National Education Policy, 2020 : A commendable policy with diverse challenges
“Ramu, a 3 year old kid sits at his home with his 5 year old elder brother, while both parents had gone to construction work. On the other side, Preetam a 3 year old was admitted to a play school, while both his parents had gone to office. An engineering student with little access to film making infrastructure, wanting to make a movie, a psychology student wanting to leant and understand artificial intelligence & machine learning.” These are the stories around us that we see on a regular basis
National Education policy 2020, is envisaging a shift in the way how education is perceived. This policy redefines education by providing a flexible course system and a multi disciplinary degree provision and no clear distinction between curricular and extra curricular activities until the class 6. The policy also reduces the social inequalities by providing early childhood care and education for children below 6 years, which has been accessible only to the privileged section of the society by private education institutions.
India’s education system so far has been a case of poor spending by the government on school & technical education, poor outcomes and lack of quality infrastructure. India spends a mere 2.5% of GDP on education. This simply is not enough providing quality education. The NEP 2020, which got the nod of the cabinet is envisaging an expenditure on education to be 6% of the GDP.
India’s poor spending on technical and higher education is one of the main reasons for its poor Gross Enrolment Ratio of 25%. India’s spending on research is just 0.7% of GDP, while china spends 2.5% and Israel spends 4.3% of their GDPs. This is by no means sufficient for a nation which is targeting a 5 trillion USD economy by 2024 by demographic dividend. NEP envisages an enrolment ratio of 50% in higher education by 2030 & an increased spending in research.
Multi disciplinary research and establishment of National Research Foundation as envisaged by NEP 2020, provides the research support for an economy that is thriving for innovation. With the fields such as Artificial intelligence, Machine learning and Genomics gaining momentum, multi disciplinary research plays a crucial role in providing research support for social and economic solutions.
While NEP 2020, is progressive in nature and provides wide range of solutions for problems, that have been existing for decades, the implementation of this policy provides as many challenges. The variety of challenges range from financial to political to social.
The financial challenges in implementing this policy stems from the current economic crisis. An expenditure of 6% of GDP is not an easy target to achieve without a stable and sustainable economy. The initiative of establishment of top 100 global universities in India will help in reducing the costs and provides cost sharing and economic solution, while adopting best practices followed globally.
There are political and social challenges associated with the implementation of this policy. Education being in List-III of the 7th schedule of the constitution requires a broad consensus to be reached between the union and states to implement the policy. The social challenges that are associated with the policy are related to teaching in regional languages. India has 25% of it’s total population living in urban areas, this is expected to increase to 50% by 2036. Urban population is a heterogenous mix of people from various states, cultures and languages. Teaching in regional languages remains a problem. Therefore it is important for the states to create urban amenities locally and take sufficient measures to provide education in the regional languages till 5th standard.
The challenges can very well be tackled and should be tackled to give effect to what can be called as a historic shift in the education policy. This policy is long pending and it is needed to tackle the challenges of 21st century which are multi dimensional in nature. Thus the National Education Policy 2020, is the first step in creating a education system that is equitable, accessible, affordable and accountable. The governments, civil society and most importantly the people of this country must accept and contribute to what can be called as a historic step in reforming the education system of this country.
Jai Hind!!
