New Education Policy 2020, The Biggest Development Of 21st Century

Union Cabinet, on Wednesday, June 29 launched New Education Policy for India. The announcement was made by Union Ministers for Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Prakash Javadekar and Human Resource Development (HRD) and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.

NEP is launched for a comprehensive framework to guide the development of education in the country. With NEP, various changes have been made in the education system of India.

Various features of new education policy are listed here:

1. Through the open schooling system, the NEP 2020 will bring 2 crores out of school children back into the mainstream.

2. The current 10+2 system in the school will be replaced by a new 5+3+3+4 curricular structure corresponding to ages 3-8, 8-11, 11-14, and 14-18 years respectively.

3. As per the new policy, there will be 12 years of schooling with three years of Anganwadi/ pre-schooling.

4. There will be no rigid separation between academic streams, extracurricular, vocational streams in schools. From class 6, Vocational Education will start with internships.

5. As per the New Education Policy teaching up to at least Grade 5 will be in mother tongue or regional language. No language will be imposed on any student.

6. In higher education, Gross Enrolment Ration to be raised to 50% by 2035 and 3.5 crore seats to be added in higher education.

7. Various Entry/ Exit to be allowed with relevant certification.

8. To facilitate Transfer of Credits, the Academic Bank of Credits will be established.

9. Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) will be set up for the entire higher education, excluding medical and legal education. It will be a single overarching umbrella body.

10. In both schools and higher education, NEP will promote Multilingualism. Therefore, the National Institute for Pali, Persian, and Prakrit, Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation to be set up.

11. Govt will phase out the affiliation of colleges in 15 years and a stage-wise mechanism is to be established for granting graded autonomy to colleges.

12. Under NEP 2020, there will be no rigid separations between arts and sciences, between curricular and extra-curricular activities, between vocational and academic streams. Students can select subjects of their liking across the streams.

This was the biggest development or change in the 21st century. Meanwhile, everyone hope that this policy will boost employment in the country and will radically transform our educational ecosystem.