DRAFT NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY 2019

Prelims level : Governance- Policies Mains level : GS-II- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
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About

  • The New Education Policy drafted by a committee headed by Dr.K.Kasturirangan.
  • The report proposes an education policy, which seeks to address the challenges of:

    1. Access

    2. Equity

    3. Quality

    4. Affordability

    5. Accountability faced by the current education system.

  • The draft Policy provides for reforms at all levels of education from school to higher education.
  • It seeks to increase the focus on early childhood care, reform the current exam system, strengthen teacher training, and restructure the education regulatory framework.

Key Features

Current Situation

  • Early childhood education is delivered through anganwadis and private-preschools.
  • There has been less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood.

Suggestion by Committee

  • The draft Policy recommends developing a two-part curriculum for early childhood care and education.
  • This will consist of:

    1. Guidelines for up to three-year-old children (for parents and teachers), and

    2. Educational framework for three to eight-year-old children.

  • This would be implemented by improving and expanding the anganwadi system and co-locating anganwadis with primary schools.

RTE Act,2009:

  • The draft Policy recommends to include early childhood education and secondary school education in the ambit of RTE Act so that all children between the ages of 3 to 18 are covered under the Act.
  • It also recommends no detention of children till class 8.

Curriculum Framework:

  • This would consist of a 5-3-3-4 design comprising:

    1. Five years of foundational stage (three years of pre-primary school and classes one and two),

    2. Three years of preparatory stage (classes three to five),

    3. Three years of middle stage (classes six to eight), and

    4. Four years of secondary stage (classes nine to 12).

  • Curriculum load in each subject should be reduced to its essential core content. This would make space for holistic, discussion and analysis-based learning.

School Exam Reforms:

Current situation of board examinations:

    1. Force students to concentrate only on a few subjects,

    2. Do not test learning in a formative manner, and

    3. Cause stress among students.

Draft policy suggests-

  • To track students’ progress throughout their school experience, the draft Policy proposes State Census Examinations in classes three, five and eight.
  • Restructuring the board examinations to test only core concepts, skills and higher order capacities.
  • These board examinations will be on a range of subjects.
  • The students can choose their subjects, and the semester when they want to take these board exams.
  • The in-school final examinations may be replaced by these board examinations.

School Infrastructure:

Current Situation

  • Establishing primary schools in every habitation across the country has helped increase access to education.
  • However, it has led to the development of very small schools (having low number of students).
  • The small size of schools makes it operationally complex to deploy teachers and critical physical resources.

Recommendation

  • Multiple public schools should be brought together to form a school complex.
  • A complex will consist of one secondary school (classes nine to twelve) and all the public schools in its neighborhood that offer education from pre-primary till class eight.

Regulation of Schools:

  • The Policy recommends independent State School Regulatory Authority for each state that will prescribe uniform standards for public and private schools across the state.

Higher Education:

  • The Policy aims to increase Gross Enrollment Ratio to 50% by 2035 from the current level of about 25.8%.

Regulatory Structure:

  • Instead of multiple regulators the Policy recommends National Higher Education Regulatory Authority which would include professional and vocational education so that the role of professional councils such as AICTE and Bar Council Of India would be limited to setting standards of professional practice.
  • Establishing National Research Foundation: as an autonomous body to fund, mentor and build capacity for quality research in India.

Vocational Education:

  • Less than 5% of the workforce in the age group of 19-24 years receives vocational education in India.
  • The Policy recommends integrating vocational educational programs in all educational institutions in a phased manner over 10 years.
  • National Committee for the integration of Vocational Education will be set up to achieve the intended goals in vocational education in India.

3 Language Formula:

  • Flexibility given to states to select subjects.
  • The state governments should implement a modern Indian language preferably southern Indian language, apart from Hindi and English in Hindi speaking states and of regional language, English and another language preferably Hindi in non-Hindi speaking states.

Challenges:

  • In the case of early childhood care and education, the focus is more on physical resources and less focus is provided to psychosocial stimulation for development.
  • There is no government system to take care of babies of poor families or of mothers who go to work for daily wages. The experimental project of Fulwari or community-managed crèches in Chhattisgarh is one answer to this gap.
  • There needs to be a discussion on whether literacy and numeracy skills should be developed during the time of foundational learning.
  • In the draft Policy, there is no mention of how the State regulatory body will regulate the government institutions.
  • Increasing the limit on the higher side of education i.e.., up to 18 is not consistent with the limits across the world. Also, it is a very expensive proposition.
  • There is not enough capacity in the country to provide for teacher’s education. Also, there is more focus given to B.Ed. and M.Ed. has been given less importance under the policy.
  • There are fewer consensuses on the integration of foundational learning with schooling. In Europe, compulsory education begins at the age of 6. In countries like Denmark and Finland, compulsory education begins at the age of 7.
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