New National Education Policy on “School Education”

It recommends developing a 2 part curriculum for early childhood care & education

The Committee for Draft National Education Policy proposes an education policy,
which seeks to address the challenges of: (i) access, (ii) equity, (iii) quality, (iv)
affordability, and (v) accountability faced by the current education system

Difference between Earlier Policy and New Policy

• The Committee for Draft National Education Policy observed several quality related
  deficiencies in the existing early childhood learning programs
  (i) Curriculum that doesn’t meet the developmental needs of children, (ii) Lack of
  qualified and trained teachers and (iii) Substandard pedagogy
• Currently, most early childhood education is delivered through anganwadis and
  private-preschools
• However, there has been less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood
• Hence, the draft Policy recommends developing a two-part curriculum for early
  childhood care and education
• This will consist of: (i) guidelines for up to three-year-old children (for parents and
  teachers), and (ii) educational framework for three to eight-year-old children
• This would be implemented by improving and expanding the anganwadi system
  and co-locating anganwadis with primary schools

Framework Reform for School Education

• The draft Policy recommends extending the ambit of the RTE Act to include early
  childhood education and secondary school education
• This would extend the coverage of the Act to all children between the ages of three
  to 18 years
• In addition, the draft Policy recommends that the recent amendments to the RTE
  Act on continuous and comprehensive evaluation and the no detention policy must be
  reviewed
• It states that there should be no detention of children till class eight. Instead,
  schools must ensure that children are achieving age-appropriate learning levels
• The current structure of school education must be restructured on the basis of the
  development needs of students
• This would consist of a 5-3-3-4 design comprising: (i) five years of foundational
  stage (three years of pre-primary school and classes one and two), (ii) three years of
  preparatory stage (classes three to five), (iii) three years of middle stage (classes six to
  eight), and (iv) four years of secondary stage (classes nine to 12)
• The Committee noted that the current education system solely focuses on rote
  learning of facts and procedures
• Hence, it recommends that the curriculum load in each subject should be reduced
  to its essential core content. This would make space for holistic, discussion and
  analysis-based learning
• To track students’ progress throughout their school experience, the draft Policy
  proposes State Census Examinations in classes three, five and eight
• Further, it recommends restructuring the board examinations to test only core
  concepts, skills and higher order capacities. These board examinations will be on a
  range of subjects
• The students can choose their subjects, and the semester when they want to take
  these board exams
• The in-school final examinations may be replaced by these board examinations

Change in Infrastructure and Management of School Education

• The draft Policy recommends that multiple public schools should be brought
  together to form a school complex
• A complex will consist of one secondary school (classes nine to twelve) and all the
  public schools in its neighborhood that offer education from pre-primary till classes
  eight
• The school complexes will also include anganwadis, vocational education facilities,
  and an adult education centre
• Each school complex will be a semi-autonomous unit providing integrated
  education across all stages from early childhood to secondary education
• This will ensure that resources such as infrastructure and trained teachers can be
  efficiently shared across a school complex
• The policy recommends that teachers should be deployed with a particular school
  complex for at least five to seven years
• Further, teachers will not be allowed to participate in any non-teaching activities
  (such as cooking mid-day meals or participating in vaccination campaigns) during
  school hours that could affect their teaching capacities

Training of Teachers and Regulation of Schools

• The Policy recommends separating the regulation of schools from aspects such as
  policymaking, school operations, and academic development
• It suggests creating an independent State School Regulatory Authority for each
  state that will prescribe basic uniform standards for public and private schools
• The Department of Education of the State will formulate policy and conduct
  monitoring and supervision

Pic courtesy : peppertales.in