JAI DUGGAR
New Education Policy approved by the government- giving us a new education policy after 3 decades! This policy does have a lot of the required changes. We will talk about what the changes are and what are the good points in this policy as well. But there are some negative points as well, that we will talk about in this blog.
There are a lot of good points in the New Education policy that we will talk about but let us begin with the most controversial issue that a lot of people are tweeting about and it has left them confused. And that is- what will be the medium of education in our schools under the New Education policy? It is causing a lot of parents as well as schools to worry. An interesting story in this is that the RSS affiliates that were giving their inputs in the New Education policy, and were in talks with the government, had demanded that Hindi should be taught compulsorily from class 6 onward in all the schools irrespective of whether it is a Hindi speaking State or a non Hindi speaking one. When the Southern states objected to the imposition of Hindi on them, then a middle ground was adopted in this New Education policy where it was said that the medium of education in all schools will not be Hindi but it shall be the local language or the mother tongue. So, this means that if this policy is changed into rules, then English as a medium of teaching will go out of schools. There will be no teaching in English. There are a lot of debates regarding it- A lot of pedagogical studies say that English is actually not a good thing. But on the other hand, all the different type of people in the country had a common base of the English language. Say, a southern Indian is working in North India or say a Tamilian is married to a Bengali and he is residing in Delhi, then what would be the mother tongue of their child and what would be the medium of instruction in schools?
Another issue with this is that- our core strength due to which we are known as coders and software programmers all over the world. It's because we have a familiarity with the language. English will still be taught, but the language will be taken away as a medium of teaching and it will change. So this is a controversial point- What are you going to do in cities like Delhi with a cosmopolitan population? Will this be an imposition on the schools or the schools will be able to choose their medium is yet to be seen because the policy also reads "wherever possible, the medium of teaching will be mother tongue or the local, regional language". So, it remains to be seen. Another allegation made against the New Education policy is that it is promoting a centralization of our education system that attempts are being made to centralize it in such a vast nation. There was a time when the founding fathers had kept education as a state subject. It was put in the concurrent list in 1976. Now, a lot of people are saying that NEP is trying to make education a central subject because all the other education bodies are being removed and a Higher education body is being attempted to be made in which the centre will decide what is to be done in the field of education in the entire country.
Think about it- if there is a higher educational institution which has a problem and raises a question then a higher education body, which is under the government, can clamp down on that institution. As an example, if we look at a country like Canada, which also has federalism, there is no Central Education ministry there. All the educational institutions are run by the states, that is, the federal structure there. So, this is believed to be a blow for our federal structure where one single body will control the education of the entire country and decide on what is right and wrong. Another allegation clubbed with this is that NEP is a drive towards privatization "Philanthropic trusts" would be at work. But what will the government actually do? Even today, there are schools and pathshalas and the government institutions which do not even have toilets for the girls. let alone the courses, What will be done to strengthen that? You are talking about creating school districts in place of schools how will the children come from far away places and study in an accumulated area?
These questions are also being raised on the New Education policy Finally, point number 3- How will all of this be implemented? It is good to discuss. There were talks about assigning 6% of the GDP to education in 1984. Every government that has come to power since then keeps on harping about this "false promise:" of giving 6% of the GDP to education- but nothing of that sort has happened. We stay stuck at 3% - maximum. How will this jump from 3% to 6% be made when the government does not have enough resources That remains to be seen. More interestingly, the research in higher educations, our statistics there have been deteriorating day by day (it is something that) the new Education Policy should have focussed upon China, which has been dominating us on the basis of its research institutions and "make in China" policies. What are we doing in the field of research? Talking about statistics, in 2008, 0.6% of the GDP was put into research and innovation by us. Today, that statistic has fallen down to 0.06% of the GDP. On one hand, we talk about becoming "Atmnirbhar" and "make in India" but on the other hand, we are losing the race to China because it is investing more in its higher education as well as research and innovation. And we are investing lesser and lesser. Furthermore, perhaps the biggest issue is that this humongous policy that has been brought in, There has been no research or debate on it. The Parliament was entirely bypased to bring in this new education policy. Why was there no debate and discussion on it? If it such a great policy, then why has there been no debate and discussion on it? That is something to think about. Let us now move to the positives and there are a lot of positives in the New Education policy.
Finally, an attempt has been made to completely overhaul the schooling system, as we knew it. A lot of people believe that it should have happened back in the 1980s. Actually, we might have been better off today had it been done earlier. Successive governments have been inefficient about it. The standard education of 10+2 is now being revamped. It will now be called as 5+3+3+4 model with three years of pre-primary. For the first time, the government has acknowledged the importance of pre- primary. Until now, only the private schools were imparting pre -primary education. Now, there will be a designated course and syllabus for this too and the government would focus on it as well. Annual examinations have been replaced by exams in classes 3,5,8 10 and 12 and it would not be based on rote learning. The higher order skills like- analysis, critical thinking, conceptual clarity So, moving on from the multiplication table of 2 and the dates in history, we would focus more on analysis, critical thinking, conceptual clarity.
In this policy, the board examinations would be conducted, but the holistic development of children would be taken into account. I have faced the brunt of not taking "holistic development" into consideration. In our times, there were curricular activities which decided our marks as well as the affection earned by teachers. Then there were extra curricular activities like sports and co-curricular activities. Under the new education policy now- irrespective of whether you are indulged in debating, painting or sports, all of it will be considered holistically. And it is extremely essential to evaluate children holistically and assign them credit points. Your report card should not be based on solely your text books. The first matter was about schooling. The second matter- A lot of things will change right from schooling, until college. For example, coding(which is very important and extremely interesting) will be taught from class 6 onward. Not only that, they will be able to do carpentry as well. This will lead to two thing- first of all, they will be equipped vocationally and they will understand that this can be done as well.
And secondly- the stigma attached with vocational things will go away gradually. Because today, there are so many people with degrees in India but they have no vocational skill with which they can start a venture of their own. Emphasis on extra things like coding and vocational things is going to be great. The generation that will come after will have more skills. Another interesting thing- the hard barriers between arts, commerce and science. The people from science, arts or commerce tend to make friends from their streams itself. These "silos" are being broken down. You can opt for science subjects while taking arts and vice versa. Now, you can study majors and minors like in American universities. Along with that, there are multiple entry and exit options as well. You could study in college for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or also do an extra year of research in college. You can enter and exit as you like- you would be provided with different degrees. Attention has been given to flexible education and choice of subjects. You can make your education multi disciplinary. All of these things will bring our education up to the international level. Finally, point number 3- and this is going to be extremely interesting as well.
In the coming years, the top universities of the world will be allowed to set up campuses in India. This provision was talked about earlier as well- It was put forward in the Foreign educational institutions bill 2010 where the foreign educational institutions could open up their campuses here, in partnership with Indian institutions. But the government was of the opinion that these foreign institutions would extract exorbitant fees. So the government had to be given 50 crores as surety. They do not have money lying around for nefarious things and would not be able to pay you without an issue. So, the foreign institutions had not set up their campuses in India. Now, the government is saying that they would be treated at par with our institutions in terms of regulations and other things. What will this lead to? Think about it- when Harvard would be set up here, then it would raise the bar of competition- our institutions would have to offer the same level of technology and pay grade. The cost of education would still be high and the high cost of education will of course become an issue but the quality of education would improve and the number of courses being offered would proliferate. Then, it would become the responsibility of the government to see how they could make higher education affordable even then So, this is the gist. So, That's all for today......
THANK YOU.
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