YOUR “BACK TO SCHOOL BREAKOUT FEELS” COULD HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE SURREAL.

If you are reading this, you’ll probably wish to go back to school right now. Yesterday, 29 July 2020 was a big turning point for the Indian Education system. The Union Cabinet of Ministry introduced the new National Education Policy (NEP) with an aim to bring about effective and sufficient change to a rather stale education infrastructure, that opens many doors for students.

Think about this, a lot of people go to study abroad but rarely people from abroad come to study in India. Some of the major reasons for this was the poor education infrastructure, an outdated curriculum program, and the inability to cater to the need of annual Indian grads.

Apparently, the Government of India was planning to overlook this problem and even came up with a ‘Study in India’ program introduced by The Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs, in Budget 2019, with an aim to attract foreign students to pursue higher education in India. Needless to say, the new National Education Policy totally justifies this mission. This may even facilitate India as a potential education destination and could redefine the whole idea of “The Great Indian Dream.”

There is a lot of upside to this reformation, from changing the “RATTOFYING” culture to give students the power to set their own course of education. One of the major ones being the 5+3+3+4 pattern.

At the very first stage, i.e. Pre-primary stage (first 3 years of schooling, followed by class 1 & 2) the primary medium of instruction will be the home language, mother tongue or regional language, up to Class 5 and preferably till class 8 and beyond, includes Sanskrit to be taught at all levels. Not only does this facilitate the fact that our very own languages are given priority, but also overlooks that the grasping power of the children will be much better given that they will be setting their base in their very own mother tongue.

School curriculums are also to be reduced to core concepts and there will be an integration of vocational education along with subjects like coding, to be taught from class 6 as part of the school curriculum, which right now you probably only wish you could have learned much earlier.

The exams will be conducted only in Grades 3, 5, and 8 which will be conducted by the appropriate authority. The Traditional, Grades 10 and 12 Board Exams will be continued, but redesigned by National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development). As for the recruitment of teaching faculty, the National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) will be developed by the National Council for Teacher Education by 2022.

The Higher Education infrastructure will be built with a more holistic approach, with no rigid separation between streams, flexible curriculum, and a combination of creative subjects to choose from. Plus, multiple entries and exit points with appropriate and legitimate certification.

Apart from this feature, there are many other factors that make the new NEP stand out, such as, building up a ‘Gender-Inclusion Fund’ to ensure quality education to all girls and LGBTQ students, and the “Glocal” approach to facilitate top-rated global universities to come to India and vice-versa. School never sounded so ecstatic and at this point, there is no doubt we all feel like going back to school.