Today is the last day to submit suggestions towards the draft new National Education Policy or NEP. According to reports, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry received more than 75 thousand responses towards the policy which has been formulated to reform the education sector in the country. The HRD Ministry had released the Policy prepared by a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. K. Kasturirangan for public consultation on May 31. According to the government, the new Policy proposes major changes in both school and higher education among others, better governance systems and brings greater focus on research and innovation.
Draft new National Education Policy: 10 points
According to the government, the new Policy proposes major changes in both school and higher education among others
1. Draft NEP 2019 has been uploaded on MHRD's website and also at innovate.mygov.in platform to elicit suggestions from all stakeholders including the public, Government of India Ministries and State Governments.
2. The Finance Minister in her Budget speech assured that the Government will also bring in a New National Education Policy to transform India's higher education system to one of the global best education systems.
3. Many southern political parties had protested a reference to Hindi in the initial draft policy, forcing the committee to bring out an alternative version. The initial draft policy carried a three-language formula that many political parties claimed was a means to forcibly impose Hindi on southern states.
4. If the Policy is approved and implemented in its current form, school students will appear for a board-like examination after classes 3, 5, and 8. One of the rationales behind introducing 'state-census examination' at the end of grades 3, 5, and 8 is that board examinations on only two occasions, at the end of grades 10 and 12, renders these assessment tests as only summative and not formative.
5. The Policy envisages an increase in public investment in education from the current 10% of overall public expenditure in education to 20%, over a 10-year period.
6. The Policy has highlighted the need to have teachers with the talent for teaching and says that there are very few initiatives which 'explicitly aim to recruit the best performing students, or those that have the most talent for teaching, into the teaching profession'.
7. The Policy in the present form will ensure the centralization, commercialization and communalization of the Indian education system and structures, says Communist Party of India (Marxist).
8. Calling for their contribution in the making of the country's education policy in 21st century, the University Grants Commission (UGC) and several other government bodies had asked the educational institutions to organise a series of discussions on draft National Education Policy.
9. SIO, a student body, has said the Policy must refrain from homogenising India's heritage as being representative of any religion or certain castes. While SFI, another student body, said the Policy is against the vision and the provision of the Constitution of India.
10. The Hindu reported that the Centre has been sifting through the recommendations it has received so far and will take the next few weeks to make changes to the draft before it is submitted for Cabinet approval.
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