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INTRODUCTION
In a far away land of engineers, doctors, lawyers and government officials, there lived a girl named Sulakshana who wasn’t good at studies. Actually she never loved studying at all. She was immersed into wondering about the endless possibilities of the world and the subtle truth of the universe yet she was reprimanded by her parents for not being a model student like ‘Aashi’ who always aced the exams. Her intelligence was always compared with the marks she scored in her exams, which were less. Thus if one compared her marks to the ideal scale of good marks, she will be classified as an “idiotic trash who cannot do anything in her life”. This leads us to question some things for sure- “do marks testify our intelligence or our memorizing capacity” and the statement that “a single piece of paper cannot define my future” is true or justifies the utopian scenario only? And most importantly, is there any ideal scale of goodmarks? Education is that asset which cannot be requisitioned by anybody in this world. It has played an important role in shaping the overall mindset of the society and at times breaking the evil stereotypes and this fact has proven its mantle in every scenario.
The Indian education system holds its roots from the 5th century CE in the ancient lands of Aryavrata where education was a medium of establishing strong foundations into the society, gurukuls were the epitomes of knowledge temples and the truth of life was taught into the preeminent institutions of Taxila and Nalanda. Students at that time learnt about the shlokas and religious teachings from the pious Vedas and Upanishads. There were no books and notebooks for the student to maintain any written notes of lecture since the medium of instruction was preferably in oral method. The teacher (guru) taught the students by orally reciting the sermons of Vedas, Puranas and Upanishads and students had to learn them. The main objective of the education system was to teach students the art of righteous living (Dharma) and live a dignified life.
But ever since the rise of the West has occurred into our country, it has incurred massive blunders on our culture and has imprinted a sense of inferiority into the veins of each and every individual of this country. With the purpose of recruiting some servants to help them into their work, they introduced their own system of learning or to explain it in simpler terms, they again established a new factory of education where they can produce “Clerks” for their help. For the fulfillment of this purpose,they appointed an outspoken and blunt educationist “Thomas Babington Macaulay” to analyze what needs to be done regarding the same. In his famous treatise “Minute on Education” he severely criticized the Eastern education and emphasized upon promotion of western learning into the Indian subcontinent. The origins of the Indian Education System dates back its origins from the 1968’s Indira Gandhi Government. It was particularly aimed to cater the needs of people of that time. The Kothari Commission was appointed by the Government of India to overhaul the Indian Education sector. With the evolution of time and needs of individuals, the developments into the policy occurred and with prior discussions under the chairmanship of Acharya Ramamurti, the 1984’seducation policy came into force with the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi’s government. Latter was modified in 1992 under PV Naraimha Rao’s government. Although these policies have quite been revolutionary in nature in their times but as the rule of nature says that nothing is immortal and will rot over the periods of time if it is not dynamic, so did the education policy get rusted over time and was in a constant need of improvement. Therefore to cater the needs of time and ensure that the rustic bridges into the system are replaced and eradicated completely, for the first time into the longesttime span of 34 years, the New Education Policy was introducedto the nation on 29th July 2020. It has for the first time promised to treat the loopholes faced by the “Youngblood” of the 21st Century.
INSIGHT INTO NEP 2020
Devised under the former ISRO chief and Vice Chancellor of JNU Delhi, Dr. K Kasturirangan the New Education Policy of 2020 aims to remove the barriers that were present in the older system of learning and had been rotting the overall development of the nation’s most important asset, the “Youth” of today.
The schooling system has been proposed to be restructured into a 5+3+3+4 model from the old style 10+2 model. The stages will be named so as the Foundation Stage, the preparatory stage, the middle school educationstage, and the secondary educationstage. For the very first time in history,the time period of early childhood educationwas taken into the first five years of education. In these early years of the education stage, children will be exposed to the play-based environment and their learning will be primarily focused upon the basic numeracy and literacy skills. The overall method will be play and activity based thereby decreasing the weight of the bag and improving the cognitive and emotional stimulation of children. In the preparatory stage the children will be exposedto the formal classroom learning for the very first time and will be provided with textbooks. The main focus of this stage is to prepare them to dive in the deeper insights of the subjects. The next stage following the preparatory stage is the middle school educationstage into which the learningwill be more abstract based and experiential learning will be introduced. Students will be exposed to the semester-based system and yearly two-class examinations will be conducted. For the very first time the concept of internship is introduced which will help the student to get the actual experience of the practicalworld. The next stage and the final stage of the school life will be the Secondary education stage. Into this stage, the students will be free to choose subjects of his/her choice. The choosing of careers will not be confined to only three streams only in which the student has to study only a fixed set of subjects. The mode of learning will be fully flexible and abstract with focus primarily on the conceptual understanding rather than memorization of the concepts.
THE STAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The NEP 2020 proposes to make higher education more flexible. In pursuance of the desired goal, the policy has provided a system of academic bank of credits with multiple entry and exit options so in the near future if any student is unable to pursue his studies anymore he or she can use those credits in near future to complete the same. Certifications will be provided after completing the education after the specific periods. The person will be provided with a certificate after one year, diploma after two years, a bachelor’s degree after three years and a bachelor’s degree with research after a four-year completion of the course. At the postgraduate level, the individual will be focusing upon a strong research component to establish a strong foundation into their forte. The provision for an M.Phil. degree is discontinued and the student can now successfully work upon pursuing their Postdoctoral degree. Hence the NEP 2020 proposes a lifelong learning and research process to which a student can shine to his/her full potential and in turn can help in progress of the country as a whole. Also the HEI’S or the higher educational institutions will be encouraged to become multidisciplinary by the year 2030. A separate umbrella body will be established under the name HECI or the Higher Education Commission of India where both the private and public institutions will be administered by the same set of guidelines.
THE LEGAL ASPECTS
Article 45 of Directive Principles of State Policy:
The provision of free and compulsory education was first proposed into the 36th Article of the Draft Constitution of India in 1950, followed by its further adoptance with some amendments it was taken parallel to the DPSP and the article further came to be known as Article 45 of the DPSP .
Article 21 A of the Indian Constitution:
With the prior discussions and debates over the importance of education, it was reiterated that education is a must have right of each and every citizen of the country. 4It is an essential human right that can be exercised by each and every citizen of the country to get access to all the other rights. It yields freedom and liberty to an individual. So, in accordance to these points the 86th amendmentof the year 2002 pushed the status of educationas a thing of endeavor to the status of a Fundamental Right and we got the Article 21 A of Right to education which has guaranteedus the provision of free education from the age of Six to Fourteen years.
Right to Education Act 2009:
With further provisions to take a course upon the barriers to access to education a separate legislation was established into the year 2009 and the “Right to Education Act 2009” came into force. The act lays down the responsibilities upon the Central, state and local bodies to ensure that no child is taken aback and is able to have access to the necessary education. With the purview of these provisions, the NEP 2020 has guaranteed some revolutionary steps that will help in pursuance of the goal more effectively. Those provisions are:
Provision of free, compulsory and quality education to the children of age 3-18 years
Tospend 6% of the GDP on the education sector which will suffice for the financialimplications of the NEP.
The new policy now aims to bring back 2 crore children back to school.
There will be common standards of learning for both public and private school.
The goal is set up for inclusion of at least 50 percent students in higher education institutions.
CONCLUSION
The National Education Policy 2020 has been quite a commendable step to tackle the loopholes that have been faced by the young generation of the country. The revolutionary provisions guaranteed by the policy aims at providing free quality education, yet it has not yet addressed some of the issues:
How will it tackle the commercialization of education?
The policy has not talked about how it will keep a check upon this issue. Because education has been a very profitable sector for business. It has introduced the very indigenous phrase of “Mushrooming of coaching institutions”
2. The Problem of Teaching in mother tongue in early years of education:
The introduction of teaching into mother tongue in early years of education is a good suggestion given by the policy. However on the cons side it will face several challenges because if in a case a child moving from his native state to another state will face difficulties in learning because it may happen that in the other state the medium of instruction might be different. However the government’s stand on this issue is that it depends upon the state whether to implement the policy or not.
3. The mammoth task of implementation:
The most important issue that the New Education Policy will face for sure is the smooth implementation of the policy because even though it is quite perfect on paper, the reality hits hard. So to ensure the effective implementation of the policy, the government must have to take proper and robust measures to guarantee a free and transparent framework for the contrivance of the same.