Assignment on NEP 2019 and Social Work

IMPACT OF THE DRAFT NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY, 2019 ON ITS ADOPTION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ON SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

 

The draft National Education Policy, 2019 was released by the government on 30 May 2019. The policy was made by a committee under the chairmanship of Dr Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan. The policy is built on the foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability. changes were made in the areas of primary, secondary & higher education.

The major recommendations & suggestions from the policy include renaming of MHRD as Ministry of Education (MoE), free and compulsory education from pre-school to 12^th, a major reconfiguration of curricular and pedagogical structure with Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) as an integral part of school education, extension of Right to Education Act 2009 to cover children of ages 3 to 18,reorganizing schools into school complexes, removal of separation of learning areas in terms of curricular, co-curricular or extracurricular areas, massive transformation in Teacher Education, restructuring of higher education institutions, re-structuring of Undergraduate programs, formation of new apex bodies like Rashtriya Shiksha Ayog and National Research Foundation, making National Higher Education Regulatory Authority as the only regulator for all higher education including professional education, Creation of accreditation eco-system led by revamped NAAC, making education as a 'not for profit' activity, initiatives for promoting the internationalization of higher education, strengthening quality open and distance learning, technology integration at all levels of education, adult and lifelong learning and initiatives to enhance participation of underrepresented groups, and eliminate gender, social category and regional gaps in education outcomes, promoting Indian languages and so on.

Draft National Education Policy and Social Work Education

The new draft of National Educational Policy has been drafted with a new vision for the next 20 years, which contains many progressive and constructive ideas revamping of all aspects of the education structure, its regulation and governance, to create a new system that is aligned with the aspirational goals of 21st century education.

Social work practice promotes human well-being by strengthening opportunities, resources, and capacities of people in their environments and by creating policies and services to correct conditions that limit human rights and the quality of life. The social work profession works to eliminate poverty, discrimination, and oppression. Guided by a person-in-environment perspective and respect for human diversity, the profession works to effect social and economic justice worldwide. Social work education combines scientific inquiry with the teaching of professional skills to provide effective and ethical social work services. Social work educators reflect their identification with the profession through their teaching, scholarship, and service. Social work education, from baccalaureate to doctoral levels, employs educational, practice, scholarly, interprofessional, and service delivery models to orient and shape the profession's future in the context of expanding knowledge, changing technologies, and complex human and social concerns. The changes recommended may bring about a paradigm shift by equipping the educational institutions, students and teachers in the area of Social Work with the right competencies and capabilities.

India is one country with diversities. While formulating the objectives of higher education, they emphasised on the factor that higher education should cultivate a wider vision of peaceful co-existence of all irrespective of their religion, political background or state level diversities. Education is the only means of the progress of its citizens and for the national development. Indian traditions and values of tolerance, secularism, democracy, co-operation, social amity, etc. must be emphasized and practiced in its education and fostered through its curriculum. This is always present in the social work education sand practice.

According to the policy, though a uniform system of education is not possible and uniformity cannot be insisted in India, but general norms to be followed by each State can be framed. Universal access to quality early childhood education is proposed in the policy, but how can it be achieved is not made clear in the draft. Nothing is mentioned in the draft about ethical reasoning in the context of India's diversities of religions, castes, political affiliations, cultural diversities and the like.  Even in differences, students must learn to live amicably in peaceful co-existence, co-operation and sharing. Only an ethical attitude makes people to think positively and to contribute for social progress in a selfless medium and to help each other in their needs.  These all are concerns of a social worker and the social work practice.

The idea to move to large multidisciplinary universities and colleges is not that much entertainable, especially in connection with the field of social work. There can be certain centres like that. The existence of many colleges and universities cannot be considered as fragmentation. It could be acknowledged as diversification and variety as envisaged by the NEP. The Indian tradition of holistic and multidisciplinary learning in the so-called 'liberal arts', from universities such as Takshashila and Nalanda is mentioned in the draft. Needs of the 21st century  are varied dramatically. While being proud of our ancient past, we have to go ahead of Nalanda and Takshashila educational mode to wider perspectives, because most of the professional disciplines like social work are newly emerged only and need innovations and inventions in practice and education.

The objective of Higher education institutions being fully governed by Independent Boards, with complete academic and administrative autonomy may not be a practical thing in many states as there exist differences in syllabus, instruction styles and learning. The concept of promotion of technology-based education is very good as it helps to enhance learning as well as to better the practice and for newer inventions. social work education is not seen as a major concern in the new NEP, but the recommendations and proposed changes are helpful in many ways to reform the discipline.

CONCLUSION

Though the draft on National Educational Policy seems to be very promising, many questions have to be answered before implementing this draft. Though the draft is a promising one with its objectives, there are some recommendations that would damage, rather than improve, the entire educational system. As a conclusion, the NEP should uphold the country's pluralism of religion, culture, language and traditions rather than concentrating only on the majoritarian issues as it will have an impact on the future generations.

 

Bibliography

MHRD, C. f. (2019). Draft National Education Policy 2019. (pp. 201-338). India: Ministry Of Human Resource Development. Retrieved August 1, 2019, from https://courses.christuniversity.in/pluginfile.php/578055/mod_resource/content/2/Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf