The New Education Policy 2020: An Educator's Perspective
The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 brings in breakthrough changes that could transform the education system. But the key here is good implementation and execution. This policy comes up with numerous positive aspects and its main concern is to reorient the education system towards meeting the needs of the 21st century by achieving the twin objectives of inclusion and excellence.
As the President of India said that the policy sets a vision of developing an equitable and vibrant knowledge society by providing quality education to all. The policy basically aims to inculcate creativity and critical thinking in order to encourage logical decision-making and innovation.
Clearly, the policy aims at making the education system match the international standards of academics. The biggest highlights of the NEP 2020 are
- A single regulator for higher education institutions
- Multiple entry and exit options in degree courses
- Discontinuation of MPhil programmes
- Low stakes board exams
- Common entrance tests for universities.
As it is crystal clear that this reform might be considered as a 'renaissance' when taken into account the history of educational policies in India. Clearly, the efforts of the central government to renew and revive old policies are commendable. However, the role of teachers in this field cannot be brushed aside. But nowadays it is difficult to get trained teachers.
A good teacher not only teaches but inspires the students and makes them self -motivated. Till now there hasn't been any provision made for the holistic development of teachers. India is lagging far behind on this front when compared with other countries.
The New Education Policy comes up with the approach which needs a lot of time and herculean efforts to get implemented and this can not be done without giving any consideration to the teacher-student ratio in India. This ratio has been very disturbing in India and no serious measures have been taken till now to bridge this gap. Even if one has done their professional degree in the field of education that won't be sufficient as the teaching requires one to get fully equipped with soft skills as well.
The government has been allocating meagre funds which in turn will slow down the process of creating a good number of educators. Teachers or educators should be well trained not only in the subject concerned but also they had to have their emotional intelligence high as compared to the common masses.
While giving vocational training, certain measures need to be taken to create teachers not only large in quantity but quality as well. Moreover, the new education policy has introduced mother language for each subject in institutions. Again the problem that arises here is that it is difficult to get competent teachers so having access to teachers who are competent to teach subjects in their mother tongue will be far more difficult. They need to get specialised training.
Furthermore, there will be additional challenges to bring study material in mother languages. So the bottom line is that NEP 2020 has come up with a reform which is the need of the hour but the government should address the existing issues which need to be taken care of before implementing the new educational reform.
Zoya Zubair is an aspiring professional content writer and a teacher by profession. She has earned Masters in English Literature from the Aligarh Muslim University( AMU).
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