All You Need to Know About - NEP 2020
??Archie Jackson ??
?Globally Recognized?24Yrs in Technology & Cybersecurity?APAC's Consecutive Top Ranked CIO & CISO?Researcher? Trusted Mentor & Advisor?Right Brain Critical Thinker?Opportunist ?
The best news of the year 2020 is the announcement of New Education Policy (NEP)!
Just a few weeks ago, Sundar Pichai - CEO Google announced plans to invest $10 billion in India over the course of five to seven years to strengthen health, education, and agriculture. Google plan to train more than 1 million teachers in India this year and offer a range of free tools such as G Suite for Education, Google Classroom and YouTube to help digitize the education experience in the nation.
The announcement of NEP 2020 will revolutionize the Indian education system and nurture the skills, talent and creativity. This is a pathway towards un-learning what already learnt and re-learning it in a creative way for the entire education system that has been in place since years.
Here are the 7 key highlights of the NEP 2020
1. - Flexibility & Interest based learning
- Old System: First and foremost, the legacy system has only 3 tracks that do not overlap. After Grade 10th, student may choose Science, Commerce or Humanities.
- With NEP, students have the opportunity to choose subjects from other tracks and pursue a blended stream. Example, if a student chose Science but interested in Economics (Commerce stream) and interested in Political Science (Humanities), they can do so now.
2. - Restructuring of the foundational system
- Old system: With early years like Pre-Nursery, Nursery and KG, the system had a flat 10 years + 2 years (10+2) education system where the final 2 years were specific to the specialization track as mentioned in #1
- With NEP, the system will change into a 5+3+3+4 years of education system. Each section would have its own focus and benefits.
The four sections are as follows:
- Foundational: Starting at age 3 to 6, pre-school followed by 2 years of Class 1 & 2 (age 6-8). This would be play activity based learning
- Preparatory: 3 years from age 8 to 11 (Class 3 to 5). This would be play, discovery, activity based and interactive classroom learning
- Middle: 3 years from age 11 to 14 (Class 5 to 8). This would be the experimental learning in science, mathematics, arts, social science and humanities
- Secondary: 4 years from age 14 to 18 (Class 9 to 12). This would be multidisciplinary, critical thinking with flexible student's choice subjects.
There is a great focus on vocational training in this new model. An internship of 10 days bag-less period from class 6 onward. Also, introduction of coding skills from class 6th onward is part of this new policy.
3. - Assessment & Evaluation
- Old System: The progress report of a student has been dependent on the skills and assessment capabilities of the teacher, exam evaluator. There may be multiple correct answers or different ways to solve a problem which at time follows a fixed approach
- With the NEP, the assessment would include peer review and self assessment of the performance. This will enforce and develop the critical thinking among-st the students.
4. - Investment in the Education System
- The central government has decided to invest 6% of the GDP on education. The current investment is approximately half of it (~3%)
5. After Class 12th tracks
- Old System: The track after Class 12th in the current system is quite straightforward and does not offer much options. Its a leap from schools into a completely different new environment of colleges and various streams which may not have clarity of what future hold from them
- NEP: The system also transforms beyond Class 12th with multiple entry/exit program. This means, lets say a student chose a stream of commerce and after an year develops more interests into humanities or science. The student have the option to drop out from the current stream (without losing on the credit for the time and learning spent during one year of commerce).
There would also be no fixed duration of a program. Students may decide the duration as per their interest and situation.
- Upon completion of 1 year, students may obtain the certificate in the field of study and opt out
- Upon completion of 2 years, students may obtain the diploma in the field of study and opt out
- Upon completion of 3 years, students may obtain the Bachelor's degree in the field of study and opt out
- Finally, upon completion of 4 full years, students may obtain the Bachelor Research Degree in the field
Similarly, Masters like MA, MSc etc. would be of duration of 1 year for Bachelor Reserch Degree holders and for 2 years for Bachelor Degree holders.
6. -Growth in International Education
- Government also plans to welcome top 100 foreign colleges to develop their India campuses
7. Education Centralization
- The policy brings in centralization and reduces the state driven education programs and brings in more uniformity in the system.
With these enormous benefits, I feel the future of the nation has a stronger educational backbone and this NEP 2020 will serve as a boon for the nation's development.
A few challenges to highlight however these may be looked at as the system matures.
- The medium of instruction unto Class 5th may be offered in the home language or regional language. This means a student at Punjab may have the early years in local language. However this brings in more connectivity and clarity to the student but this may impact movements of families from one state to another and make early years difficult because of another language in the early year in the other state.
- The current state of education in government schools, the number of teacher student ratios at the current moment need a high attention and a complete teachers, infrastructure overhaul must be sighted
Attached is the details policy at MHRD.GOV.IN
Head IT at Zepto | Triathlete | Wildlife Enthusiast
4 年Archie, this is a good summary and very easy for most to understand. Below are some of the points that are worthy of special mention; 1) The traditional model of theory based learning will go away, this will ensure more students learn the application of mind while learning through play. 2) Coding will put a good level of learning in place, we will no longer have a work force who are just looking for jobs, but more people who will start a small company and start creating jobs through startups. 3) This will bring more startup oriented mindset to the students as they have a blended streams, they can always pick and choose from "A la carte" options and will give them the added advantage of multiple entry and exits. 4) No more pressure from parents/peers to perform well in the % war. 5) Opening up the pathway for International institutes will bring in sophisticated level of learning systems and such competition will ensure the other Schools/colleges and institutes will get better. 6) This changes will also ensure that we slowly get rid of external tuition/institutes who provided specialized knowledge which the existing school and college lacked. Another opportunity for them to get into mainstream education sector. 7) This will require more skilled faculties and teachers and this change of mindset will also be difficult to implement in initial years. 8) This will attract more international students who will be looking at high quality education at low cost, this will add more revenue to our GDP. 9) More investment into infrastructure and real estate. Though most of the points are long shot, i still feel a good implementation will make India a super power in the Education sector too now.
B2B Tech Editor, Research Scholar, Culture Enthusiast, Co-founder Odias in Machine Learning
4 年Good article Archie. This will surely help students become more well-rounded and the flexibility is great too. I agree with your concerns about school education. The policy doesn't address the basic problem of primary education: capacity and infra. When school building is not there, teachers are not there, all other things have no meaning. But it will revolutionize higher education
Indian, EduConsul, BizConsul, Evangelist, Innovator & Teacher in Information+CyberSecurity, AI, ML, Cloud, IT Infrastructure, Communication & Indian Scriptures. Masters in Business Analytics & Operations.
4 年A detailed article with specifics intact... And precise pointers as always... ???? Here are my two cents to it. Old: Today new universities have cropped up either by gaining affiliation or becoming deemed universities.. New: Affiliation of colleges will get phased out in 15 years and a stage-wise mechanism is to be established for granting graded autonomy to colleges. Over a period of time, it is envisaged that every college would develop into either an Autonomous degree-granting College, or a constituent college of a university. I see it an important piece of this new policy, which needs to be viewed, as how this will get implemented.