Hyderabad: In the knowledge economy, the development of a country is invariably linked to its investment and strategies in education. Be it the increase of gross enrollment ratio (GER) or tapping of the potential of the significant percentage of youth or transforming the country to a fully developed nation, the solution lies in increasing the opportunities and fine-tuning of strategies in awarding degrees and flexibility of teaching-learning mechanisms.
The decision of the Government of India to overhaul the education system through the much-awaited new education policy (NEP) is a welcome step. A policy document has been prepared by very eminent people, under the guidance of Dr. Kasturirangan, after a long consultation process. The draft document has been made open to public inviting inputs for an extended period. Finally, the policy is approved by the central cabinet which will soon be tabled in parliament.
Delayed but not denied:
It is difficult to believe that a country with great aspirations has taken almost three decades to fine-tune its education policy. During this period, several things have changed all over the world. There is an increased dependence on computer-enabled technologies, powerful communication systems, and the comfortable travel between places. The inevitable change, with the changing attitudes of the youth, has been critically gauged by the Government. The committee has meticulously worked on the NEP to fulfil the dreams, at least now, of the current generation. With the NEP in place, the Government has brought out its ambition to prevent the migration of the Indian youth to other countries for better education.
Emphasis on mother tongue as medium of instruction:
Several essential changes will be coming with the adoption of the NEP, at School/College/University levels. The most important one at School level is the advocacy of the Government to impart education through mother tongue at least up to 5th standard, and if possible to extend it to higher classes as much as possible. The Intermediate education, which is popular in the Telugu speaking states, will now become part of the school of education which was already in practice in the Central system and several other states as well. Several small countries have immensely benefited by promoting teaching process in their native language. Countries like Japan, Germany, France, Korea, China etc., could be the best examples. Research contributions from these countries in science and technology are ahead of several other countries. It is important to learn from such experiences.
Useful qualitative changes approved for higher education:
The sweeping changes, proposed by the committee and approved by the cabinet, for higher education bring in enormous and unprecedented flexibility to the learner. The undergraduate programme could be three or four years and the postgraduate programme could be one or two years! The four-year bachelors’ degree qualifies the interested and motivated learner directly for research degree leading to PhD. At the same time, a lot of rigor is brought into the programme to enable the learner to equip her/himself with an ability to write a report with the experience of project work to be carried out during the four-year degree. A major deviation from the existing system is to make a wide range of courses available to the students not only in the institution in which they enroll, but also will have a chance to enroll in other institutions at least partly. Something which has been a dream for the youth. The seamless flexibility allows a portion of a course or entire course can be completed online.
Build and nurture centres of excellence in education:
The intention of the Government to build strong education centres is made public through the NEP to encourage autonomous colleges that are not affiliated to the Universities. For an institution to become autonomous, it should have a high accreditation score. Institutions that ensure well-qualified quality, good infrastructure and follow healthy practices in teaching-learning will only get good accreditation scores. The Institutions which have already demonstrated all such qualities have been empowered in the past five years with increasing levels of autonomy. A major step in this empowerment of the Institutions has already been implemented through the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) scheme. In this scheme, the IoEs are given with a target to match some of the best institutions in the world, to regain India’s reputation of Nalanda and Takshasila times.
Aim to convert the COVID 19 crisis into an opportunity:
With the boost coming from the NEP, Governments should see the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity. Covid-19 continues to cripple several academic plans across the world and is threatening to take away an academic year. Institutions need to augment their information and communication technologies to provide seamless opportunities to the learner to earn credits from anywhere in the world. By enhancing such infrastructure, the dream to attain a GER of 50% by 2035, can probably be achieved even before! It requires to train several lakhs of teachers to develop contents suitable for massive online education. The teachers need to familiarize on how to reorient, in order not to be redundant, to be a remote teacher with no compromise on the content and delivery.
The well-intended NEP being launched by the Government of India with an equally well-intended plan to work closely with the local state governments for implementation of the NEP deserves appreciation. It should be seen as the commitment of the Government to make the NEP as a real game-changer for India. We can optimistically look forward for the early benefits in the first 10 years of implementation of the NEP.
