The National Education Policy of India 2020 (NEP 2020), was approved by the Union Cabinet of India on July 29, 2020, the policy outlines the vision of new education system of India. The new policy replaces the previous National Policy on Education, 1986. The policy is a comprehensive framework for elementary education to higher education as well as vocational training in both rural and urban India. The policy aims to transform India's education system by 2030.
The NEP 2020 was formulated after a wide range of consultations and indeed provides a clear vision of India’s outlook and purpose of education for the coming decades.
The policy accords the highest priority to achieving Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by all students by Grade 3. The policy states, "The highest priority of the education system will be to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary school by 2025. The rest of this policy will become relevant for our students only if this most basic learning requirement (i.e., reading, writing, and arithmetic at the foundational level) is first achieved.”
Accordingly, all State/UT governments will immediately prepare an implementation plan for attaining universal foundational literacy and numeracy in all primary schools, identifying stage-wise targets and goals to be achieved by 2025, the NIPUN Bharat Mission was launched on July 5, 2021 to achieve this goal.
This necessarily implies that implementation of NEP 2020 has to be a step by step process and not a haphazard top to down model.
Along with achieving the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by grade 3 the next step: The replacement of The "10 + 2" structure with "5+3+3+4" model.
It’s only after implementing these preliminary and basic changes with students passing out of these new systems will higher education be equipped to take up the challenges of the new system namely:
Four-year multi-disciplinary bachelor's degree in the undergraduate programmes with multiple exit options. These will include professional and vocational areas and with lateral exit options like: A certificate after completing 1 year of study; a diploma after completing 2 years of study; a Bachelor's degree after completion of a 3-year programme; and 4-year multidisciplinary Bachelor's degree (the preferred option), etc.
The present attempts by the government to implement NEP 2020, in piece meal will be like putting new wine into old wine skins. The result will be chaos and confusion at every stage resulting in degeneration of quality and degree/certificates becoming mere formality and eye wash.
The manner in which NEP 2020 has to be implemented and the focus areas are mentioned in the NEP 2020 document itself.
The NEP at page 5 spells them out that “The teacher must be at the centre of the fundamental reforms in the education system. The new education policy must help re-establish teachers, at all levels, as the most respected and essential members of our society, because they truly shape our next generation of citizens. It must do everything to empower teachers and help them to do their job as effectively as possible.
Teachers are the starting and focal point of NEP 2020 implementation. This is again emphasised in the fundamental principles of the policy ‘teachers and faculty as the heart of the learning process – their recruitment, continuous professional development, positive working environments and service conditions.’
The NEP 2020 is a pragmatic practical document prepared by experts that is why it states unequivocally at para 26.2. “In order to attain the goal of education with excellence and the corresponding multitude of benefits to this Nation and its economy, this policy unequivocally endorses and envisions a substantial increase in public investment in education by both the Central government and all State Governments. The Centre and the States will work together to increase the public investment in Education sector to reach 6% of GDP at the earliest. Therefore, the role of the State Governments in implementing NEP 2020 is very clearly stated in the NEP 2020 document itself.
The government’s role is to ensure adequate manpower supply and infrastructural facilities. Instead of this, it’s really sad and pathetic to see that the politicians and the bureaucrats are using the NEP 2020 to gain control over teachers and the management of educational institutions which is not at all the purpose of NEP 2020. Their efforts in this line will only diminish the quality of education in Goa.
Finally, it would have been better for the Education Department to ensure free distribution of the NEP 2020 to each and every teacher in the State. Its high time for the education system in the country shun the top to bottom approach and instead respect and encourage teachers themselves to come out with viable and suitable models of education for the State.
(The writer is a professor of law and an education consultant)