National Education Policy Highlights: Release Date Dec 2020

The draft of the Education Policy was submitted on May 2019 by Dr K. Kasturirangam to the Union human resource Development Minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Minister of State, Sanjay Shyamrao Dhotre. The introduction of the New Education Policy was facilitated in order to universalize the pre-primary education, secure quality education in India and increase the foundational literacy rate in the next 20 years. 

The draft primarily aims at improving the fundamentals of education, that are quality, equality, access, accountability and affordability. In the further attempt of maintaining and improving the credibility of education in India, the New Education plans are scheduled to be reviewed every 5 years. This will supplement in overcoming educational shortcomings and flawed systems. 

The National Curriculum Framework 2020

NCERT’s new curriculum framework will also be completed by December 2020. As soon as the National Education Policy is finalized, the related groups will be consulted. 

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) will be reviewed in the second week of November 2020 which will include analysis of teaching methods and study the content of Indian schools. UGC will also get replaced and the New Educational Policy will be released in December 2020. 

The NCF provides the main framework for school curriculum and textbooks content and convey guidelines on teaching practices. The National Curriculum Framework has been released in 1975, 1988, 2000 and 2005. The last NCF ensured learning without burden by shifting attention from teachers to students. 

Director of NCERT, Hrushikesh Senapaty stated in an interview with the Times of India, “revisions will weed out content that is outdated, and incorporate contemporary and emerging trends. The new NEP will be taken into account and there are proposals for an integrated curriculum. The focus groups are going to be formed the latest by the second week of November, if not earlier. NCF 2020 will be more of a review of the NCF 2005.”

The National Education Program that is set for Dec 2020 release will include various aspects in the school’s academic program, such as: 

Adolescent education program 

National population education program 

Educational technology 

Computational education 

Vocational education.

The draft of the New Education policy included the following features:  

New Education Policy Highlights 2020

• The policy aims to extrapolate the pre-primary education and increase foundational literacy rate by 2025.

• The proposal will restructure pedagogical and curricular structure with Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) as a vital part of school education.

• It proposes new academic reconfiguring for the children between the age group of 3 to 18 years.

• It focuses at equitable & inclusive education for all especially for under-represented groups (URGs).

• It aims at universal availability & retention with 100% Gross Enrolment Ratio for all school education in the next 10 years.

• It has proposed a three-language formula for encouraging multilingualism among children between the ages of 2 to 8 years.

• In addition to the fundamental languages, it also proposes the teaching of other classical languages in schools, such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Pali, Persian, and Prakrit with diverse literature history. Thus facilitating teaching of Indian classical languages.

• Unconventional education programs such as online learning will be affiliated and preferred over classroom education.

• The segregation of the subjects into curricular, co-curricular or extra-curricular will be halted. Curricular subjects will include arts, craft, music, sports and yoga subjects.

• A new independent State School Regulatory Authority (SSRA) will be created.

• School’s syllabus load would be reduced.

• It aims to unite over 40,000 colleges and 800 universities into somewhat around 15,000 multidisciplinary educational institutions.

• The policy will propose mainly three types of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). They will be Research Universities, Teaching Universities and Autonomous degree-granting colleges.

• It aims to provide complete academic and administrative autonomy to all higher education institutions. Such institutions would be governed by independent boards.

• The National Research Foundation (NRF) will be soon up and running as soon as the Parliament approves of it. The sole aim will be to promoteresearch culture and augmenting research capacity across higher education.

• The National Education Commission will be constituted in 2020. Its chairperson would be honourable Prime Minister and will be seated with educationists, researchers, ministers and elite professionals from diverse fields.

• The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) will be proposed by the committee to be renamed as the Ministry of Education (MoE)

• By the year 2030, the public investment by the Central and State Governments will be raised to 20% of overall public expenditure.

• UGC will reconfigure Higher Education Grants Commission (HEGC).

• Different areas of professional education will be managed by standard educational bodies.  

• All the private and public institutions will be boosted with quality and equivalent education standards which will be set without any materialistic intentions.

• A recommendation has been put forth to form the Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation (IITI).

• The Rights to Education Act that was last revised in 2009 has been extended.  It will pay attention to the academic needs of children under the age of 3 to 18 years.

• The B.Ed degree will serve as the minimum required qualification for teachers. The degree is a 4 years integrated graduate program.

• The undergraduate programmes would be redesigned with multiple admissions options and their duration of study will also be changed.

• Foreign languages will be taught as primary subjects in the secondary schools.

• It has been proposed to restructure higher education institutions into:

• An accredited eco-system could be created under the supervision of the restructured NAAC.

• Standard arrangement, accreditation, maintenance and economic functions such as funding should be separated. These will also be conducted by the National Higher Education Regulatory Authority. It will be the core regulatory body for regulation of higher education and professional education.

• The committee has also proposed some policy initiatives such as:

• The Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog has been nominated to become active in 2020 to serve  the purpose of coordinating the Central and State Government efforts to integrate all the mentioned initiative.  

How will the New Education Policy uplift out nation’s education system?

The present RTE act allows education support of children under the age of 6 to 14. With the New Education Policy reforms, this will be beneficial for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) by covering three years, that is for children under the age of 3 to 18 years. The school education system will be covering four years under secondary education. This will enable ECCE to facilitate play and discovery-based learning for children of the specified age groups.

Mother tongue based education will aid in the development of oral language training. The policy will also be able to protect and replenish our cultural roots via the study of classical languages, mother tongues and local languages.

Digital learning is the new revolution. Implementation of online teaching over classroom training would be an advance step for not only an ideal future but also for an efficient economic system. Not to mention increased rate of admission registrations from remote places.

Educators posts will be rightfully filled with well qualified teachers. This will empower the education system as teachers are the backbones of an education system.

If the policy will be able to fulfil its purpose, the most advantageous change would occur in professional education. The government will be able to put more emphasis on the field of research and technology.

If the nominated reforms become an integral part of the education system with the aid of educational revolutions caused by nation’s students, educators and educational institutions; India’s educational eco-system will definitely flourish and soon we will be the proud representers of a developed nation.  

The ideal future is not too far away now. We just have to be ready to embrace it when we reach it!