The education policy 2020 aims to restructure both school and higher education in India.
- Earlier today, the government also renamed the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Ministry of Education, as proposed in the NEP, to bring focus back on education and learning.
- The K. Kasturirangan Committee submitted its draft of the NEP in May, 2019.
- For higher education, it proposes an undergraduate programme that will last three or four years and offer multiple exits with certificate, diploma or degree qualifications.
- It proposes to have a single regulator that will prescribe uniform norms for every type of institution irrespective of the nature of its management and ensure compliance through a system of voluntary disclosures. There is also a proposal to fix the fees.
- For school education, the emphasis is on early childhood education. The policy proposes univeralisating secondary school education and early childhood care education (for ages three to six) by 2030.
- The NEP also announces for formulation of a new and comprehensive National Curricular Framework for School Education, NCFSE 2020-21, which will be revisited and updated once every 5-10 years.
- The policy emphasises on the use of technology at both school and higher education levels.
- Union minister for HRD, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said: “Our New Education Policy will turn India into a knowledge society. The policy proposes to increase public spending on education to 6% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP — a promise made since the 1960’s but never kept.”
NEP 2020: Higher education
- Under the NEP, all education institutions will be held to similar standards of audit and disclosure.
- And the system will be governed by a single regulator, the Higher Education Commission of India.
- It states that all fees set by private HEIs will be transparently and fully disclosed, and there shall be no arbitrary increases.
- Amit Khare, secretary, higher education, also added that there will be “fee fixation” across institutions as well.
- Higher education institutions will be reorganised into three types of institutions —
- research,
- teaching and
- autonomous degree granting ones.
- New multidisciplinary institutions will be established.