National Education Policy 2020 is now declared by Education minister caring a lots of changes in school and higher education. It is mainly focused on skilled education and easy to understand for everyone. Section is divided in to 5 + 3 + 3 + 4 (3 years in pre-schools and 12 years in school). Here, everyone has chance to complete his education at all the stage of his life. Age does not matter here to complete one’s education.
Prior to age of 5 every child will move to a Preparatory Classes or Balvatika. For the children age 3 to 6 years, access to free, safe and high quality Care and Education in Pre-School. For the age group 3 to 8 are divided into two part: (i) from 3 years to 6 years and (ii) from age of 6+ to 8 years. The way of education will be flexible, multi-level, play-based, activity-based and inquiry-based learning.
The would be multiple pathways to learn involving both formal and non-formal education modes. Opportunity to bring drop out children back to school. Promoting both governments and non-governmental organizations to build schools. Focus on desired learning at all levels.
Curriculum in all subjects to be reduced to its core essentials. Interective teaching with reduced dependency on textbook learning and questions from students will be promoted. Focus on critical thinking, inquiry, discovery, discussion and analysis based teaching and learning methods for holistic education will be promoted. Fun, creative, collaborative and exploratory activities in classroom for experiential learning and deeper student learning will be included.
Annual health check up for all students. Reduction of school bags and textbooks through suitable changes in curriculum. Mandatory skills to be imbibed by all students – health, nutrition, physical education, fitness, sports and wellness. The basic training in preventive heath care, first aid, personal and public hygiene will be included in the curriculum. The role and expectations of principal and teachers will explicitly include developing a caring and inclusive culture at school. Differentiated interventions and suitable infrastructure development at schools to make access easier for children with disability.
Focus on experiential, inquiry and discovery based teaching learning methods. Arts, sports and story telling integrated pedagogy. Promoting peer tutoring as voluntary and joyful activity under the supervision of teachers. Integration of technology enabled pedagogy in classes from 6th to 12th. No hard separation between curricular, co-curricular and extra curricular areas. Freedom of choosing a variety of subjects combination to be provided. Bag less days to be scheduled in academic calendar.
All textbooks to contain only essential core material while capturing any desired nuances and supplementary material as per local contexts and needs. Affordable, high-quality and energised textbooks to be provided along with free digital version. States to prepare their own curricula and textbooks based on NCERT Curriculum and NCERT textbooks, incorporating state flavour and material as needed. Concerted efforts through suitable changes in curriculum and pedagogy to significantly reduce the weight of school bags and textbooks.
The Policy commits to significantly raising educational investment, as there is no better investment towards a society’s future than the high-quality education of our young people. Public spending on education has not yet even come close to the recommended level of 6% of GDP, as envisaged by the 1968 Policy, reiterated in the Policy of 1986, and which was further reaffirmed in the 1992 review of the Policy. The current public (Government – Centre and States) expenditure on education in India has hovered around 4.43% of GDP (Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure 2017-18); and only around 10% of the total Government spending goes towards education (Economic Survey 2017-18). These numbers are far smaller than most developed and developing countries.
In addition to one-time expenditures, primarily related to infrastructure and resources, this Policy identifies the following key longer-term thrust areas for financing to cultivate a world-class education system:
A rich variety of software for educational aid will be developed and made available for students and teachers at all levels. All such software will be available in all major Indian languages and will be accessible to a wide range of users including students in remote areas and with disabilities. Teaching-learning e-content will continue to be developed by all States in all regional languages, as well as by the NCERT (including CIET), CBSE, NIOS, and other bodies/institutions, and will be uploaded onto the National Teacher’s Portal. This platform may also be utilised for e-content related to Teacher’s Professional Development, etc. Video-viewing equipment will be made available to teachers at all schools so that teachers can suitably integrate open educational videos into teaching-learning practices.
