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Approach

• Discuss the importance of education in India.
• Mention how the draft National Education Policy is in line with this vision.
• Mention salient features of the policy and its significance.
• Conclude by few suggestions and explain how education can help in nation building.

Introduction

Education is one of the most powerful instruments for reducing poverty and inequality. It is also a key to enhance India’s competitiveness in the global economy. Therefore, ensuring access to quality education for all is central to the social and economic development of India.

Body

Indian education system is currently suffering from several lacunae and the learning outcomes continue to decline. This is highlighted in several reports and surveys every year like the ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) survey, National Achievement Survey (NAS), etc. The draft National Education Policy has been designed to overhaul this neglect in Indian education system.

The Committee chaired by Dr. K. Kasturirangan submitted the Draft National Education Policy which envisages India to become a knowledge superpower. It is based on the foundational pillars of access, equity, quality, affordability & accountability.

The draft policy focuses on the following aspects of education:

• Pre-primary education: It recommends that Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) for all children in the age group of 3-6 years be made an integral part of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
  
  • It focuses on play and discovery-based learning and to ensure continuity in education from pre-primary to primary schools.
• Reading and math skills: It proposes redesigning of the school curriculum for Grades 1 to 5 to include dedicated mathematics and reading hours every day. It also proposes remedial classes for students who need help.
• Higher education: It aims to create world-class multidisciplinary higher education institutions across the country, based on a three-tier system:
  
  • Tier 1: Research institutions, Tier 2: Teaching institutions, Tier 3: Colleges which become autonomous degree-granting colleges.
  • It aims to increase GER (Gross enrolment ratio) in higher education to at least 50% by 2035.
  • It proposes opening up of National Research Foundation, which grants competitive funding for outstanding research proposals across all disciplines.
• Curriculum and pedagogy: The draft pitches for reconfiguration of curriculum and pedagogy with no hard separation of school content in terms of curricular, extracurricular, or co-curricular areas, and between arts and sciences.
• Languages: The draft recommends continuance of the three-language formula. But it has proposed flexibility in the choice of languages. Hindi and English are no longer the stipulated language that students must study from Grade 6.

Therefore, the policy advocates a reduction in curriculum load and reorientation of the curriculum to promote multilingualism, ancient Indian knowledge systems, scientific temper, ethical reasoning, social responsibility, digital literacy and knowledge of critical issues facing local communities.

Hence, it can be seen that the draft policy envisages a comprehensive and holistic view of education reforms - technical, legal, vocational, R&D innovation, teacher’s education, etc.

Conclusion

The provisions of draft policy are progressive ideas, but there would be roadblocks in their implementation. These mostly relate to funding requirements and governance architecture. The public funding in education needs to be gradually increased to at least 6% of the GDP.

In the words of former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam “Learning gives creativity, creativity leads to thinking, thinking provides knowledge, knowledge makes you great.” Thus, the vision of ‘New India‘ can only be successful by investing in the young minds of the nation.