Impact of NEP on K-12 publishing…

The National Education Policy 2020 is the first education policy of the 21st century and aims to address the many growing developmental imperatives of our country. This Policy proposes the revision and revamping of all aspects of the education structure, including its regulation and governance, to create a new system that is aligned with the aspirational goals of 21st century education, including SDG4, while building upon India’s traditions and value systems.

So, what would be its impact on the K-12 publishing industry, finds out All About Book Publishing.

NEP focuses on more practical learning

“The National Education Policy (NEP) as I understand includes an emphasis on online learning, more practical learning and a shift away from rote learning. It has also laid an emphasis on teaching of mother tongue and regional languages. For publishers of K-12, this would mean that books to teach regional language will be in demand and publishers will need to develop such regional language books which perhaps many may not be publishing as such.

A more practical way of teaching is to be applied by the schools meaning that school textbooks would still be needed and an important tool but how you teach, what you expect as an outcome and the emphasis will be different. Publishers of such books will need to include real life experiences, practical learning concepts and plenty of experiments in their books. Exercises on team-work and problem solving will be useful. There needs to be less of bookish knowledge and more of experimental knowledge as what we call ‘Learning by Doing.’

The policy also gives stress on online learning which would imply that textbooks will need to be very clear and very specific on concepts being taught which can be applied at home with day to day activities. The amount of text would need to be reduced to lay importance more on critical thinking. Textbooks thus, will become more of a reference tool with real learning coming from actual experiences, practical lessons and on school activities involving team-work and field trips.”

-Arvinder Singh, Publisher, Sanbun Publishers/Hemkunt Publishing

We are aligning our publishing programme with NEP

“With the NEP 2020 announcement, there have been several conversations within segments of various stakeholders like school administrators, teachers, parents and most importantly the publishing sector. Numerous factors have had an effect on the current publishing environment. School educators found it challenging to manage the curriculum throughout the pandemic and decide how current textbooks might be used for online and digital learning.

After having a thorough understanding of the new curriculum framework, publishers may decide to align their publishing programme with it in as short as the following one or two years (2023-2024). At Laxmi Publications, we have already begun aligning our textbooks with the NEP by incorporating aspects such as making our content more activity-oriented and experience-based, bringing the importance of digital platforms in learning and providing web-support with our books.

Aristotle said “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” While experiential learning may seem like a fresh concept, India has long used it. In our ancient Gurukuls, education was imparted mainly through experiential learning.

Given how popular Do-It-Yourself books, games, and puzzles are among Indian kids today, many of them have already incorporated experiential learning into their lives. At Laxmi Publications, we have already started incorporating experiential learning in our books by creating case based content in our books. Experiential learning approach is used to create our renowned lab manuals. All these create curiosity among students which encourages them to learn.”

-Munish Verma, Laxmi Publications Pvt. Ltd.

Publishers are still in a dilemma

“Currently, most of the publishers are in a dilemma as we are unclear about the NEP and the Board has not cleared anything about the curriculum and its implementation time. So,many publishers have put a hold on their new projects. Being a publisher, I am also worried if NEP is implemented in a shorter time frame, then it will be very difficult for us to understand the syllabus and publish new books accordingly in minimal time. As a result, we will suffer huge losses as our old book stocks will become a pile of scrap, if NEP won’t allow us a window for development of content and strategic thinking. Moreover, our industry is still in a phase of recovering from the recent impact of covid on our industry.

I strongly believe that the role of textbooks won’t change but the learning through textbooks and contents of current textbooks needs to be upscaled after New Education Policy by shaking hands with new technology and experts of subjects. We can look forward to interactive learning, audiobooks, e-learning, and video sessions. We can try making textbooks a fun learning experience by showing real-life examples to students through videos by experts which can open gates for cumulative thinking.”

-Lovashish Aggarwal, SPD Books International