The committee for Draft National Education Policy(NEP) 2019, constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in June 2017, submitted its report on May 31, 2019.
NEP aims at minimising rote-learning and encouraging integrated development among school students. It seeks to transform the curriculum and pedagogy by 2022.
The report proposes an education policy, which addresses the challenges of (i) access, (ii) equity, (iii) quality, (iv) affordability, and (v) accountability faced by the current education system.
The draft suggests restricting of the existing 10+2 system of school education to a new 5+3+3+4 design, where the first five years of Foundation stage, class III, IV, and V will form three years of Preparatory stage, followed by three years of upper primary and four years of secondary education.
Learning science bilingually, foreign language offerings in secondary school, exposure to languages of India-modern and classical, incorporation of relevant excerpts from great work of Indian literature, the study of Sanskrit, inculcate a scientific temper and encourage evidence-based thinking is contemplated in the new curriculum.
The new policy has touched many other aspects, from KG to PG.
“Policymakers need to respond to the structural constraints that obstructed earlier reforms. Also, a national policy draft in any field should exhibit an awareness of the varied and divergent practices followed in different states across the country,” says Krishna Kumar, former director, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Several other academicians spoke on various aspects of the bill at a discussion on the NEP organised by the Society for Integrated Development and Research(SIDAR) and the Centre for Policy Studies in association with Visakhapatnam Public Library and Dr Lankapalli Bullayya College on June 21 2019.
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