Research Article: 2021 Vol: 24 Issue: 1S
Shashidharan M, AMET University
Rajni Bansal, Chitkara Business School, Chitkara University
B S Hothi, Gitarattan International Business School
Vijay Anant Athavale, Panipat Institute of Engineering & Technology
Yogesh Mahajan, Indira School of Business Studies
Shameem Anwar, AMET University
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Navodaya Vidyalas, Kendriya Vidyalayas, Directive Principle of State Policy (DPSP)
There is a direction in our Indian constitution concerning Article 45 in Directive Principle of State Policy (DPSP), which states that all must be equally accessible for education. Since the Education is in Concurrent list, the state has to follow the center's instruction, but it is not mandatory. Now the primary education for children under the age of 6 to 14 years has become the fundamental right under Article 21A. The National Education Policy has made many new educational interventions such as the Mid-day meal scheme, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Navodaya Vidyalas, Kendriya Vidyalayas, etc. This National Education policy focuses on bringing changes in the traditional schooling pattern in school and higher education. The National Education Policy 2020 has been approved by the union cabinet headed by PM Shri. Narendra Modi. Hence replacing the Old National Education Policy, which is 34 years old, to gain globally competitive. The policy is well framed with five major key areas such as accessibility, equality, quality, affordability, and accountability. The United Nations Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda has set a benchmark for the National Education Policy. The National Education Policy is changing the Indian educational system into a globally competitive education system with the required flexibility. The multi-disciplinary aspect of the National Educational Policy will become a stepping stone for enhancing students' abilities.
The New Education Policy focuses on education meant to be universal right from primary school to the higher secondary level by the year 2030. It also focuses on bringing the discontinued students back to the education stream to continue their education. The curriculum is framed in 5+3+3+4 terms, i.e., with the schooling of twelve years and Anganwadi as three years. The basic Foundation education and education on numeracy are given much more importance. The separation between academic curriculum and extracurricular activities is much reduced. The vocational courses are planned to be initiated from the class 6th onwards. The mother tongue is emphasized teaching up to grade 5. The student's progress is tracked in a better holistic way with comprehensive analysis than the traditional scrutiny.
The Gross Enrollment Ratio is expected to rise about 50% by 2035 in higher education with numerous flexible subjects. This mechanism in National education Policy has multiple entry and exit with suitable certification with credit transfer facility time to time. The research platform is to be reformed with the formation of the National Research Foundation. The Higher Education authority is to be supported with four separate wings with respective functions to be monitored. Greater autonomy is to be given to the autonomous colleges with the integration of information technology throughout. The National Education Policy also incorporates ways to include funds based on gender and special zones for education to encourage the non-accessible regions. National education forums are initiated to discuss the incorporation of technology (Baral, 2020).
School Education
The National Educational policy is believed to bring back the dropouts from education by providing numerous ways to complete the education. It is forecasted that about two crore dropout students are expected to get back to mainstream education. The policy also makes provisions for informal education with collaborating the counselors; it also enhances the open schooling system and adult literacy through life enrichment programs. The National Education Policy has focused much on early childhood education, the traditional 10th and +2 structures into 5+3+3+4 structure. The new school educational structure with respect to ages is defined as 3 years to 8 years, 8 years to 11 years, 11 years to 14 years, and 14 years to 18 years. The cognitive mental skills are much developed during the age of 3 years to 6 years; this age frame is well included in the National Education Policy on par with globally recognized educational structure. The new education has 3 years of Anganwadi, which is a notable phenomenon. The NCERT will develop a National Curricular and Pedagogical Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education for the students up to the age of 8 years. The early childhood care will be enhanced in order to develop an inclusive strategy for anganwadi and the pre-schools. The implementation of early childhood care and educational policies will be implemented by the Ministries of Human Resource Development, Women and Child development, health and family welfare and tribal affairs.
Literacy and Numeracy
Foundational literacy is the need of the hour with respect to numeracy right from primary school. The Ministry of Human Resource Development sets up a National Mission for foundational Literacy and Numeracy through National Educational Policy 2020. It is expected that the states will implement the National Educational Policy guidelines by 2025 in respective states along with the formulation of National Book Promotion. The 21st-century development is well included in framing the National Education Policy with respect to the pedagogy and curriculum. The focus of the National Educational Policy is experimental learning through critical thinking. Hence students are to be provided with flexibility with respect to the subject options in learning with respect to science and art.
Multilingualism
The National Education Policy has another feature other than numeracy which is language, the policy focus upon encouraging students to learn multi-languages. The National Education Policy provides an option for three language strategies right from school to higher education, where the students are free to choose their willing language course. Under the umbrella scheme “Ek Bharath Shrestha Bharat,” students are encouraged to take up projects with respect to languages in India. The foreign language is given secondary priority compared to Indian languages. The hearing-impaired students are facilitated with Indian Sign Language, which will be standardized across the nation.
Notable Reforms
The National Education Policy encourages students to take the test in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades; these exams facilitate regular assessment. The regular assessment shows the student's skills along with their interest orientation with respect to their subjects. The Board exams will follow the traditional way, which is for 10th and 12th students but in a reformed way. The Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development (PARAKH) will act as the National Assessment Centre. The National Education Policy is keenly interested in holistic child education where no child is left behind the education. The Socially and Economically
Disadvantaged groups which are based upon gender, social aspects, and geographical aspects will be undermined. There will not be any partial treatment for the students with disabilities where they can access all the schooling process right from primary education and be assisted with the needed amenities. The concept of Bal Bhavans, which is a daycare for the children, will be setup on all the districts. The Bal Bhavans will help in enriching the art oriented activities based upon the interest of the students particularly in free school premises called as Samajik Chetna Kendras.
Robust Governance
The selection under the New Education Policy will be based upon multi-source performance periodic wise. The National Council for a Teacher Education will initiate the setup of National Professional Standards for Teachers by the year 2022. The Educational premises will be engraved into clusters which will act as the premises of government based upon the availability of infrastructural and human resources. A separate function of policy formulation and other operational rules will be monitored through an independent State School Standard Authority (Jayan, 2020). The quality of schools will be accessed by the school quality assessment and accreditation framework along with the other stakeholders.
Multidisciplinary Education
The National Education Policy encourages the interdisciplinary aspect under curriculum with various options with respect to subjects. The concept of multiple entry and exit along with suitable certification has been introduced through the policies. For example, the graduation course of 4 years can be classified into a one-year certificate course, two years advanced diploma, three years bachelor degree, and four years bachelor with the research program. The credit from the higher educational institution is stored in a mechanism called Academic Bank Credit, were the credits can be transferrable.
The policy also portrays the establishment of Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities with global standards. The research platform will be monitored by an apex body called National Research Foundation. Except for Medical and Legal courses, all other courses will be brought under the domain of the Higher Education Commission of India. The apex body will have various wings such as National Higher Education Regulatory Council, General Education Council, Higher Education Grand Council, and National Accreditation Council. The key point is that information technology will be utilized at every phase of the process in order to maintain quality standards. A uniform set of norms will be framed for both the public and the private institutions.
Mentoring Vision
The focus of the National Education Policy is to transform the Higher Education Institution into a highly recognized organization that envisages teaching and research. In order to get affiliation, the colleges have to pass through various stages of mechanism based upon the administration, which are Autonomous or Government colleges under the university. The NCTE authority will formulate the curriculum for teacher education under National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education. Hence the minimum qualification for teachers will be the four-year intergraded B.Ed degree. A mechanism of counseling or mentoring will be established were the retired faculties will act as mentors for the students either in a short term or long term duration. Hence such a mechanism will not only prevent student s from dropping out but also guide them towards the suitable career.
Support for Students
In order to encourage socially backward students to take up education Scholarship are being provided and it can be accessed through National Scholarship Portal. The Open and distance learning will also play a crucial role in extending the service of education. As recent initiative online courses sunder the domain of MOOC platform add the value to the traditional education without compromising the quality. The digital infrastructure is an option which will certainly support student during situations like Covid were one can learn by staying at home through online. In order to monitor the online platform an authority is setup called National Education Technology Forum (Pandit, 2020). The Indian Institution of Translation and Interpretation is organized in order to promote the Indian Languages. Globalization in education will be accessed through collaborating with foreign top universities for the benefit of students. All the wings of education with respect to the Health sciences, Legal studies, Agriculture, etc., will become a multidisciplinary institution, and optimal adult literacy will be planned to achieve.
Four Distinct Features
The first feature is the new education pattern which is 5+3+3+4 it was 10+2 system of pattern. The second important feature is the flexibility. Film has come up with much flexible features in the syllabus the student can aspect into his own interest with respect to the curriculum pattern. Without feature is the phenomena with respect to the where the colleges or university provide unique intelligence platform where the faculty could use the artificial intelligence in order to track the performance record of all the students with respect to Academics as well as with extracurricular activities (Shukla, 2019). The fourth criteria or the feature is the challenging task which is setting for ever flexible syllabus which is coming up. This sport features or as well as the stone of the next era of education hence it is necessary to welcome the changes in order to see a change in the academic arena.
The Key Challenges
The national education policy has three challenges shareholders of the stakeholders of the national education policy. Here we will see the challenges step by step:
a) Challenge for the Parents of the Students
The Parents have no means of ideas regarding the national education policy. The policy has framed with utmost importance; still the parents find it difficult to come up with clear set of ideas regarding the national education policy. This is very much true with respect to the management education as well. This clearly separate the generation X from the generation Y and the upcoming generation as well. In the current scenario of covid-19 pandemic, parents have no clue regarding the online education which is currently being followed which is a trauma. The national education policy 2020 has become a challenge to be faced by the parents with respect to the student’s education (Shukla, 2020).
b) Flexibility with Respect to the National Education Policy
The second challenge is the flexibility with respect to the national education policy, students already have flexible curriculum yet the students have never seen such flexibility in the previous era. Hence there is no guidance for all the students particularly with respect to the students who are from village or rural background. To be precise particularly with the rural background people or students, they find it more difficult to understand the flexibility with respect to national education policy. They also don't know about the credit course as such how it is going to help them in gaining a degree course or bridge course or post-graduation, etc. With the view on the Management courses the students are really nervous about the connectivity between the flexible syllabus and the real time need of the market. Students are nearly worried about the stations of the market. The existing market is based upon the traditional courses which prevailed before but the current scenario has brought out lot of changes to the education pattern.
c) Challenge is with the Market Players
The third challenge is with the market players with respect to the private companies and the government companies, they are the one who offers jobs to the students. The companies usually follow the traditional pattern where they look for right people or select employees based upon the qualification. The education were based on traditional educational pattern, the current national education policy 2020 has totally changed the prevailing pattern not only with respect to schooling pattern but also with the undergraduate as well as post graduate courses. Now the need of the hour is the private companies as well as Government companies has to change their recruiting policies based on the new education policy 2020. It is not an easy task they have to eventually find the right people with right qualification in order to recruit them for the right job requirements. Hence both the private and the government recruiters have to analyze the national education policy thorough enough in order to frame the required recruitment policy.
d) Few Challenges with Respect to the Grey Areas
Now the national education policy has left of the distance education pattern in the near dilemma. The traditional distance education pattern has faced few challenges there are grey areas which are to be found in the distance education respect to the Management courses as well. There are enormous opportunities which existed in distance education. Now the management Education courses particularly with respect to the distance education have to go hand in hand with the new education policy. This is a key challenge for both the academicians as well as the students particularly for the working professionals who were the most beneficial shareholders out of the distance education.
e) Challenge with Respect to the Grading Pattern
Another key challenge with respect to national education policy is the grading pattern. The Grading pattern has now about to come up with enormous flexibility. The grading pattern for the students with respect to the curriculum has become difficult task. Since the students are provided with various fields to choose with respect to education, it is also becomes difficult for the faculty members of the institution to grade based upon the student’s electives. This has become very much true respect to management institution since management institutions have various scopes with respect to the extra curriculum or electives. In the Management institution, the students have the potential to choose varying features of prospectus which are existing in the market. Hence the students can find enormous electives to add up with their pre-existing courses. Hence the uniformity in grading pattern have a challenge with respect to the persisting changes. So it will become difficult to make equal grading patterns with respect to all the students (Upadhyay, 2020).
The Merits of National Educational Policy are comprehensive, from the schooling to the post-doctoral research studies and the vocational training course. The National Education guides and allows the schools, colleges, and universities to self-evaluate their institutions. The Policy helps in eliminating the prevailing inequalities and other pedagogical problems prevailing in the structure. Though the policy has enormous competitive aspects still the practical implementation is the need of the hour. The implementation requires the cooperation of educational entities and the support of all the states to support the challenging policy. The single authority for the whole nation, which is National Higher Education Regulatory Council, undermines the power of states and state education councils. With respect to funds, the Policy implementation totally depends on the government's funds, which is 6% of GDP, which is again a challenging task in the present scenario. Hence, effective implementation is the only need of the hour to overcome all the prevailing challenges.