IMPACT OF NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY ON PSYCHOLOGY
The National Education Policy is a draft submitted by the committee assigned by the government under the supervision of Prime Minister "to meet the changing dynamics of the populations requirement with regards to quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in science, technology, academics and industry"(Prakash Javedkar). The Vision of National Education Policy is to have India centred education system that contributes directly to transforming our nation sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high quality education to all.
To start with Pre school education, evidence from Neuroscience shows that 85% of child's development occurs prior to age 6 which in turn indicates need for developmentally appropriate care and stimulation of the brain. Good nutrition, cognitive development, psycho social development, physical activity are all very crucial. The implementation of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCC) entails proper nutrition, cognitive and emotional stimulation of the infant through playing, talking, listening to music and sounds, and stimulating all other senses, physical exercises and teach self help skills. The ECCE focuses on learning about alphabets, languages, numbers, counting, colours, shapes, drawing/painting, indoor and outdoor play, puzzles and logical thinking, visual art, craft, drama, puppetry, music, and movement. . From birth to 6 years is a very crucial stage in a child's life where proper physical , mental, social, cognitive development has a great impact on the future of the child. ECCC facilitates proper brain and physical development of growing children which is a prior concern in today's world.
Access to education is present but the number of people utilizing this is not significant enough. There are still many people who do not have enough resources to access education to their children mainly because of poverty, child labour, malnutrition, unemployment etc. There are some students who drop out from schools mainly due to child marriage, poor hygiene conditions, lack of sanitation, role of gender and caste, unhealthy food habits leading to chronic illness, falling behind in classes to an extent of not attaining fundamental literacy and numeracy, thereby preventing them from attending classes. To reduce the number of dropouts schools must employ counsellors. Counsellors can talk to children and the family, find the reason for the dropout and the reason for falling behind in classes and help them out in their studies or can connect them with remedial classes for them to improve. NEP also ensures free and compulsory quality education for all children in the age group 3-18 years. This move will increase the literacy rate and having a counsellor will ensure to reduce the dropouts from school.
NEP proposes to change the curriculum and pedagogy to minimise rote learning and instead encourage critical thinking, creativity, problem solving skills, communication, decision making, ethics and social responsibility. Learning happens throughout a person's life but the major years of learning is in school where children learn basic skills that are necessary for everyday functioning. In India there is an education system of 10+2 years, but now the NEP proposes 5+3+3+4 year school education design. This structure ensures learning to happen play based, activity based, discovery based in the early stages and slowly later introduce reading, writing, speaking, introduction of science, maths, social science and humanities in later stages and experiential learning will also be ensured. This structure ensures learning in a fun way to the children so that the concepts that they learn remain in their long term memory and also helps them in daily functioning.
Talking about fun based learning the NEP proposes to incorporate games, puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, playing with blocks and solving mazes which helps children to learn in a better way and also helps to build spatial reasoning, strategic thinking and problem solving skills. Word and logic puzzles are a fun way to teach deductive reasoning. Using such methods for learning induces logical reasoning, quantitative reasoning and creativity. This method of learning can especially be used to teach mathematics. Learning is always followed by an assessment conducted by the school in the same old boring way, however, NEP wants to change the system of assessment by 2020. The focus will be more on formative assessment i.e.., assessment for learning. The assessment will be redesigned to test core concepts and skills along with higher order capacities such as critical thinking, analysis and conceptual clarity rather than rote memorizations. The stress regarding tests and exams will be reduced by giving multiple attempts and to choose the best among them.
Talking about stress, it's something that every individual experiences, when it comes to students they have constant pressure to study, get good marks, expectations from family and teachers. It is too much for growing children to stress so much, it has bad impact on their mental health. To avoid this, every school complex should have one or more counsellors available to talk about career guidance and mental health. Counsellors can help children with developmental issues especially during adolescent years. Counsellors can also help children on mental health issues and mood disorders. Hence having a counsellor in school must be made compulsory.
Coming to higher education, it is an important stage where an individual has to make choices of opting a discipline to continue, here too comes the role of a counsellor. A good counsellor helps the individual to make their choice. The counsellor can use questionnaires to see in which field the individual is really good at and report the results to them so that they can make clear decisions. A counsellor can also help them clarify their occupational choices, facilitate processes to identify employment opportunities, and set up interactions with potential employers.
Higher Education plays a major role in building knowledge, economic development, societal contribution and most important of all contributes to research. In India, psychology is a new discipline it's still growing and it needs to establish nation wide. Research plays an important role in this, more and more research builds knowledge of the discipline as well as provides a small contribution to the society. NEP proposes to bring in National Research Foundation(NCF) to grant competitive funds for research proposals, mentor, incentivise, and build capacity for quality research, this move will act as a push to get into research. This will bring in research culture in institutions, especially in state universities where research was not prominent in the past.
To conclude, NEP has lot of advantages one being it brings holistic education upfront. Coming to impact of it on psychology, there will be now use of counsellors in schools and colleges to guide, support, ensure good mental health, provide career counselling to students and to help the institution reduce drop outs by providing necessary counselling. Teaching more activity based to ensure deeper understanding of concepts as well as to minimize rote learning. And yes implementation of ECCC will ensure cognitive and emotional stimulation and proper brain development along with physical development of growing children. Most important of all, more emphasis on research which acts as a building foundation for the growth of the discipline in India. A small suggestion that could help a lot in improving psychology as a discipline is to make it a compulsory subject in school, so that children learn about mental health, stress and illness, all basic concepts which can help growing children understand the physical, mental, cognitive and emotional changes that they would be experiencing.
REFERENCES
National Education Policy Draft, 2019
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