Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan established a series of new education and skill development initiatives at an event held in New Delhi on July 29, Friday to mark the second anniversary of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
Addressing the event, Mr. Shah proclaimed several new endeavors for students and educators including school innovation policy, Vidya Amrit Portal, 200 virtual labs, a skill-India partnership with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) for a three-year degree programme, and a mobile app for a public consultation survey for the National Curriculum Framework (NCF), among others.
Talking at the event, Mr. Shah stated, “The purpose of education is to develop character, empathy, courage and to prepare students to deal with the challenges of life. The 21st century is the century of knowledge. NEP 2020 is for channelising knowledge for the development of the country.”
“NEP 2020 enriches knowledge and culture and is aligned with the aspirations of our society,” he added.
During the event, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, “Our educational aspiration is not only for earning degrees and certificates but also to achieve global good. National Education Policy 2020 is an antidote to Macaulay’s system of education designed to colonize our minds.”
The 34-year-old National Policy on Education, which was formulated in 1986, will be replaced by the NEP, which was endorsed by the Union Cabinet in 2020. It will pave the way for transformational reforms in school and higher education systems, with the purpose of making India a global knowledge superpower.
Teaching up to class 5 in mother tongue or regional language, lowering the stakes of board exams, a single regulator for higher education institutions except for law and medical colleges, as well as common entrance tests for universities, are part of the sweeping reforms in the new NEP.
Replacing the 10+2 structure of school curricula with a 5+3+3+4 curricular structure corresponding to age groups 3-8, 8-11, 11-14, and 14-18 years respectively, scrapping MPhil programmes and implementing common norms for private and public higher education institutions are among other salient features of the new policy.
