National Education Policy 2020– Educating Mind and Heart together

The National Education Policy, 2020 has been revolutionary in every sense, especially since the pandemic exposed the inadequacies in the education system. While the Policy focuses on multiple aspects, including inclusive education and revamping of the current curriculum, an inherent thread that runs through the Policy is the interplay of education and technology.

The key points and highlights include:

• Early Childhood Care and Education
• The Right to Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act)
• National Mission on Education [Through Communication & IT]
• National Research Foundation
• The 5+3+3+4 structure will take the place of the current 10+2 structure. The formative years of learning are the main focus of this system. Ages from 3 to 18, 8 to 11, 11 to 14, and 14 to 18 are represented by the 5+3+3+3+4 structure.
• NCERT will create a National Curriculum and Pedagogical Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education for kids up to the age of eight.
• The Education Ministry is to establish a National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by the national education strategy 2020.
• The states of India are responsible for ensuring that all pupils up through third grade have a solid foundation in reading and numeracy.
• By 2025, this implementation should be complete.
• The creation of the National Book Promotion Policy in India is one of NEP 2020’s benefits.
• Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities on par with the IITs and IIMs will be established across the nation, according to the national education policy 2020.
• Online education will be promoted more widely to better prepare students for pandemic circumstances in the future.

INDUSTRY SPEAKS…

NEP 2020 – Role of Technology in Higher Education

With virtual learning replacing in-person learning experiences, students and teachers have been compelled to re-imagine conventional learning and teaching techniques. The roll out of NEP 2020 at this critical juncture has immense significance. In this regard, the Policy’s vision aligns significantly with the government’s vision to promote ‘extensive use of technology in teaching and learning, removing language barriers, increasing access as well as affordability for every learner’.

The Policy calls for investments in digital infrastructure, the creation of virtual labs and digital repositories, the development of online teaching platforms and tools, teacher preparation programmes for producing high-quality online content, the design and implementation of online assessments, and the establishment of standards for content, technology, and pedagogy for online teaching-learning. The Policy envisions the establishment of a specialized unit to plan the creation of digital infrastructure, digital material, and capacity building to oversee that the demands of higher education in terms of technological education are met. These changes are not only in consonance with the challenges but also serve to curb the existing loopholes.

The National Education Policy,2020 thereby undoubtedly strengthens the potential to transform India’s higher education landscape. With the policy recognizing the necessity to modernize the entire educational system through the appropriate use of technology, the role of a large number of edtech companies become crucial in terms of providing the online development and delivery of programs in a professional manner. The Edtech companies have already invested in creating the digital infrastructure to provide end-to-end solution for taking the high-quality digital education to the masses. In the current scenario digital education would not only drive the NEP significantly but would also support the government’s vision to democratize higher education.

-Sanjay Kumar, PhD, President- Corporate Affairs & Public Policy, upGrad

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NEP 2020: A positive change

“This is positive change; and I see lot of opportunities for students and education providers. I am also involved in developing e-content and in the training of teachers and principals. The proposed amendments are the finest practices of pedagogy and our books have always been based on them.”

-Atiya Zaidi, Publisher, Ratna Sagar

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NEP 2020: truly visionary

“National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) strives to make each student ‘Aatmanirbhar’ by democratizing educational opportunities across the country. The policy dynamism and futuristic outlook, attempts to make the education system inclusive, efficient, and effective. It focuses on course corrections by simplifying existing schoolbooks, heavy on text and by making classroom learning more interactive through audio-visual hybrid content. Technology today continues to dominate significant sections of teaching and learning, with schools and universities taking giant leaps towards offering sustainable educational opportunities in the aftermath of the pandemic. The NEP 2020 is truly visionary for offering greater possibilities for experiential and interactive learning, allowing students and teachers to grow together. It’s fundamentally reshaping the education system to produce global learners and better leaders of tomorrow.”

-Arun Rajamani, Managing Director, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, South Asia,

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India will be VISHWA GURU

“It is a forward-looking policy and much required. If implemented properly, it has great potential to increase the gross enrolment ratio of our country. This Policy has the potential to make India a Vishwa Guru.We want to recreate education centres like Nalanda and Takshila. This policy has initiated all efforts to improve education. Now, we have to implement and find innovative ways to make the best use of this new-age policy and promote multidisciplinary culture in our campuses and institutions. We at AICTE have already revised our curriculum in 2017, so we are in tandem with NEP 2020.

I feel we need dynamic academic bodies in our educational sector. Every university, institution, school or college should have experts from varied sectors. Also for technical education, we need to focus on short-term and medium-term plans and goals. As it is fast changing, so we have to take fast decisions as well.

I imagine our campuses flourishing with innovation culture in every student. We should bring such an environment to excite young experimenting and inventing brains. We have started Idea Labs to promote ideas. Students can do anything, all material and apparatus is provided by AICTE and it is gaining fast popularity.”

-Prof. Rajive Kumar, Member Secretary, AICTE

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India – A global educational hub

“It is high time now, all the stakeholders of the education sector, should come together and integrate knowledge and resource pool for the bigger goal. India has a lot of potential and NEP 2020 is a boon for educationists to take a big leap in every sense.

We should improve our quality of education at par with international standards. If we are successful in achieving the results of this policy, India will surely become an education hub.

The new NEP recommends that the top 100 universities in the world will be allowed to set up campuses in India, thus opening doors for global education in the country. This could take the form of new campuses; partnerships with universities in India, etc. I think all of this will not only improve the quality of education but also put India on the map as a global educational destination.”

-Sanjiv Goswami, Managing Consultant, Sanjeev Goswami & Associates

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Better collaboration of education and allied industries

“The new higher education policy is very attractive but we have to wait for another 30 years to see how well it is implemented in the higher education sector and see its positive impacts on higher medical research. Technologically, we are well advanced but the application part is lacking, especially in the dental, medicine and pharmacy sector.

With the implantation of NEP, our focus should be on producing better-skilled professionals to better implement digital and technological advances in education. Also, there is a huge gap in education sector expectations and industrial innovations, so all the allied industries of the education sector need to collaborate for a better future for our students. Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara University will set the highest standards of teaching and I am hopeful that NEP will make learning by awakening the intelligence of the students and nurturing the creativity hidden in them by creating an environment where ancient wisdom blends with modern science, to transform them into whole human beings to face challenges.”

-Dr N Udupa, Research Director at Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara University

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NEP recommends the digitalization of degree certificates and credentials

“Technology has boosted digital assets and transactions. Everyone is moving towards digital transformation. Universities, colleges, and employers invest a lot in identity verification. Keeping up with the most recent technological developments, many educational institutions are supporting and encouraging these developments in the higher education sector. The next stages towards adopting yet another such technology instrument that complements the new standard in this digital era are a degree certificate and credentials powered by blockchain. To support Digital Degrees powered by Blockchain Technology and in compliance with India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT’s DigiLocker, TruScholar empowers institutions across the globe with secure infrastructure to establish tamper-proof digital credentials, certificates, and badges.”

-CA Aman Lohiya, TruScholar

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We are getting ready to endorse the Cluster University concept of NEP

“After NEP 2020, the single-stream approach of teaching-learning will be ruled out. All the institutions including the ones that are offering professional degrees will be transformed into a rationalized architecture that is popularly being referred to as multidisciplinary clusters. Students who are genuinely interested in learning a particular course would come together to help faculties to achieve better student learning outcomes.

Thus, the process would ultimately lead to accelerating Institutional Networking. Since the Cluster University concept of the new education policy speaks of merging multidisciplinary HEIs, institutional networking would go uphill.”

– Prof Dr Sapna Rakesh, Director, G L Bajaj Institute of Management Research

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Multiple Exit/Entry System (MEES): a puzzle?

“I am interacting with so many students on daily basis. I feel young students are puzzled right now. They are not sure how this NEP’s ‘Multiple Exit/Entry System” (MEES) is going to be helpful. As stated in a July 2021 UGC document, the MEES has three aims: Reducing the dropout rate; providing flexibility and a wider choice of subjects to students; and enabling credit transfers for lateral movement or re-entry. Once again, these are laudable objectives, but it is unclear how the MEES will achieve them.”

-Dr Ila Pathak Jha, Director – Admission & Student Affairs, D. Y. Patil International University, Akurdi, Pune (DYPIU)