After India became independent, apart from reshaping the country economically, one of the main objective of the government of India was to formulate a strong policy to promote education and strive academic excellence among Indians especially among the weaker sections of the Indian masses and as such the first education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad envisaged that there should be a uniform educational system throughout the country and such should be under the strong control of the Central government for which various commissions and institutions were established liked Universal Education Commission in 1948, the Secondary Education Commission in 1952, the University Grants Commission
,Kothari Commission and the National Council of Research Education and Training in 1961.Apart from all these from time to Various Educational Policies were announced by the Central Government, the first among which was the National Policy on Education in 1968, which called for fulfilling compulsory education for all children upto 14 years of age as stipulated by the constitution of India and specialized training and qualification of teachers.This policy also stressed on the three language formula ie the English Language as the medium of instruction, Hindi and the state language of that state where the School is located. Again in 1986 a new educational policy was introduced which called for removal of disparities
and put emphasis on child centric approach in primary education. It also sought to achieve a social integration for which various scholarships were announced and recruitment of more teachers especially from the Scheduled Castes, incentives for poor family were announced.
The draft of the New Educational Policy,2020 was prepared by the Ministry of Human Resource Development,in 2019 and it aimed at reducing the curriculum and include those topics as a part of the syllabus which are essential for learning. It also focused on introducing system through which a child becomes capable of thinking critically and the learning should be based on proper analysis. Though the structure ie the number of years in a School is same but such were revised. Following are the important
guidelines of the new educational policy of 2020.
- 10+2 board structure is dropped
- New school structure will be 5+3+3+4
- Upto 5 Pre-school, 6 to 8 Mid School, 8 to 11 High School, 12 onwardsGraduation
- Any Degree will be 4 years
- 6th std onwards vocational courses available
- From 8th to 11 students can choosesubjects
- All graduation course will have major andminor
- Example- Science student can have Physics as Major and Music as minor also. Any combination
he can choose - All higher education will be governed by only one authority.
10. UGC AICTE will be merged.
- All University government, private, Open, Deemed, Vocational etc will have same grading and
other rules. - New Teacher Training board will be setup for all kinds of teachers in country, no state can
change - Same level of Accreditation to any collage, based on its rating collage will get autonomous rights
and funds. - New Basic learning program will be created by government for parents to teach children upto 3
years in home and for Pre-school 3 to 6 - Multiple entry and exit from any course
- Credit system for graduation for each year student will get some credits which he can utilize if
he takes break in course and come back again to complete course - All schools’ exams will be semester wise twice a year
- The syllabus will be reduced to core knowledge of any subjectonly
- More focus on student practical and application knowledge
- For any graduation course if student complete only one year he will get a basic certificate, if he
completes two years then he will get Diploma certificate and if he completes full course then
he will get degree certificate. So, no year of any student will be wasted if he breaks the course
in between. - All the graduation course feed of all Universities will be governed by single authority with
capping on each course.
Now the aims and objective of the government is to is to focus on all
round developments of the Children and introduce some vocational curriculum, but what I feel is that in order to to introduce vocational courses from class vi the concerned School(s) have to develop infrastructure which is going to incur huge expenditure.Introducing such may be possible in government School as the fund may be a problem but what about the private Schools especially in the rural areas where even sometimes it becomes difficult to pay salary to the teachers.Moreover for teaching such vocational courses Schools needs to appoint some technically qualified and expert teachers whose salary structure will also be very high as compared to the ordinary teachers as such the Schools may have to
raise their fee structure which might put a huge economic burden on those economically backward parents and it may result in the rise in number of dropouts. Secondly the new policy mainly focus on pre primary grades and
reading hours and vocational courses but it neglects the some vital aspects of teaching which includes discipline, listening skills, reading skills etc..
Thirdly we should know that teachers and students are part of the
academic system but this policy mainly drafted keeping in mind the benifits of the students as there is not a single clause through which the teachers are to be benifitted.Though inspite of any board exam as of now there is equal competition among the Government and Private Schools but in terms of thye work load,it is less in the government schools and high salaries and is just opposite in case of the teachers ofprivate schools.So if the government have to change the system a uniformity should be introduced even in the field of teachers throughout the country. Another important point of the new education policy is if student complete only one year he will get a basic certificate, if he completes two years then he will get Diploma certificate and if he completes full course then he will get degree certificate.But such may bear fruit only for some technical subjects but
some basic subjects like History, Political Science, Sociology etc will loose its importance and the students will be deprived of knowing about our glorious past which have been the strong pillar for the contemporary socio political structure of our country. Lastly If the government is really concerned about reviving the educational system it has to introduce a uniform protocol throughout the country and develop proper infrastructure.It has to be transparent on everything and have to ensure that 4.5 GDP which it propose to spend on education covers not only the government Schools but also the private schools in the rural areas.
— —Premankur Dam