NEP 2020: Can it really reform education in India?

With the aim of completely transforming the education system in the years to come, the Union Cabinet approved the New Education Policy on July 29, 2020. The new policy will replace the old education policy of 1986 that ran in the country for a period of 34 long years and is expected to transform the education system of the country. As mentioned by the honourable Prime Minister of the country during the inaugural address, the object of the NEP will be to make the current and future generations ‘Future Ready’.  

The National Education Policy aims to make education in the country multidisciplinary, holistic and futuristic with emphasis on quality, research and use of innovation and technology. Considering the importance of this issue, it is expected to appear as a group discussion topic in admission interviews and so, today, we will dissect the New Education Policy to analyze its pros and cons.  

Considering the positive impact of NEP 2020

Here are a few points that must be taken into consideration when speaking for the topic:

• The state, as well as the centre, will work together and focus on increasing the public investment to 6% of the GDP in the education sector.
• The new policy has an objective to universalize education from pre-school to secondary level with 100% GER or Gross Enrolment Ratio in school education by the year 2030.
• Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education is expected to be increased to 50% by 2035. Also, 3.5 crore seats are to be added for students wanting to pursue higher education.  
• A single regulatory body will be constituted for all higher education institutions.
• Students will be given multiple entry and exit options in degree courses.
• The policy will put into place a holistic, multi-disciplinary system for under graduation that will constitute flexible curricula, integration of vocational education, creative combinations of subjects and multiple entry and exit routes with appropriate certification/s.
• MPhil programmes in colleges and universities will be discontinued. 
• Board exams will have considerably lower stakes in the education system as well as in a student’s life. 
• There will be a system to conduct common entrance exams for colleges and universities.
• NEP 2020 also encourages the top global universities of the world to open campuses in India.
• In schools, the current system of 10+2 will be replaced with 5+3+3+4 curricular structure that corresponds to the ages of 3-8, 8-11 and 14-18 year, respectively. Also, the new system will comprise 12 years of schooling along with 3 years of pre-schooling/ Anganwadi.
• There will be no firm separation between vocational streams, extracurricular, academic streams in schools and emphasis will be laid on foundational literacy and numeracy. Vocational education will begin from class 6 with internship/s. 
• No language will be specifically imposed on students until grade 5. Students will be taught in their regional language or mother tongue.
• A 360-degree holistic progress card will be given out to students that will track their progress on grounds of whether or not they have achieved their learning goals.

Concerns over NEP 2020

While the said reforms to the education system of the country were necessary and long-awaited, here are a few cons that are predicted to adversely impact the education system of India. 

• The provisions laid out by the New Education Policy are perceived as a violation of federal principles that encourage the centralisation of decision-making powers in the education sector.
• While the policy states that it aims to increase the GER to 50% by the year 2035, it makes no mention of the added financial burden that will be required in order to achieve the goal. 
• Also, the major shift from the system of affiliation to autonomy within a span of 15 years will supposedly impact colleges in backward areas and villages. 
• The policy evaluates both private and public institutions using the same yardstick. If the support for public-funded institutions is withdrawn, it will have adverse implications along with considerable effects on accessibility, equity and social justice. Moreover, this could lead to an unchecked rise of corporate entities in the education sector.
• Another demand raised by the state government was the need for a regulatory mechanism to check and address the proliferation of self-financed colleges, which has gone unanswered. 

Concluding note

NEP 2020 is a progressive move in the arena of education policy. Even though the concerns over implementation and effectiveness hover over the reform to really be able to impact lives, it is a promising step forward in the overall transformation of the education system. While the NEP 2020 state that “education must move towards less content, and more towards learning about how to think critically and solve problems”, it will be interesting to see how the education content and pedagogy is actually implemented in the days to come.