Context: The Ministry of human resource development announced The National education policy 2020 with a goal of transforming the system to meet the needs of 21st century India.
Challenges in the Educational sector

• India faces many challenges in providing quality education to children and the youth.
• Despite many schemes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, there continues to be a lack of adequate resources and capacity in the public education system.
• Poor learning outcomes have been a consistent concern in India as indicated by the Annual Status of Education Report. Primary schools have recorded poor literacy and numeracy outcomes.
• The dropout levels in middle and secondary schools have been significant.
• India faces huge inequality challenges. The challenge faced by the disadvantaged and disabled in accessing quality education is only further deepening the inequality in India.
• The increasing private sector share in school education has led to the rapid commercialisation of the critical educational sector in India. Despite the Right to Education Act, fee regulations exist only in some States even now. This can lead to exclusion of the disadvantaged classes while further accentuating access asymmetries.
• The presence of multiple mother tongues in India and the lack of adequate English language skills in the populace of the country pose critical questions on the language of education in India.
• There has been a persistent mismatch between the knowledge and skills imparted in degree courses and the job requirements.

Key Points

• Any educational reform can be implemented only with support from the states and with common consent built by the centre on the plans because ours is a federal (linked) system.
• The policy aims to eliminate problems of teaching methods, structural inequities, access imbalances and uncontrolled commercialisation.
• It has to cope with multiple crises in the system as this NEP 2020 is the first policy after one issued in 1986.

In structural terms,  the NEP’s measures are intended to:

• Introduce early childhood education from age 3
• Offer school board examinations twice a year to help improve performance and move away from rote learning.
• Raise mathematical skills for everyone
• Shift to a four year undergraduate college degree system and create a higher education commission of India.
• The policy also states that students should be taught in their mother tongue or regional language until class 8 and beyond.
• In a large and diverse country like ours, the students should also have an option to study in a language that enables a transfer nationally.

Good elements of NEP 2020

• Provision to provide an energy filled breakfastalong with nutritious mid-day meal to help children achieve better learning outcomes.
• Creation of ‘inclusion funds’to help socially and educationally disadvantaged children pursue education is another.
• Universalization of access, both in schools and higher education. However, a national higher education council as an apex control organisation is bound to be resented by states.
• The deadline to achieve universal literacy and numeracy by 2025 should be a top priority as a goal that will crucially determine progress at higher levels.

Vision for NEP 2020

• It acknowledges the 21stcentury need for mobility, flexibility, alternate pathways to learning and self-actualisation.
• The policy adopts a5+3+3+4 model for school education as it recognises the importance of the formative years from ages 3 to 8 in shaping the child’s future.
• Multilingual felicity could become the USP of the educated Indian and so blending the mother tongue and English in the first five years of school would be a beneficial move as picking up languages as a toddler is easier.
• Breaking the streams:The new policy aims to break the barriers of arts, commerce and science streams in high school and plans to introduce vocational courses with internships.
• The policy anticipates100 per cent Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in education by 2030.
• NEP 2020 proposes amulti-disciplinary higher education framework with portable credits, and multiple exits with certificates, diplomas and degrees.
• Inclusion of online pedagogy:The huge potential of online teaching and learning methods would be incorporated in order to attain the GER (gross enrolment ratio) target.

The question of regulation

• NEP 2020 makes an effort to free schools, colleges and universities from periodic inspections and place them on apath of self-assessment and voluntary declaration.
• Presence of a single lean body with four verticals for standards setting, funding, accreditation and regulation is proposed.
• Institutions will now have to pursue transparency, maintain quality standards and favourable public perception 24×7.
• Support for challenged kids: NEP lays emphasis on providing adequate support to ensure that no child is deprived of education, and every challenged child is provided the special support he/she needs.
• A target of public spending at 6 percent of GDP has been set. Given the current tax to GDP ratio, this is certainly an ambitious target.

Challenges in implementation
Resource allocation

• The implementation of NEP 2020 will require enormous resources.
• The ambitious target of public spending for the educational sector at 6% of GDP though necessary, will be difficult to ensure, given the current tax-to-GDP ratio and competing claims on the national exchequer of healthcare, national security and other key sectors.

Language policy

• The provision for education in mother tongue till class 5 could pose challenges to the mobility of students in a large and diverse country like India.
• The option to study in a language like English or Hindi that enables a transfer nationally needs adequate attention.

Resentment by states

• The idea of a National Higher Education Regulatory Council as an apex control organisation and a national body for aptitude tests is bound to be resented by States.
• In a federal system, any educational reform can be implemented only with support from the States, and the Centre has the task of building a consensus on the ambitious plans.

Other challenges

• The lack of popularity of vocational training and the ‘blue-collarisation’ of vocations in the society act as obstacles in the introduction of vocational training in school.
• The shift to a four-year undergraduate college degree system may lead to a situation where overzealous parents may stream their children into professions at the earliest thus burdening the students further.

Road Ahead

• There should be opportunities to examine its long-term implications and if necessary, a chance to revisit it, before it is actually implemented.
• NEP 2020 provides the ingredients of a right recipe; all we have to do is to find a way to gather resources from public and private sources.
• The deadline to achieve universal  literacy and numeracy by 2025 should be a top priority as a goal that will crucially determine progress at higher levels.