NEP: Trick or Treat?

The Indian Express 1st August 2020 Save

Context: Actualisation of The New Education Policy depends on its operationalisation by identifying strategic norms and conditions for its efficient implementation.

The New Education Policy

Focuses on early child development, learning outcomes, different forms of assessment, holistic education, and, most importantly, recognising the centrality of teacher and teacher education.
Achieving universal foundational numeracy and literacy is the basic objective of NEP.
Reoriention from disciplinary content to modes of inquiry allows accessibility to a wide variety of disciplines.

Issues in NEP Document

The emphasis on critical thinking and free inquiry: without freeing universities from the political and cultural conformity.
Ambiguous language: i.e. preference to primary education in the mother tongue without curbing language choice for English.
Agnosticism over public versus private education: both in school and higher education.
Drops the word multidisciplinary: without explicating what it means.
Lack of clarity over availability of diploma or early exit options: i.e whether within a single institution or different institutions offer different kinds of degrees.

Structuring a curriculum for a classroom that has both one-year diploma students and four-year degree students takes away from the identity of the institution.
Exercising of exit options depends on financial circumstances of the student.

Forced multidisciplinary for all HEI’s: betrays the principle that different institutions have different identities, comparative advantages, pedagogical philosophies, and a different mission.

Deprive students for the choice of a diversity of institutions.

Risks creating a new kind of institutional isomorphism: mandated from the Centre.
Contradicts the principle of shift from exams to learning: by recommending a national aptitude test and thereby raising the need for coaching institutes.