NEP 2020: EMPOWERING, HUMANISTIC AND FUTURISTIC

– Priya Sharma 

 

 

Dr.BR Ambedkar said “Education is as important as food”. For human to live a dignified life, education is of utmost importance. India’s NEP 2020 is a move in this direction which seeks to change the teaching learning outcome of the country so as to increase Gross enrollment ratio while taking measures to make education easily accessible to students in every corner of the country. India has recently announced its National education policy after a long wait of three decades and freed itself from the shackles of colonial system of education which promoted enmity more than cooperation with the help of education.

 

NEP 2020 has invited appreciation. While it has also been criticized on the basis of being undemocratic and not thoroughly discussed. However, in my understanding, national education policy 2020 is one of its kind policy whose draft was thoroughly discussed and widely circulated in 22 languages to different states, also at panchayat level including thousands of blocks to have insights from each strata of society. Also, the draft was open for public suggestions, which make this policy as the only in the world to invite such huge suggestions.

 

Coming to the importance of NEP 2020, it is imperative to understand its basic objective which tend to focus on the idea of reviving ‘Knowledge in India’ which will include knowledge from ancient India and its contribution to modern India. NEP2020 seeks to promote Indian values, ethos, pride in glorious past among student from very early age while also inculcating in them ethical values such as compassion, righteousness, gender sensitivity,morality,patriotism,honesty etc which is the need of the hour.

 

As french philosopher Rousseau said ‘problem of modern man is that they have lost their touch with emotions’ and this is quite appropriate because our education system has in the past worked not towards man making but in the direction of money making so as to fulfil material desires and satisfy appetites. NEP 2020 also seek to revive the lost glory of ancient contributors to Indian knowledge system in areas such as mathematics, medical, surgery, yoga, ship building, philosophy, botany, sociology and so on. I think such orientation will go a long way in strengthening India internally to compete globally.

 

NEP 2020 has not only focused on reviving what is ancient but also worked in the direction of making education more empowering and decentralized, structure is made more flexible and learning is made more inclusive. With the introduction of 5+3+3+4 modified version of school education, emphasis is laid on empowering the foundation of learning. In the previous policies there was no provision of early childhood care and education, which usually exempted children from age group of 3-6 from any learning, whereas,the concept of Balvatika in the new policy will ensure the importance of the fact that 85% of the brain development occurs before the age of 6 by emphasizing on the activities which leads to the development and growth of the brain in order to develop various cognitive, affective abilities with the help of play based learning. This change at the primary level is one of the key points in laying the strong foundation for the nation as early age will be the age, making strong human resource for the nation. This has increased responsibility on the part of government and educational institutions. Outcome of such change will be depending on the level and quality of implementation.

 

NEP 2020 and its firm aim to make India a competent hub for education globally will only be successful if, Foundational literacy and numeracy skills will be improved. To make it possible, NEP 2020 has made provisions to increase Pupil-teacher ratio, by laying down special provisions for socio-economically disadvantages students.   

ASER reports have given a disturbing trend where India lacks in providing ability to read, write and perform arithmetic. NEP 2020 aims to empower student by resolving key issues in this direction. NEP 2020 has given impetus to provide ‘Foundational literacy and numeracy’ to every student by Grade 3. Also, they have set a benchmark to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary schools by the year 2025. NEP 2020 aim to empower the future and backbone of the country by its conviction to bring a change in distressing trend in terms of learning outcomes.

 

NEP 2020 and its firm aim to make India a competent hub for education globally will only be successful if, Foundational literacy and numeracy skills will be improved. To make it possible, NEP 2020 has made provisions to increase Pupil-teacher ratio, by laying down special provisions for socio-economically disadvantages students. Also, steps are being taken to provide breakfast in the schools, which is one of the best decision to increase the number of students coming to the school. There have also been a provision to bring National book promotion policy to make student access books of diverse genre in diverse languages ,which will eventually increase the reading and comprehensive abilities of students. It will have a huge impact on India’s future.

 

NEP 2020 has also made some important changes by making structure of the education more flexible and adaptable for student fraternity. It has three important points, first, hard separation between curricular and extra curricular, vocational and non vocational, humanities and science, language and non language is removed. Second, In NEP 2020 ,student will be given wide range of options and choices to opt for the course and subject of their choice. Third, it will save student from sacrificing one subject for the sake of other and reduce the level of discrimination that several students from ECA category had to face. This step will allow student to have exposure to large number of subject while making it flexible for them to enjoy their choices which was denied in previous policies.

 

To make education more inclusive, policy has promoted multilingualism as its basic approach to promote level of understanding among students by making it easy for them to learn important topics in their mother tongue/home language. It is often said that, we grasp something very easily in our laymen language instead of language which is indifferent. So school education lays the foundation, it is of utmost importance for one to understand important topics. To fulfil their aim of learning, language has not been made a barrier. Hence, schools are recommended to either hire teachers to teach student in language which is easy for them or to make textbooks available in local languages. This however has increased the burden on state and schools, but it is in interest of students.

 

Education is right of each and hence every step in this direction is commendable. Whereas, right step should be taken to make it possible for institutions to hire the number of teachers and gain resources, to effectively implement the policy.

 

NEP 2020 is humanistic in its approach because it takes into account the unforeseen situation that student can confronts in life while studying. To remove a hurdle of wasting a year due to circumstances, it has been decided to do away with this. It has been made a provision to provide undergraduate degree with multiple entry and exit options, which will do away with the issues of year wastage due to a break in education. Student will be given chance to continue their studies without any structural impediment. Structural flexibility is a sigh of relief for student, this will again help students in fulfilling their dream of education despite having a bad time. Worst days will no more be a barrier for students in NEP 2020.

 

NEP 2020 thrust is on Higher education in India and it has taken various other measures such by putting emphasis on multidisciplinary approach in HEI’s,promoting research, holistic development and providing global citizenship education along with value based education, which will be based on dharma,shanti,ahimsa,life skills and enhance students participation in seva karya i.e social service. This is an attempt to not only imbibe student with a vision to become a global citizen by understanding importance of interconnectedness to cope up with the changes of 21st century but it also wants them to inculcate values which make individual a better citizen and human being. Education is useful only when one is taught its responsibility towards fellow human beings’.

 

NEP 2020 has also laid down the importance of startup incubation centers, technology development centers, greater industry academic linkages and interdisciplinary research including humanities and social science research. NEP 2020 has equally understood the relevance of research culture to catchup with the need of the hour. This amalgamation of values and technological development along with research and innovation is a perfect combination to address the requirements of 21st century. This will go a long way in making India a hub for competent Higher education.

 

NEP 2020 has also laid down the importance of startup incubation centers, technology development centers, greater industry academic linkages and interdisciplinary research including humanities and social science research. NEP 2020 has equally understood the relevance of research culture to catchup with the need of the hour.  

Gender inclusion fund for promoting girls and transgender education is visionary step to empower this section of the society which needs urgent attention. This policy aims provide them with better infrastructure along with level of education. Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya will be established to help girls from socio-economic disadvantaged sections to gain education. Also, Policy has mentioned about a national scholarship portal to check and trace the scholarships given to students. SC/ST/OBC student merits will be incentivized.

 

However no detailed plan is laid out for this. Along with this, gap in level of understanding among tribal student is taken into consideration and policy aims to bridge this learning gap by promoting an educational environment which is friendly to their lifestyle by also making changes that suits them. These are some of the steps which reflects the Indepth analysis of the ground realities and accordingly steps have been taken to address challenges. NEP has adopted flexible measures and incorporated queries of common student in their mind to come up with a policy which is humanistic and student-centric.

 

Lastly, there are various challenges that still engulfs our education system, biggest is the implementation of the policy with limited resources. However, GDP contribution to education has been increased to 6%, there are opinions that wish to see more increase in it, which is quite realistic keeping in mind the urgent need to boost the system and revamp the structure of education in India. There are also views that policy should have laid down its vision clearly on roadmap for building education system more equitable for student belonging to marginalized section. Issues including Caste and gender as an impediment in realizing the dream of right to education must be addressed.

 

Concerns are many, but hard work and commitment of stakeholders involved in making policy needs appreciation with a hope that they will by time realize the urgency of challenges unaddressed by equally emphasizing on time bound implementation of the NEP 2020. Every big change has come with small steps taken in that direction. NEP 2020 is visionary and futuristic because it has introduced certain changes which will fructify in near future to give its best results. It has made revolutionary changes in structure of the education system by leaning its orientation to make learning more Indian centric while also providing opportunities for students and institutions to become globally competent.