NEP, Students, Teachers and Digital Revolution

NEP, the new education policy declared by the Govt of India is set to revolutionize the education system in India. The policy is said to systematically put forth the norms needed for the empowerment of the society if practiced in the right way.?It can nail down to the right course to the right student and thereby get a chance to maximize the potential of an individual in the area of work. This can increase the overall productivity of the nation. India is a country with rich manpower. However, we cannot deny the fact that, the manpower is placed in the wrong direction. Not aligned to the right person to the right job.

When it comes to the students’ education, we have noticed that only a limited percentage of students score high in all subjects. What happens to the rest of the students? In a class the same teacher is teaching to everyone. So the input is same, however the output varies. It shows that there is something wrong in the process part. However, we label some students who get good marks as brilliant and others as not good. But in the real scenario, everyone has got the same powerful brain (not considering the physical aberrations) . ?It is said that “No one is good in everything….however, everyone is good in something…”. Unless we find that “something” the process misappropriation will exist. That “something” matters for life and career ahead.

Since the mind is related to the brain and all the activities are happening based on our mind, it is a good idea to have a psychological approach to the problems to find out what went wrong in the education process. Then we will realise that the capability of everyone to use the brain is different. Not all part of the brain is prominent in everyone. Based on what areas of the brain are frequently used, they show the skills accordingly. This indicate that some students can learn maths and some others can’t, in the same degree. The problems start here. The disparity in the process starts here.??So depending on the brain function, there should be different process to address the issue. If one student is not able to study maths in a normal course, why to insist to study maths? (Not denying the need to study the basic mathematics). But definitely there are so many areas that student can show performance excellence.?Teach maths to those who can learn it with ease, teach others what they are good at. Definitely our country needs all kind of skills to cater to different industries. I think NEP is aiming at that to solve the disparity in the education process. If we insists on learning the subjects that a student is not capable of, it creates stress, fear, and make the students really uncomfortable which eventually will lead to many psychosomatic diseases, or psychological aberrations. This is not good for the individual and for the country as a whole.

In the olden days in India we used to practice the Gurukula system for education where the students stay with the Guru and acquire the necessary life skills and knowledge. However, later when the British came to India, the education system was set apart, and slowly the new western system was introduced which gave more importance to science and technology forgetting the life skills needed. Current education system focuses on transferring knowledge / information to the students. But now, with the advancement of the technology in education and information revolution, there are quite a lot amount of information available in the internet and other medias and the whole world is confused with these information.. Everyday morning, you start seeing in the whatsapp for e.g., a lot of information coming to you, and you are being bombarded with the information and it continues till late in the night you sleep. A lot of advices, DO’s and DON’Ts . People are confused about what to do with these information. You may also notice, almost every information is available in the net. With the booming of various education APPs like Byju’s Apps, unacademy etc., getting the information to students is not an issue. Sometimes we may be forced to say that the students have better knowledge in various subjects than the teachers. This will forces to take a diversion in the education process. So the teaching process and the learning process have to be changed. It may not only be the matter of transferring the knowledge, as it was the case all the while. The teachers may have to focus more on create and sustain a culture of learning, take the student?through?the best learning experiences, motivate?them, identify and develop the talents in them, lead them, communicate to them powerfully, positively influence them and?direct them to the?right career for performance excellence, rather than imparting knowledge. So the education system and process need to be revised wisely according to what is needed in the hour. The old Gurukulam model need to be re-implemented with the help of technological advancement and digital revolution.

The training / recruitment / development of the teachers to be revised as well in the light of education technology, during and post COVID era. We need to identify / develop the right person with teaching competencies to satisfy the new education requirement.

We hope the New Education Policy will be designed to take care of all the matters discussed above and much more to give wings to the future generation to fly.?