Assignment for the blog

Impact of National Education Policy

National Education Policy 2019, will have a wide impact. Considering its impact, not only will it impact on school teachers, but also on school administrators, children, social workers, counsellors, educational psychologists etc. It will also impact higher education sectors wherein, many HEIs which have courses only in one discipline will have to adapt the multidisciplinary approach. Further looking at its impact on particular fields, Psychology as a discipline and impact of NEP (2019) is explored below.

Impact on the Discipline - Psychology

            Psychology as a discipline is finding its way in many areas to interact and influence its perspective. This is largely because most fields have some applications to humans directly or human ability and since psychology deals with understanding the nature of humans and human capability, it has the ability to be applied and interacted with a wide range of disciplines. Further looking at the education sector there are many aspects of psychology that can be applied including cognitive the capability of children to learn, counselling especially through developmental trajectories such as adolescence, mental health at educational setups, addressing special educational needs etc.

            National Educational Policy released in 2019 has also paved ways for psychology to interact with the educational field. Based on the policy, the application of the psychological discipline seems higher in the school sector rather than higher education. This may be due to the concentration of the policy on schools in terms of holistic development and higher education in terms of career or profession-oriented.

Firstly looking at opportunities in school,

Ø  National testing agencies are supposed to hire psychometricians who will help in devising tests and evaluations. This will help in recruiting more psychometricians who will help in the creation of the tests and evaluations.

Ø  In teacher training, a section in NEP mentions about how the training should involve an interaction from multiple disciplines among which psychology has also been mentioned. Hence psychology professors will or trainers will have a chance to train school teachers and orient them to the discipline and its application in school settings.

Ø  For the overall development of children, the policy has mentioned both physical and emotional development. For the same, both teachers and students will have to be oriented and mentored on emotional well – being along with physical well - being. This increases the appointment of child psychologists at school.

Ø  Educational psychology is a field which addresses the processes of human learning and factors that affect this process. As the policy stresses on counsellors at every school, there will be high demand for not only educational psychologists but also educational psychology courses and professors in the same.

Ø  Counsellors in school will range from career guidance to mental health according to the policy's requirements. Thus career counsellors, counselling psychologists and clinical psychologists will be in demand as every school needs to hire for the above-mentioned purpose. Counselling on the choice of subjects is another demand that the policy is insisting for all the schools especially in secondary grades, which will include vocational subjects and choices that one can make in higher education, which will help them decide a potential stream of career choices. Apart from these duties, a counsellor will also aid in developmental growth issues especially during adolescence, counselling on mental health issues which include stress and mood disorders. Thus there is a number of areas that psychologists can be hired in a school set up and hence creating a high demand.

Ø  Children with special needs are also supposed to be given extra care at schools for which the policy has recommended a psychologist who is trained in multiple disabilities and is able to provide support and care throughout the learning process for those diagnosed with a disability. These special educators have to be present in every school. Hence special educators will also be in demand (Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf, 2019).

Looking at higher educational institutions, there are hardly any roles and they are -

Ø  Career counselling psychologists will be given importance at higher education institutions as career assessment and support through counselling are recommended by the policy to help students find the best of careers based on their ability.

Ø  Counselling and therapy, in general, to address mental health issues as this is the time the period that most people go through stress since it acts as a turning point in choosing their profession and career (Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf, 2019).

Thus these are the aspects of policy which will impact the field of psychology and in conclusion it will create more jobs to psychology all over the nation.

 

References

 

Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf. (2019). Retrieved from Ministry of Human Resource Development, government of India: https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf