Change Management: Indian Education System
NEW EDUCATION POLICY
The month of July is going to a significant day in Indian History because the Government of India introduced New Education Policy -2020 (NEP) so that Ministry of Human Resource Development has been renamed as the Ministry of Education. The New Education Policy will focus on Schools and higher education. Indian Cabinet approved NEP. Also, according to Union Minister Pokhariyal, the NEP draft was put into the public domain and received 225000 suggestions and consultations. The NEP will be transformational in schools as well as higher education in India. The main focus of NEP will be not only on quality education but also on behaviour, ethics, teamwork and social development.
NEP is the third transformation after a long gap of 34 years. The first education policy was introduced in 1968 and the second was in 1986. However, the basic structure of the education system was based on the Kothari Commission (1964-1966). In 1964, the Kothari Commission recommended that India should spend at least 6% of its GDP otherwise Indian will not revive in global education.
Some of the highlights from Draft National Education Policy:
Inadequate investment: India’s expenditure on public education was only 2.7% of GDP in 2017-18 which was almost one third as compared to the Kothari Commission. Also, the other countries who spend more than 5% of their GDP’s such as Malaysia, Kenya, Korea and the US spend 5% of its GDP, U.K. 5.5%, Bhutan 7.5%, Sweden 7% (source: OECD & UNESCO, 2017).
Operational problems and Leakage: Public system in India is slow delivery of funds to students, schools and facilities. The basic problem is the inadequate utilization of human resources. That means the staff is not appropriate with the qualification and role.
Language: The committee recommended that there will be no separate language as a medium of instruction rather than students' mother tongue until grade 5 because children can understand learning concepts in the mother tongue.
References:
https://www.mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/NEP_2020.pdf
https://www.mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf