taught as a language wherever possible. This will be followed by both public and private schools.” So this phrase ‘wherever possible’ clearly gives some wiggle room to schools. All in all, three languages are to be taught to all students and while states are allowed to decide what to pick, two of these languages have to be native to India.

Anyway, once these students get to grade 6, the pedagogy will evolve to more experiential learning in the sciences, mathematics, arts, social sciences and humanities. This is also when students will be introduced to vocational training- they’ll be taught technical skills that will allow them to take up jobs in specialised trades or crafts like pottery or carpentry. In fact, they’ll also have to do a 10-day internship with local experts!

This will go on till students get to grade 9. Once there, they will be exposed to multidisciplinary studies where they get to pick the subjects they like from the ones available. No more Science vs Commerce. No more compartmentalization of those adept at mathematics and the ones interested in History. Basically, there are no more streams. You can choose to study Physics along with Sanskrit, or Political Science along with Computers, and your school will have to accommodate you. Even vocational courses and extra curricular activities will be given as much leverage as academic studies.

Of course, amid all these changes, something will have to be done about those career defining assessments that make students everywhere tremble- board exams. Unfortunately, the policy does not discontinue board exams. But it does lower their importance and make them easier. What’s more, students will be allowed to take them again if they think there’s scope for improvement!

Which brings us to…College Education

The National Testing Agency (NTA) will be charged with conducting (optional) entrance examinations for admissions into higher educational institutes across the country. This will be a standardised test, similar to the SAT which is used for college admissions in the US.

Once selected into a college, students will enroll in a 3 or 4 year undergraduate degree, with an option of leaving whenever they want. If you complete one year, you’ll get a certificate. Two years gets you a diploma. If you stick it out for three or four years (depending on the course), you’ll get a degree. And if you pursue a four-year program with research, you’ll be an eligible PhD candidate.

Another really cool bit here is the Academic Bank of Credit (ABC). An ABC will store the academic credits that students earn by taking courses from various recognized higher education institutions. Whenever you complete a course, a number of credits will be added to your bank. You can then transfer these credits if you decide to switch colleges. And even if you’re forced to drop out for some reason, these credits will remain intact. Meaning you can come back years later and pick up from where you left off.

Another thing the policy focuses on is the need to make universities multidisciplinary. Meaning, they’ll be expected to teach everything from arts, science, management, etc. under one roof. By 2040, the government seeks to phase out single-stream institutions in favour of this model.

It all comes down to one question. Is the new National Education Policy effective? What are the pros and cons of the new NEP?

New Education Policy is indeed what India needed as we were following the previous one that primarily concern in mugging up the books. It has made the school factories those produce clerks, doctor and engineers. It never recognised the musician, singer, dancer and many other professions worth the respect. Plumbers and Carpenters are rated one of the lowest graded professions which has high value in developed countries as compared to India.

The previous system was broadly divided into three streams after 10, namely science, commerce and humanities. In context of their image and value, it’s considered as follows in terms of respect.

Science > Commerce > Humanities

Research and creativity were less explored subjects previously in education. But if you look at developed nations they have a good amount of partition of GDP for research.

It (5+3+3+4) is effective as compared 10+2, this is why:

Pros

• It has changed the structure from 10+2 to 5+3+3+4. It’s account concern from kindergarden to class 12 which was class 8 for Right to education
• Now, you can choose any subject after class 10 which was 3 option before student (science, commerce, humanities).
• You can exit college in any year and join again. You will certificate, diploma and graduation as per the year you exit. It is actually good because for some reason if a student is not able to continue their studies and they are out of their college, their graduation won’t get ruined.
• Vocational education and internship starts from class 6. Importance of board is made less.
• 6% of GDP will be used as fund for the policy. It’s heartening that government recognizes the importance of education.

Cons

• It’s says till class 5 it is advised to teach in vernacular language as far as possible but there is no compulsion. The problem lies for children who will grow up to have transferable jobs like police, army, paramilitary and businessman and how they will adjust.
• English is recognised as global language to communicate and this the reason we are booming in other countries than Chinese people. It’s importance is there.

But as always, implementation is key and we’ll just have to wait and see how things turn out.

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