Cabinet clears new national edu policy

Fewer exams, foreign varsities in India Focuses on mother tongue and learning

The Centre on Wednesday unveiled a new National Education Policy (NEP) after a gap of 34 years wherein the 10+2 school structure would be replaced by a 5+3+3+4 curricular structure corresponding to ages 3-8, 811, 11-14, and 14-18 years respectively. This will bring the hitherto uncovered age group of 3-6 years under school curriculum, which has been recognised globally as the crucial stage for development of mental faculties of a child.

The Union Cabinet approved the policy, which was part of the NDA government’s manifesto for the 2014 general elections. Welcoming the decision, the Prime Minister tweeted, “I wholeheartedly welcome the approval of the National Education Policy 2020. This was a long due and much awaited reform in the education sector.”

The new school curricula and pedagogy aims at holistic development of learners by equipping them with key 21st century skills, reduction in curricular content to enhance essential learning and critical thinking

and a greater focus on experiential learning. Students will have increased flexibility and choice of subjects, there will be no rigid separations between arts and sciences, between curricular and extra-curricular activities, between vocational and academic streams, the policy states.

Vocational education will start in schools from the sixth grade, and will include internships.

To better prepare the

education system and students for pandemics, a comprehensive set of recommendations for promoting online education, with alternative modes of quality education whenever and wherever traditional and in-person modes of education are not possible, has been made. A dedicated unit for the purpose of orchestrating the building of digital infrastructure, content and capacity

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■ Continued from Page 1 building will be created in the ministry of human resource development, which is to be renamed Education Ministry.

A new and comprehensive National Curricular Framework for School Education (NCFSE 2020-21), will also be developed by the NCERT.

Under the higher education segment, NEP 2020 facilitates major foreign universities to set up campuses in India wit the aim at making “India a global knowledge superpower”.

The policy also emphasises that mother tongue/local language/regional language will be the medium of instruction at least till Class 5, but preferably till Class 8 and beyond. This aspect, though, is quite ambiguous. It’s not clear whether a student, say, whose mother tongue is Marathi but lives in Karnataka, would have the option to study in his mother tongue.

Sanskrit would be offered at all levels of school and higher education, including in the three-language formula. Other classical languages and literatures of India are also to be available as options. No language will be imposed on any student, the policy states.

NEP 2020 aims to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education,

including vocational education, from 26.3 per cent (2018) to 50 per cent by 2035.

About 3.5 crore new seats will be added to higher education institutions (HEIs).

An Academic Bank of Credit is to be established for digitally storing academic credits earned from different HEIs so that these can be transferred and counted towards final degree earned.