AIR Spotlight: New Education Policy and Reforms in the Indian School Education System

AIR Spotlight is an insightful program featured daily on the All India Radio News on air. In this program, many eminent panellists discuss issues of importance which can be quite helpful in IAS exam preparation.

This article is about the discussion on: ‘New Education Policy and the Reforms in the Indian School Education System’.

Participants:

• Dr Pragya Singh: Director of Academic Assessment, CBSE
• Rajesh Lekh: AIR Correspondent

Context –  The National Education Policy (NEP, 2020) proposes the revision and revamping of all aspects of the education structure to create a new system that is aligned with the aspirational goals of 21st-century education while building upon India’s traditions and value systems.

NEP, 2020 – A New Education Structure – 5+3+4+4

The policy envisages that the extant 10+2 structure in school education is modified with a new pedagogical and curricular restructuring of 5+3+3+4 covering ages 3-18.

• The new 5+3+3+4 structure consists of –
  • The foundational Stage – 3 years of Anganwadi/Preschool + 2 years in Primary Schools Grades 1 & 2 both covering ages 3-8 years.
  • Preparatory Stage – Grades 3-5 covering ages 8-11 years
  • Middle Stage – Grades 6-8, covering ages 11-14 years.
  • Secondary Stage – Grades 9 – 12 in two phases i.e., 9 & 10 in the first phase and 11 & 12 in the second, covering ages 14 – 18 years.

Integrated Learning – Multi-disciplinary Learning 

Integrated learning refers to a teaching approach that combines multiple subjects or areas of study into an integrated whole.

• One of the major recommendations of National Education Policy 2020, is multidisciplinary and holistic education across the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities and sports in order to ensure the unity and integrity of all knowledge. This will lead to students that are musicians as well as mathematicians and scientists together.
• This multidisciplinary learning will help build young citizens of the country who are holistically developed and can contribute better to the advancement of society as well as the nation. 
• The integrated approach also creates a more cohesive learning experience for students by linking different subject areas and demonstrating the interconnections between them. 
• As per the recommendations of NEP 2020, the distinctions between Science, Art and Humanities are no more there. 

NEP 2020 – Pedagogy Reform

In the National Education Policy 2020, the pedagogy reform aims to move the education system towards real understanding and towards learning how to learn and moving away from the culture of rote learning that is prevalent at present. There is more emphasis on practical activity and project-based learning.

• In all stages, experiential learning will be adopted, including hands-on learning, arts-integrated and sports-integrated education, and storytelling-based pedagogy, among others, as standard pedagogy within each subject, and with explorations of relations among different subjects.
• The curriculum will have the space for critical thinking and more holistic, inquiry-based, discovery-based, discussion-based, and analysis-based learning. The mandated content will focus on key concepts, ideas, applications and problem-solving.
• The pedagogies adopted will make the students think out of the box in a creative manner. Critical thinking, problem-solving, inquiry and creativity are the skills which would help a child be successful in the 21st century.

Multilingualism  and the Power of Language

NEP 2020 emphasises the use of the mother tongue/local language as the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond. This will be followed by both private and public schools.

• High-quality textbooks, including in science, will be made available in the home language/mother tongue. All efforts will be made early on to ensure that any gaps that exist between the language spoken by the child and the medium of teaching are bridged. 
• It is a part of research that the students learn better in their own mother tongue/local language as they are more comfortable with it.
• There is also an emphasis on multilingualism, as children pick up languages extremely quickly between the ages of 2 and 8 and multilingualism has great cognitive benefits for young children.
• Extensive use of technology will be made for teaching and learning different languages and to popularise language learning.
• The three languages learned by children will be the choice of states, regions and of course, students themselves as long as at least two of the three languages are native to the country.
• Being educated in one’s language, culture and traditions is a huge benefit to educational, social and technological advancement. India’s languages are among the richest, most scientific, most beautiful and most expressive in the world.

Evaluation/Assessment Reforms –

The assessment will shift from rote memorisation skills to more competency-based, Assessment items/ Questions would be more competency focused i.e., application-oriented and related to higher order skills, such as analysis, critical thinking, and conceptual clarity.

• The primary purpose of the assessment will indeed be for learning and will help the entire schooling system continuously revise the teaching-learning process to optimise learning and development for all students.
• The grading system will assess the achievements of the students according to the learning goals of each program.
• Learning outcomes are the indicators that a particular competency has been achieved by the students.
• A National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (Performance, Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), is proposed to be set up as a standard body for setting norms, standards and guidelines for student assessment and evaluation for all recognised schools.

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for Teachers

The NEP 2020 emphasises the need for continuous professional development (CPD) for school teachers.

• The policy states that every school teacher should participate in at least 50 hours of CPD every year.
• 18 modules of 4-5 hours each comprehensively covering all aspects of elementary education have been launched under NISHTHA for in-service teacher training (CPD) in the online mode on the DIKSHA platform. 

School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Framework

The NEP 2020 recommends a separate School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Framework to be developed by SCERTs, being the academic authority at the state level.

• All the schools including private schools will be assessed and accredited on the same criteria, benchmarks and emphasising offline and online public disclosure and transparency.
• Educational outcomes and the transparent disclosure of all academic, financial and operational matters will be given due importance and will be incorporated suitably in the assessment of schools

Conclusion – The Indian education system has been in desperate need of reform for a long time and the National Education Policy, 2020 and other reforms and initiatives are encouraging steps in the right direction. However, implementation modalities with regard to policy need to include the conduct of intense advocacy and awareness programmes by the national and state-level educational organisations for various stakeholders teachers, educational administrators, parents, students, etc. This will help in the smooth implementation of the policy.

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