The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) is truly transformative. There have been very few policies with its breadth and depth in Indian history. A parallel is the first National Policy on Education which came out from the Kothari Commission in 1968. Ten years after that policy was approved by the government, JP Nayak, who was a member secretary of the Kothari panel, wrote a book, Education Commission and later. Nayak, a highly respected figure in the field, wrote it as a reflection on what he did and didn’t do in the first ten years. It’s a nuanced book, as one would expect from a protagonist. However, at its core, it was an expression of despair over the partial and haphazard implementation of the 1968 policy.
I think the heroes were very quick in their decisions. Undoubtedly, the implementation of that policy was far from what it should have been. However, as the decades passed, it became clear that the direction and principles laid down by our first education policy deeply and fundamentally shaped Indian education. The effect of any omission or commission in specific actions under that policy is of no importance. It is useful to remember that experience in the context of NEP 2020.
The latest NEP aims to change the basic architecture, culture and outlook of Indian education. Not by destroying the past, but by building on the good parts of it, while resolutely fighting the bad. Undoubtedly, NEP 2020 will leave a deep impression on India in the long run, but there is also a short term impact that the policy can achieve if many of its actions are systematically and promptly implemented by Indian states. This includes the school education part of the new policy, which is the responsibility of these states.
Our school education is facing an unprecedented crisis, one of enormous learning losses for nearly 220 million children as schools were closed for more than 18 months. Unless comprehensively and quickly addressed, this shortfall will harm children and an entire generation of the country. Prompt implementation of relevant parts of the NEP by Indian states can provide some effective measures to deal with this emergency. Let me list some of the most important.
First, the NEP’s comprehensive and systematic response to addressing the problems of basic literacy and numeracy in Indian schools, which existed even before the pandemic, gives us the platform we need to tackle the COVID-triggered learning crisis. it occurs. The real on-the-ground measures that the policy envisages will greatly strengthen efforts to recover the deep losses on basic literacy and numeracy. With the policy’s greater commitment to transform the care and education of the youngest children, we may not only emerge from today’s learning crisis, but perhaps even surpass if the investment envisaged by the NEP is at the ‘Foundational Stage’ (age 3) is done in. to 8).
Second, the bold vision of a new National Curriculum Framework (NCF), which aims to develop real capabilities, nurture the nature of good and engaged citizens and inculcate constitutional values in our children, while reducing burden and rote learning. have to go away. What is really needed in this time of learning crisis. In simple words, we must reconfigure and cut back the curriculum essentially enabling those curricular goals. The process of developing the NCF with significant inputs from the states is already underway. While this process of NCF development will take some time, as it should, the interim output can be used by the states to suitably reconfigure the education curriculum in classrooms so that the lost learning can be recovered in due course. Can go
Third, a completely redesigned policy towards education in classes 9 to 12 can be placed at the core of enabling children in higher classes to graduate from school without any learning gap. This will involve a fundamental re-imagining of how board exams are conducted and how they should be assessed.
Fourth, the ‘School Premises’ is the focus of the NEP on how school organization and governance should be restructured for better outcomes. At its core, it is about creating communities of schools, teachers and learners such that they can support each other, including by sharing resources. The early construction of school complexes by various states will provide much needed educational support in the midst of this crisis, given that some of our schools are facing resource crunch.
Fifth, the NEP’s overall emphasis on empowering and trusting teachers and granting academic autonomy to institutions is an essential effort on the ground to respond with adaptation and flexibility given the nature of learning loss, which is different. -Is different. Not only in classes, but importantly among children in the same class.
As might be expected, states are at different stages of understanding and implementing the NEP. If the states grab NEP 2020 and implement it energetically, despite political differences with the central government, it will be a better world for all our children. In the long run, this will be transformative for education, while also providing an immediate engine that can help us tackle the learning-loss crisis that has gripped our children.
Anurag Behar is the CEO of Azim Premji Foundation
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