Highlights of NEP 2020

As we know the Ministry of Education has announced the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) on 29.07.2020. This policy document is made available on the Ministry of Education’s website at https://www.mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/NEP_Final_English_0.pdf.

Key Highlights for the NEP 2020

The special features of NEP 2020 include:-

1. Ensuring Universal Access at All Levels of schooling from pre-primary school to Grade 12;
2. Ensuring quality early childhood care and education for all children between 3-6 years;
3. New Curricular and Pedagogical Structure (5+3+3+4);
4. No hard separations between arts and sciences, between curricular and extra-curricular activities, between vocational and academic streams;
5. Establishing National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy;
6. Emphasis on promoting multilingualism and Indian languages; The medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/mother-tongue/local language/regional language.
7. Assessment reforms – Board Exams on up to two occasions during any given school year, one main examination and one for improvement, if desired;
8. Setting up of a new National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development);
9. Equitable and inclusive education – Special emphasis is given to Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups(SEDGs);
10. A separate Gender Inclusion fund and Special Education Zones for disadvantaged regions and groups;
11. Robust and transparent processes for recruitment of teachers and merit-based performance;
12. Ensuring availability of all resources through school complexes and clusters;
13. Setting up of State School Standards Authority (SSSA);
14. Exposure to vocational education  in school and higher education system;
15. Increasing GER in higher education to 50%;
16. Holistic Multidisciplinary Education with multiple entry/exit options;
17. NTA to offer Common Entrance Exam for Admission to HEIs;
18. Establishment of Academic Bank of Credit;
19. Setting up of Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities(MERUs);
20. Setting up of National Research Foundation(NRF);
21. ‘Light but Tight’ regulation;
22. The single overarching umbrella body for the promotion of the higher education sector including teacher education and excluding medical and legal education- the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI)-with independent bodies for standard-setting- the General Education Council; funding-Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC); accreditation- National Accreditation Council (NAC); and regulation- National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC);
23. Expansion of open and distance learning to increase GER.
24. Internationalization of Education
25. Professional Education will be an integral part of the higher education system. Stand-alone technical universities, health science universities, legal and agricultural universities, or institutions in these or other fields, will aim to become multi-disciplinary institutions.
26. Teacher Education – 4-year integrated stage-specific, subject-specific Bachelor of Education
27. Establishing a National Mission for Mentoring.
28. Creation of an autonomous body, the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) to provide a platform for the free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration. Appropriate integration of technology into all levels of education.
29. Achieving 100% youth and adult literacy.
30. Multiple mechanisms with checks and balances will combat and stop the commercialization of higher education.
31. All education institutions will be held to similar standards of audit and disclosure as a ‘not for profit entity.
32. The Centre and the States will work together to increase the public investment in the Education sector to reach 6% of GDP at the earliest.
33. Strengthening of the Central Advisory Board of Education to ensure coordination to bring overall focus on quality education.
34. Ministry of Education: In order to bring the focus back on education and learning, it may be desirable to re-designate MHRD as the Ministry of Education (MoE).

Vocational Education and NEP 20202

NEP 2020 recognizes that vocational education is perceived to be inferior to mainstream education. Hence, this policy aims to overcome the social status hierarchy associated with vocational education and requires the integration of vocational education programmes into mainstream education in all educational institutions in a phased manner. Towards this, secondary schools will also collaborate with ITIs, polytechnics, local industry, etc. Skill labs will also be set up and created in the schools in a hub and spoke model which will allow other schools to use the facility.

Quality Education

Improving the quality of education across all levels from primary to university level is a continuous and ongoing process. Several initiatives are currently being undertaken in this direction. The Samagra Shiksha, an integral scheme for School Education as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme is being implemented and aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education. It envisages the ‘school’ as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels. In higher education also, various schemes, namely, RashtriyaUchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), Scheme for promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC), Global Initiative for Academics Network (GIAN), Impacting Research, Innovation & Technology (IMPRINT), Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP), Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM), National Digital Library, campus connect programme, Uchhatar Avishkar Abhiyan, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, Impactful Research in Social Sciences (IMPRESS), Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA), National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) are being implemented to improve the quality of higher education. A number of initiatives are also undertaken by UGC and AICTE for quality improvement in higher and technical education.