Government of India has come up with the draft of NationalEducation Policy-2019 for inputs and very soon the policy may be out in itsfinal shape. The draft was submitted to MHRD by Kasturirangan Committeeconstituted in 2017. This draft policy is formulated in an inclusive,participatory and holistic manner to meet the changing dynamics of the needsand aspirations of new India. The draft policy is developed on fivefoundational pillars of access, equity, quality, affordability andaccountability. It also promotes innovations and research, aiming to make Indiaa superpower in knowledge by equipping students with the basic skills andeliminating shortage of manpower in the fields of science, technology, industryand academics.
The draft is different from the earlier policies and aims atanalysing education in a continuum rather than analysing it in terms of thevarious sub-stages for which it stands. The draft policy is comprehensive inperspective of covering not only school education and higher education but alsoprofessional education including medical, legal, technical, agriculture andteacher education. It also looks at verticals of vocational and adulteducation.
At present, the draft is in public domain for comments andfeedback to make it more operative and practical. It recommends new educationstructure of 5+3+3+4, where compulsory education shall start from the age of 3upto 18 years.
Keeping in view the pace of brain development at the earlystage of life, a child will now be compulsorily put to school at the age of 3years and shall remain there up-to the age of 18. The draft policy has labelledthe first stage of education as foundation stage where learning by doing,learning through activity and learning by play and discovery will be the modesoperandi. The main focus in this stage will be on the development of somefoundation skills of literacy and numeracy.
To bring inter-connectedness, and address genuine but localproblems including shortage of teachers, the draft recommends that schooleducation will be restructured for infrastructural, curricular and pedagogicalreasons. The schools will now be reorganised into school complexes to reducethe content load with no hard and fast rules to separate curricular andco-curricular aspects of education. Now education will be more liberal thanbefore.
It also seeks to setup a National Education Commission,increase public investment, strengthen the use of technology and increase focuson vocational and adult education. Besides this, National Tutor Programme,Remedial Instructional Aids Programme and National Nutrition programme will beput in place.
The policy addresses the quality concerns of highereducation and focuses on the restructuring of higher education system. The mainfocus of higher education will now be on research and teaching at three levels.Firstly, the draft recommends the establishment of 150-200 such institutionswithin 5 to 10 years which shall entirely focus on research so that globalstandards are met. Secondly, teaching universities will be established andrestructured and these shall focus on teaching besides research and thirdly,all degree undergraduate colleges will with the passage of time be autonomousdegree granting colleges with focus on teaching and basic research. Thus, athigher education level, massive focus will be on research and it is recommendedthat National Research Foundation (NRF) will be established to propel researchin all streams. The main focus of NRF shall be to incentivise and encourageundergraduate and postgraduate students for quality research.
The draft also focuses on promotion of languages with an aimto create symbiotic relationships between the regions. The draft spotlightsclassical, local, regional and modern languages which can be taken after aparticular grade. The main focus of language formula in the draft isdevelopment of language so that semantic integration is developed.
Few Concerns
• In mostof the countries compulsory education starts at the age of 6 or 7 years. Thedraft recommends the age for compulsory education as 3-18 years. Whether aconsensus is made on this age at the national level is a matter of concern.Hence it needs to be debated because a child at the age of three needs parentallove than the care which is hired. It would have been better to focus onmother’s education than the education of tender child. To keep the adolescentin the school forcibly upto 18 years is also a matter of debate.
• Thestructure of education suggested in the draft is 5+3+3+4 and there is everychance of high dropout rate especially at the secondary level keeping in viewthe socio-economic conditions of people and other causative factors besides itwill be too expensive and shall require a lot of public funding.
• Foundationlearning including the life skills at pre-primary stage looks attractive butthe integration of it with schooling is a matter of concern and may have leastconsensus and how to develop these skills is also a matter of debate. Whetherto develop literacy and numeracy at the first stage of education can also bedebated.
• The draftpolicy recommends specialization of 2 to 3 areas at early stage of education.Is it possible to have mastery over 2-3 areas without resources includinginfrastructure and expert support is also a matter of debate.
• Ifconsensus is developed then constitutional amendment is needed because RTEAct-2009 under article 21A speaks about free and compulsory education from theage 6 up-to 14 years and ECCE is a provision falling in directive principle underarticle 45.
• The draftrecommends closing of substandard stand-alone teacher education institutionswhich is also a matter of concern. There are more than 10000 stand-aloneteacher education institutions mostly under private management which yardstickwill be used to identify sub-standard ones and if teacher education is impartednow within the universities only, the matter of intake may also be a concern.
• Thenumber of research scholarships is kept very less that may not attract goodresearchers within the country and will thus encourage brain drain.
• The drafttalks much about the B.Ed. that has been kept as entry level for becoming ateacher but what about M.Ed. which also deserves a due space in the policy.
• Thus far,in school education the government has played the role of funder, operator andregulator. In policy draft the role of the Govt. will now be restricted tofunder and operator only. A separate School Regulatory Authority (SRA) will beestablished to recognise the educational institutions. It will act as atribunal, but does SRA have the mandate to derecognise/disaffiliate ordisaccredit any Govt school is also a matter of debate.
Since NPE-1986 or PoA-1992 much water has flown and ourcountry witnessed restructuring in socio-economic, political, educational andindustrial sectors which demands exceptional system of education to realise thebigger goals. This draft policy document will if implemented in letter andspirit push India towards a “New India”. The draft of NEP iscomprehensive, ambitious and a broad based policy document to achieve academicexcellence. It is the collective voice of India!
Keeping in view educational concurrence, the centre and thestate governments are equally responsible for its implementation and before itis finalised consultations at state level are also needed. Let us hope goodwill prevails, good inputs are given and the policy sees the light of the dayin 2019 itself.
The author is Assistant Professor, Department of Education,Central University of Kashmir.