NEP: Transformational step towards 5 trillion economy

The nation is in the process of transformation by launching the National Education Policy under the visionary leadership of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. Education is one of the most important transformers of the economy and the National Education Policy has made a sincere attempt to transform all the sectors and segments of the educational sector of the economy to ensure sustained supply of world-class manpower to make India one of the global superpowers. The New National Education Policy 2020 shall replace the National Educational Policy launched in 1986 which was launched after replacing the previous policy document of 1968.

The National Educational Policy is a transformational initiative to bring a paradigm shift in the domain of education in our country in both qualitative and quantitative dimensions. The focus is on universalisation of primary education by taking the GER in Primary Education to 100 percent by 2030 and has envisioned a mission of achieving GER of 50 % in higher education.

The new National Education Policy is based on the foundational dimensions of access, affordability, equity, quality and accountability which has made it robust and comprehensive from multiple dimensions.

The new national policy has emphasized more on curriculum reforms with an enhanced focus on outcome-based approach and to minimise the load of the bag of the youngsters by removing the redundant and less important content from the curriculum. NCERT shall be the key driving force behind curriculum reforms for schools. The policy has envisioned setting up multiple bodies to achieve excellence in the three broad areas of teaching, learning, and assessment for inclusive growth and development.

The National Education Policy is a culmination of the comprehensive process of series of consultations, meetings, feedbacks, expert comments, citizens' response and views, ideas, and suggestions taken from academicians, researchers, policymakers, parliamentarians, Ministers and other stakeholders of society.

The new National Educational Policy shall open fresh vistas of opportunities for students to study in foreign universities on Indian soil thereby checking the outflow of precious foreign exchequer. The latest policy has recommended for replacement of 10+2 model with a new model of 5+3+3+4 Model wherein the students will have a load of relevant, modern, and contemporary curriculum designed under the leadership of experts from NCERT. The NEP has focused on academic delivery in mother tongue or regional language till class V which has done away with the compulsion of studying English from a tender age.

With an aim to give an exponential and catalytic boost to the rate of growth in the GER, all single-stream colleges, and universities have been suggested to become multi-disciplinary by 2040 and single-stream institutions/universities should be phased out by 2040.

The implementation of the new National Educational Policy shall be done with a collaborative approach in consultation and cooperation of the States in the light of the fact that education is on concurrent list wherein both the Central and State governments are empowered to enact laws. The major focus of the governments shall be to garner optimal level and utilisation of funds to fructify the envisioned dreams of the new National Educational Policy.

The multi-regulatory structure of the regulatory environment is likely to witness a thorough overhaul for streamlining the regulatory mechanism to make the new over-arching regulatory environment more enabling and facilitating to enable the stakeholders to focus more on quality-related dimensions oriented more towards self-disclosure. The high-level implementation team shall evolve well defined targets and Key Performance Indicators for the various stakeholders and the team shall evaluate the performance of all the stakeholders against the well-defined targets in advance. The New National Education Policy is more normative than prescriptive, and the States will also have a significant say in the process of implementation.

To summarise, the new National Education Policy has ushered a new era of new hopes and new horizons to achieve new benchmarks of excellence to enable India to emerge as a 5 trillion economy by radical transformation of the educational sector of the economy.

(The writer is Chancellor, Sanskriti University, Mathura, UP. Views expressed are personal)