National Education Policy , 2020 : A Transformational Change!!!!!!!

National Education Policy, 2020 : Not Incremental but Transformational Change

#REVAMPING_EDUCATION

#EDUCATION_21st Century

Universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT all have multidisciplinary campuses like they have Humanities, Law, Engineering, Medical, Science on a single campus and anyone from any field can pursue whatever they want.... 

The Education, whether primary, secondary or Higher is a very crucial and instrumental in the development of any Nation of the world. We are even witnessing the developed countries like USA, UK, Australia, Russia, New Zealand and others have very robust and comprehensive education policy which is providing a quality education as well as skills, so that they can be a productive workforce for the country.
In this way, our various central government whether in past or present time to time introduced reforms in Education Policy, because Education need to full the need to particular time and following this trend the government has come out with New Education Policy, 2020 which is going to play a very important role in transforming our Education System, to build a skilled as well as educated citizens.

What is Education Policy?Why Government's attention towards this field is of utmost importance? How much % of GDP(Gross Domestic Product) ? Do we need to spend a greater  % of GDP on our Education Sector?

Let's try to understand... 

A National Education Policy is a comprehensive framework to guide the development of Education in the country. The need for a policy was first felt in 1964 when Congress MP Siddheshwar Prasad criticised the then government for lacking a vision and philosophy for Education. The same year, a 17-member Education Committee headed by then UGC( University Grants Commission) chairperson DS Kothari, was constituted to draft a national and co-ordinated policy on education. Based on the suggestion of this Commission, Parliament passed the first Education Policy in 1968.

A Education policy needs very detailed and comprehensive plan, need a good time to frame it. India has had three policies to date. 

The first came in 1968 and second in 1986,under the Prime Ministership of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi respectively, the NEP of 1986 was revised in 1992 when PV Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister, and the third NEP, 2020 is released on 29 July, 2020 under the Prime Ministership of Narendra Modi which replaced age old worn out 34 year Education Policy. NEP, 2020 was eagerly awaited to introduce changes for the development of our country in 21st century.

What is National Education Policy, 2020? What are the key features? How much will it transform our Education system?

The  National Education Policy, 2020 has envisaged to bring sweeping changes in the 34 year age old NEP, 1986 and aims to transform the whole learning and assessment system in our education system.
The Changes in School Education are---

A) .The traditional system of evaluation and assessment in the 10+2 system has been discontinued because in this system class-1 begins at the age of 6 , now we will have 5+3+3+4 i.e. it includes 3 years(3-6 years) in Angandwadi/pre-school/Balvatika, Class 1 to 2 (6-8 years), class 3 to 5 (8-11 years), class 6 to 8 (11-14 years), class 9 to 12 (14-18 years), because a student has very strong learning capabilities of new things between 8 to 11 years which would prove to be very beneficial for his/her further studies.
B). The Evaluation and Assessment system has now changed, now student need to assessed  on various parameters and activities instead of assessing once or twice in a year once or twice.
C). Now, student from class-5 will be given a particular skill for their development and coding is one of the skill for the 21st century.
D). Academic session to begin in September-October.
E). By 2030, 100% Gross Enrollment Ratio(GER) in Pre-school to Secondary level.
E). The board exams will be made easier, reduction in syllabus, and focus on experimental learning.
F). Student until class 5 to be taught in their Mother tongue or regional language.
G). National Mission on Foundation Literacy and Numeracy to be set up by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).
H). Nutrition, Health card, regular health checkup for student.
I). Bag-less days in schools will be promoted.
J). A National Curricular and Pedagogical framework fork early childhood care and education for the children up to age of 8 will be developed by NCERT.

A discussion on School Education--

The Changes in the Higher Education are--

A). One of the best reforms is to relax the norm of completing 3-year graduation course only after which degree were awarded. Now students can leave at any year with corresponding certificate, diploma or full degree.
B). The 3-Year BA, BSc. or other bachelor's program will be of 4-years with especially focused on Research.
C). The Universities and colleges will be made Multidisciplinary by 2040,viz-A Arts students, if he likes he can study Physics, Maths, Chemistry, Music, law or any other Subjects.
D). An Academic Bank of Credit(ABC) shall be established which will digitally store the students academic credit earned.
E). National Research Foundation (NRF) will be established to create equitable environment of research in Universities.
F). Indian Institute of Translation a d Interpretation(IITI) will be set up which will lay significant emphasis on SANSKRIT and other Indian Languages. 
G). The National Testing Agency(NTA) to conduct common entrance exams for admission for all universities and colleges.
H). Indian Sign Language(ISL) will be standardised across the country and National and state curriculum materials developed for use by students with hearing impairment.
I). The e-content will be in region language apart from English and Hindi.
J). The colleges will be given graded autonomy in academics, administration and finance on the basis of accreditation.
K). The New name of Ministry of Human Resource Development will be Ministry of Education.
L). The Ministry of Education will constitute National Committee for the Integration of Vocational Education (NCIVE) to develop vocational education in India.
M). Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERU) will be established across the country.
N). The National Education Technology Forum (NETF) will be established to look after the development of virtual labs a d learning materials.
O). People with disabilities will be given full opportunities to participate in regular academic activities.
P). A single regulatory body for Higher Education i.e. Higher Education Commission of India(HECI) will be set up in the place of UGC and AICTE. HECI has four wings-
1.National Higher Education Regulatory(NHER) for regulation.
2.General Education Council(GEC) for standard setting.
3.Higher Education Grants Commission(HEGC) for Funding.
4).National Accreditation Council (NAC) for accreditation.
Q). M. Phil(a middle degree between master's and PhD) has been discontinued.
R). 6% of GDP will be spend on Education, earlier in the financial year 2017-18 , government spent only about 1.7% of GDP on Education. 

A Rajya Sabha TV discussion on NEP, 2020

Nonetheless, all the above changes in Education system seems to be much promising, but it will only have impact once it is executed as mentioned in the new policy for this we need to watch it very closely, one of the suggestions like spending 6% of GDP needs to be spent on Education but government could do it due to inadequate fund and his  suggestions were went into vain and how government will fund these promises is need to be examined critically, but I hope everything will go right and we will grow in our Education by leaps and bounds. 

You can download the NEP, 2020 by clicking on below-;

1.New Education Policy, 2020