Draft National Education Policy – NEP 2019: The last National Education Policy (NEP) was released in 1986 and modified in 1992. Since then major changes have been observed in the world and in our country and the education policy needed to be modified as per the current scenario.
In order to make changes and implement new policy from primary, secondary & higher education, a committee was set up (June 2017) to prepare a draft of a new National Education Policy, under the chairmanship of Dr Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan.
The committee handed over the draft of its new National Education Policy 2019 to the central government. In order to learn public opinion, MHRD has released the draft to public. Links to download PDF of Draft National Education Policy – NEP 2019 is given at the end of this article.
However, the Central Government has not considered the recommendation of the committee in which it has been suggested to make Hindi compulsory. After going through this article, you will learn about the recommendations that the committee has suggested for changes in education. Here you will also learn about the changes suggested by the committee regarding primary, secondary and higher education.
Some important features, recommendations & suggestions from Draft National Education Policy 2019:
– The Draft National Education Policy, 2019 is built on the foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability
– Renaming of MHRD as Ministry of Education (MoE)
– Free and compulsory education from pre-school to 12th
– A major reconfiguration of curricular and pedagogical structure with Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) as an integral part of school education is proposed.
– Extension of Right to Education Act 2009 to cover children of ages 3 to 18. – A 5+3+3+4 curricular and pedagogical structure based on cognitive and socio-emotional developmental stages of children:
Foundational Stage (age 3-8 yrs): 3 years of pre-primary plus Grades 1-2;
Preparatory Stage (8-11 years): Grades 3-5;
Middle Stage (11-14 years): Grades 6-8; and
Secondary Stage (14-18 years): Grades 9-12.
– Schools will be re-organized into school complexes. It also seeks to reduce the content load in the school education curriculum.
– There will be no hard separation of learning areas in terms of curricular, co-curricular or extracurricular areas and all subjects, including arts, music, crafts, sports, yoga, community service, etc. will be curricular. It promotes active pedagogy that will focus on the development of core capacities: and life skills, including 21st-century skills.
– The Committee proposes for massive transformation in Teacher Education by shutting down sub-standard teacher education institutions and moving all teacher preparation/education programmes into large multidisciplinary universities/colleges.
– The 4- year integrated stage-specific B.Ed. programme will eventually be the minimum degree qualification for teachers.
– In higher education, a restructuring of higher education institutions with three types of higher education institutions is proposed-
Type 1: Focused on world-class research and high-quality teaching;
Type 2: Focused on high-quality teaching across disciplines with significant contribution to research;
Type 3: High-quality teaching focused on undergraduate education.
– This will be driven by two Missions -Mission Nalanda & Mission Takshashila.
– There will be re-structuring of Undergraduate programs (e.g. BSc, BA, BCom, BVoc) of 3 or 4 years duration and having multiple exits and entry options.
– A new apex body Rashtriya Shiksha Ayog is proposed to enable a holistic and integrated implementation of all educational initiatives and programmatic interventions and to coordinate efforts between the Centre and States.
– The National Research Foundation, an apex body is proposed for creating a strong research culture and building research capacity across higher education.
– The four functions of Standard setting, Funding, Accreditation and Regulation to be separated and conducted by independent bodies: National Higher Education Regulatory Authority as the only regulator for all higher education including professional education.
– Creation of accreditation eco-system led by revamped NAAC; Professional Standard Setting Bodies for each area of professional education and UGC to transform to Higher Education Grants Commission (HEGC).
– The private and public institutions will be treated on par and education will remain a ‘not for profit’ activity.
– Several new policy initiatives for promoting the internationalization of higher education, strengthening quality open and distance learning, technology integration at all levels of education, adult and lifelong learning and initiatives to enhance participation of underrepresented groups, and eliminate gender, social category and regional gaps in education
outcomes are recommended.
– Promotion of Indian and Classical Languages and setting up three new National Institutes for Pali, Persian and Prakrit and an Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation (IITI) has been recommended.
– The path-breaking reforms recommended will bring about a paradigm shift by equipping our students, teachers and educational institutions with the right competencies and capabilities and also create an enabling and reinvigorated educational eco-system for a vibrant new India.
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