Governance
Extending RTE Act up to Class 12
- 29 Oct 2019
- 5 min read
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has tweaked the draft National Education Policy (NEP) to dilute the provision on extending the Right to Education (RTE) Act up to Class 12 and also include three years of early childhood education.
- The existing NEP was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992.
- The draft NEP was submitted by a group of experts, led by former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan, to the MHRD in June, and uploaded online for public feedback.
Key Points
- The final NEP has tweaked the suggestion in the draft policy on starting a National Tutors Programme (NTP) and Remedial Instructional Aides Programme (RIAP). Both were meant to strengthen basic reading and mathematics skills.
Note: The 2018 ASER Report showed that more than half of Class VIII students cannot correctly solve a numerical division problem and more than a quarter of them cannot read a primary-level text.
Issues | Draft NEP | Final NEP |
NTP and RIAP |
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Institutional System for Higher Education |
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Deadlines for Affiliation |
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6 Point Roadmap for Implementation
The MHRD has also laid down a six-point roadmap for its implementation and decided to conduct a comprehensive review of the implementation status in 2030.
- The intent and the spirit of the policy must serve as the most important consideration
- Implementation in a phased manner: It is important to implement the policy initiatives in a phased manner, as each policy point has several steps, each of which requires the previous step to be implemented successfully.
- Prioritisation will be important in ensuring optimal sequencing of policy points -and that the most critical and urgent actions are taken up first - thereby enabling a strong base
- Full-fledged implementation: As the policy is interconnected and holistic, only a full-fledged implementation and not a "piece meal" one, will ensure that the desired objectives are achieved.
- Timely infusion of requisite resources - human, infrastructural, and financial - at the central and state levels will be key for the satisfactory execution of the policy.
- Since education is a concurrent subject, it will need careful planning, joint monitoring, and collaborative implementation between the Centre and states.
- Careful analysis and review of the linkages between multiple parallel implementation steps will be necessary in order to ensure effective dovetailing of all initiatives.