Reforming Indian Education

The education minister of India, Ramesh Pokhriyal, recently released the new education policy (NEP) with guidelines for schools, colleges, and universities related to school level and higher education. The new policy is no less than a revolution taking place after 34 years. Through the new policy, the emphasis is given to practice-based learning rather than mugging up the things. The key highlights of the NEP include:

• The curricular structure of school education is now changed from 10+2 to 5+3+3+4, with 3 years in Anganwadi/Pre-school and 12 years in school.

• Up to 5th class, the student will be taught in his/her mother tongue and no language will be enforced upon any student.

• There will be a 10 days bag-less internship period during which the students will be given hands-on experience in vocational subjects of their choice like carpentry, plumbing, wiring, etc.

• Coding will be taught in schools from class 6 onwards.

• Apart from teachers’ assessment, a student himself/herself and their peers will also analyze their progress; the report card will be called a Progress report.

• A new national assessment center PAREKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) will be established. The assessment of Board exams will be more conceptual based to remove the fear and stress of boards from students’ minds.

• In terms of higher education, Bachelors’ degree will of 4 years with multiple exit options:

  • If a student exits the program after 1 year he/she will be given a Certificate with the credits of the subjects studied in the due course.

  • Exit after 2 years, the Diploma will be given.

  • Exit after 3 years, Degree will be given.

  • Exit after 4 years, a bachelor’s degree with research will be given.

• All the foreign universities will be now allowed to set-up their branch in India, though it would be implemented by 2040.

These were some major points in the New Education Policy; there are many more points that are introduced in the NEP, which were not present earlier.
Talking about the advantages, the NEP is more students friendly and tries to reduce the burden over students as far as possible. Many points are taken from several education systems around the world to match the International standards of Education, to develop a skilled person and not a job-oriented person. The internship period for vocational subjects is a remarkable step, emphasizing that no work is small in comparison to others. The permission for foreign universities to set-up their branch will increase the competitiveness for IITs and other prestigious institutes, thus giving better opportunities to the students.

Coming to the disadvantages and/or critical points, as per several analysts there are 3-4 points to be considered:

• The whole education system will be centralized, with no power to states to take any education decision.

• The introduction of so many subjects requires appointing teachers, but there’s already a dearth of teachers in government schools in our country.

• The difference in introducing the policies theoretically and its practical implementations should be taken care of.

•  Still, there is a lot of confusion regarding implementations of NEP, that isn’t very clear yet and are required to be addressed soon.

I feel that if the NEP is implemented accurately, it will prove a boon for the students and the country as well. I had always wished that there was no bifurcation among students through the boundaries of Science, Commerce, and Arts, and I could study the subjects I wanted to, finally, it seems that the dream will come true! Though I couldn’t get the benefits of NEP surely the change is welcomed by everyone. I just hope it is gets executed properly and brings the much change required in our flawed education system!