The Draft National Education Policy 2019 is finally outafter four years of continuous deliberations. Disagreements apart, weacknowledge that the Kasturirangan Committee has come up with a progressive andgroundbreaking document supported by relevant research. Drawing from earlyimportant policy documents, the draft policy has touched upon every aspect ofeducation from school to university level apart from vocational, adult andprofessional education. The draft policy has made a paradigm shift how we lookto education and has suggested a complete overhaul of all sectors of education.Starting from school education for the first time some official document isaccepting the severe learning crisis in school education. The documentrecommends that children between the age of 3-18 will be covered in schooleducation instead of current 6-14 years of age which in turn will needamendment in the Right to Education. This recommendation is in line withresearch findings that almost 90% of brain development of a child takes placebefore the age of six. The policy believes that part of the learning crisis inschools are because of late admission of the children in the schools. Toovercome this challenge the policy recommends huge expansion and strengtheningof facilities for early childcare and education. Apart from this, a seriousattempt will be made to reduce the curriculum content to its core only andenhance essential and critical thinking. The policy strives that a conduciveenvironment will be created for quality school education and those studentswill be fully supported who have standalone interest or talent. The concept ofschool complexes which has been taken from the Education Commission of 1964-66will be reintroduced for effective management and governance of schools and atthe same time to end the isolation of a large number of schools which arelocated far off places with low enrollment.
Accreditation which was till date only used for highereducation institutes will be introduced in school education in a pre-devisedformat to help build quality schools across the country.
For higher education again, a lot of innovative and novelideas have been strongly recommended. The policy envisions that by 2035 GrossEnrollment Ratio at higher education should be 50% as compared to the current25% which of course is a daunting task. The policy documents have accepted thatthere are serious problems with the quality of research in Indian universitiesand one possible reason for that is, possibly because of standalone researchinstitutions having almost no link with universities where teaching is done.Moreover, research in universities has no link with industry and society atlarge. The draft policy has recommended that all higher education institutionswill be categorized into three types only with all previous nomenclature nomore in use. Type I universities or institutions devoted to world-classresearch and high-quality teaching across all disciplines. Type II universitiesand institutions will focus on high-quality teaching with significantcontribution to research. Type III institutions most preferably colleges whichwill focus on high-quality teaching across disciplines. The concept ofaffiliating universities will be a thing of the past and in the future, allhigher education institutions will become autonomous and self-governing entities.The draft policy has come heavily on sub stand teacher education colleges, ofwhich 90% are of private colleges who have been selling degrees on a price andhas recommended their immediate shutdown. A bold and innovative step for bothschool and higher education has been taken that no promotions or entitlementwill be given on the basis of seniority rather on the basis of merit which willbe predefined and combination of many things not necessarily only on the basisof qualification.
The policy for the first time has underscored the need forsymbiosis of professional and liberal education in India, which under thecircumstances is a radical shift in the thinking of the government. For theimplementation of the document, the recommendations are that the governmentneeds to spend 20% from the current 10% of total public investment to reallyexpand and revitalize public education system.
We believe that this particular policy document with finetuning needs to be implemented in its true spirit if we really want to come outof the current mess in all levels of education. We are also aware of the factthat this country has the track record of the creation of some of the finestdocuments with almost zero implementations. We wish that it must not happenagain with this particular policy. In conclusion, we will wait and see if thepolitical dispensation has the will and passion to back this policy bothlegally and financially.
(The author is Assistant Professor (Education), GovernmentDegree College Ganderbal, Kashmir.)