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Introduction

Indian Education in the words of Chinese Ambassador "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border". A country with a population 1.37 billion people with diverse background, religion, culture, socio economic factors could reach greater height in the time of Taxila and Nalanda. In the Indian context we have had great regard to education. In the ancient Indian system we had Gurukuls and the relationship between a teacher and student was called as Guru and Sishya. In Vaedika age there was no education system as such. During that time a student would go to guru's house at the age of five and would complete their studies at the age of 25. To our surprise there was no grammar studies existing at that time, a student would listen to what a guru has to say and would remember(Shrii Anandamurtijii, n.d.). During the time of Mahabharata, again there was no proper grammar and no proper timing for the school. But even at that time a student would go to gurus house and would teach grammar and general knowledge. At that time Guru used to have to have students from far off places. During that time a pupil was taught how to use the weapons and a Brahman would be taught how to read shastras.

The Modern education system is a gift of Britishers. The British education system had been divided into 3 groups or stages, like primary, Scondary and Higher education. Even today we are following the same system of education regardless of the objective of the system. Also this type of education was strong reasons behind our freedom struggle. Leaders like Raja Rama Mohan Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Anne Besant, judicially Nehru and Mahatma Gandi were trained and educated in this type of education. These leaders had the western mindset and thoughts such as liberty, gender equality etc. in their mind. These leaders believed only in education to get the freedom. Many of our freedom fighters had been well versed with print media and they would print articles to bring awareness among the people.

Moving on to the 19 century and specifically post free. There were many schools emerged. There was school run by the traditional rulers who would teach in the traditional way of teaching, by using Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. The Colonial education created huge gap between an educated and uneducated, which also divided the societies based on these.

The last education policy was released in 1986 and amended in 1992. Since there is a long gap of years, the major modification has to be done. This new policy drafted keeping in mind all the major new changes. In order to make changee a committee was formed, headed by former ISRO Scientist Dr. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan. This committee handed over the policy draft in December 2018 for the public comment. Draft New Education Policy (henceforth NEP) is the first amongst the first documents released by the new government on 30 May 2019. The EQUIP programme prepared a project to invest Rs. 2.5 lakh crores in the higher education over the next five years. These documents consist of 484 pages and the document has been divided into 4 parts. The four parts of the documents are as follows: Dealing with the "School Education", "Higher Education", "Additional Key Focus Area" and Transforming Education. Apart from the above four parts it has Addendum and 14 pages of appendices. This document is recognizes education as Public Good rather as public commodity.

 

Objectives of the study

1. To learn more about the Draft NEP

2. To learn how Draft educational policy would affect higher education

 

 

To learn more about the Draft NEP

Daft educational policy has been divided in to 4 sections and these four sections have been explained below.

 

School Education

School education section has been divided into 8 sections. Namely

1. Early Childhood Care and Education: The Foundation of Learning

2. Foundations Literacy and Numeracy

3. Reintegrating Dropouts and Ensuring Universal Access to Education

4. Curriculum and Pedagogy in Schools

5. Teachers

6. Equitable and Inclusive Education

7. Efficient Resourcing and Effective Governance through School Complexes

8. Regulation and Accreditation of School Education(National Education Policy 2019 Draft, n.d.)

 

Higher Education

1. Quality Universities and Colleges: A New and Forward Looking Vision for India's Higher Education System

2. Institutional Restructuring and Consolidation

3. Towards a More Liberal Education

4. Optimal Learning Environments and Support for Students

5. Energized, Engaged and Capable Faculty

6. National Research Foundation

7. Teacher Education

8. Professional Education

9. Empowered Governance and Effective Leadership for Higher Education Institutions

10. Transforming the Regulatory System

Additional Key Focus Areas

1. Technology in Education

2. Vocational Education

3. Adult Education

 

Rashtria Shiksha Aayog

 

2. To learn how Draft educational policy would affect higher education

Draft education policy not only highlighting much about school education but also giving due emphasis to higher education too. Perhaps we should have brought this policy much before. These are some of the highlights which speaks about the policy

1. The policy has highlighted Indian GEP(Gross Enrolment Ratio) is much lower for the higher education compared to western countries. The super power USA is having GEP of 86.7 and Asian super power China is having GEP of 39.4. This should be an inspiring statistics for all of us. A country with a population 1.2 billion is having low enrolment ratio in higher education is the development of our own country. Low enrolment ratio in higher education is the development of our own country.

2. NAAC is going to separate agency which would act upon independently. At the same UGC will not lose its power, rather it would go below NAAC.

3. Govt of India has aimed at making all the HEI to be accredited by 2030. As of now India is having nearly 40,0000 colleges(Ssurendran, 2019) and only 5400 institution has accredited by NAAC. Its biggest challenge in front NAAC as in how and when to finish to accreditation of HEI's

4. Good news, after the formal implementation of DNEP, it will be easier to establish a higher education institution. As before the only way was to introduce a parliamentary amendment to make new university, here after there will be Higher Education Institution Charter of NHERA which will look after the establishment of HEI's. All the HEI's has to accredit immediately after the inception

5. Draft NEP speaks largely of autonomy. The present scenario is such a college named as autonomous is not having autonomy in using it freely. DNEP is promising autonomy, which we will have to wait and see.

6. DNEP is aiming at restructuring of HEI's into three divisions. That is (i) research universities focusing equally on research and teaching; (ii) teaching universities focusing primarily on teaching; and (iii) colleges focusing only on teaching at undergraduate levels. They also say that these universities will become autonomous gradually.

7. DNEP is supporting research. It also aptly made a comparison of how many researchers for 1 lakh population. It is utterly shocking to note that India being 2nd highest populated country having only 15 researchers to 1 lakh populations. As per the data showed there is a correlation between number of researchers and patent applied from a country. India is lagging behind even in that. It shows our creativity quotient being low. At the same DNEP is planning to have an autonomous foundation for funding, mentoring and capacity building for quality of research in India. This foundation will also give an annual grant of Rs. 20,000 crores.

	Spending on research and innovation (% GDP)	Researchers (per lakh population)	Total Patent Applications
India	0.7	15	45,057
China	2.1	111	13,38,503
USA	2.8	423	605,571
Israel	4.3	825	6,419

Source: Economic Survey of India 2017-18; PRS

8. Undergraduate education will become inter disciplinary. In future we see our juniors taking science subject along with commerce and vice versa. This will reduce a person from having 2 master degrees. For e.g. an engineer after completing his engineering would go for MBA, which in away costing him much. This for an extent can be reduced. (National Education Policy 2019 Draft, n.d.)

9. Good news for teacher, there will be more training and teacher student ratio will be reduced from 1:30. It will help the teachers to give one to one care to the student. At the same time there are so many substandard colleges and they have a high number of students seeking for admissions. How Govt. Going tackles this is a prime question?

10. DNEP is in favour of imparting Vocational education. It points out that only 5% of the workforce in the age group of 19-24 years old is receiving vocational course. At the same time countries like USA is having 52% and 75% in Germany and 96% of Korean student undergoing vocational course.

11. It also proposes imparting vocational course being tied to the undergraduate programmes.

12. The Govt. is supporting 3 language formulae. It is saying students will find it difficult to understand the language of instruction if they don't have the prior knowledge about. It is recommending going ahead three language formulas (Committee Report Summary, 2019)

 

Conclusion

 These are few points which will impact our higher education by large means. There are so many other factors which will impact our higher education. This article highlights mainly on higher education. Our new education policy will also change our primary education, which is not covered in this article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Committee Report Summary. (2019). Retrieved from http://www.prsindia.org/report-summaries/draft-national-education-policy-2019

National Education Policy 2019 Draft. (n.d.).

Shrii Shrii Anandamurtijii. (n.d.). Education system of the Mahabharata Age. Retrieved from https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/education-system-of-the-mahabharata-age

Ssurendran. (2019). No Title. Retrieved from Surendran.info website: https://surendran.info/how-many-colleges-are-there-in-india/#targetText=According to the latest report,are some more vital stats.&targetText=There are 459 General%2C 101,Sanskrit and 7 Language Universities.