After 34 years of long wait, India gets its new education policy. It is not surprising that things take time rather good things take time to happen over a developing country be it any for that matter. Coming back to India which had a National policy on education (as known previously) since 1986 (also known as NPE) which got further modified in the year 1992.
The primary focus of the 1986 policy was regarding ACCESS and EQUITY of education. Access means the availability of the education and equity means fairness because there are people who are more disadvantaged than others when it comes to having access to education. We have indeed come a long way from 1986. However, today, it is regarding the quality education which previously was just about the access to education. The only major improvement since the last policy of 1986 has been the right to (free & compulsory) education act 2009 which was enacted by the parliament of India on 4th august 2009.
The main aim of National education policy 2020 is to design a vision and framework for both school education and higher education in India. The NEP proposes to change the school’s academic structure from (10+2 years) of schooling format to (5+3+3+4) format. The new structure further divides the initial five years of education to (3+2) three being KG, LKG, UKG (as foundation of a child’s education) and other 2 being class 1 & 2. Then comes class 3 to 5 which is tier 2 of the schooling education system according to the new national education policy. Other 3 includes class 6th to 8th which is the middle school and further 9th to 12th are secondary school years.
Earlier, foundation classes I.e., KG, LKG and UKG were not counted in the formal education and parents had an option to enroll their children directly in 1st standard. The idea behind this is early childhood care and education, basically the foundation of learning. So, the previous structure of 10+2 has been replaced by the new structure 5+3+3+4.
The undergraduate degree structure will be available for 3- and 4-years education. It now has multiple entry and exit options. For example, if a student opts to leave his degree at any point during the course of the period, they have the option to return and start from where they left. They'll not be required to start from their first year of undergraduate courses again. Along with multiple entry and exit options, a student will also receive appropriate certificates. For example, a student will be awarded a diploma for one-year undergraduate education. Advanced diploma for 2-year undergraduate education and a bachelor's degree for 3-year course as well as 4-year course. Under this policy, undergraduate programmes will be credit based. Under a credit-based system, 1 credit might be equivalent to 1 hour of teaching (lecture or tutorial) or 2 hours of practical/field work or so (as and when specified). It is a new way which will hopefully provide flexibility in designing curriculum and assigning credits based on the course content or the hours of teaching.
Now that students will have the option to exit and enter at different stages, the credits earned by them so far will be accounted for their continuation. For this purpose, there will be an academic bank of credit which will digitally store the academic credits earned from various recognized higher education institutions. Degrees will then be awarded looking into account of the credits earned by the students.
The higher education institutes now will have the option of offering a 1-year master’s degree under the new national education policy 2020. It still exists but now, the second year will be more focused on research-based study (for 3-year graduates). For 4-years degree holders, master’s degree will be specifically of 1 year because of the importance given to the fourth year (research) to the 4-year graduates.
Also, govt. Has decided to discontinue M.Phil. (master's in philosophy) program. Another provision of this new education policy is, there will be no hard separations between arts and sciences, between curricular and extracurricular activities, between vocational and academic streams, etc. To eliminate harmful hierarchies among, and silos between different areas of learning. To understand this, look at the subjects which Arts as a stream offers presently, which are history, geography, psychology, English, political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, etc. Looking at the hard sciences subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, botany, etc. As per the new education policy, there will be no hard separation between the streams. The elimination of differentiation between the hard science and soft science subjects will be seen with the implementation of the new education policy in the near future which will in return be beneficial to the students who want to study with a broader aspect of education all in all. Moreover, a holistic approach like this is aimed to ensure the overall development of a child and not to make him rote learn the subjects in his syllabus but also learn essential life skills.
In conclusion, the overall picture is still unclear regarding how it will be combined, and the teachers will have a major role in order to give clarity and should be educated enough to handle this change. The education system of India, through this policy will see a change in the education system by 2030 and 6% of the overall GDP will be sufficient to bear this change, presently the government spends approximately around 3% of the GDP on education. That is how this multidisciplinary approach to education across these sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities and sports will help create well rounded citizens.
