Impact of New Education Policy on Psychology
On May 31, 2019, the Committee for Draft National Education Policy (which was constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development) presented its report on a new policy for 'education' in the country. Experts agree that the present education system of our country faces multiple challenges and some of them are access to higher education, quality of higher education, affordability and accountability. It was expected that the new policy would address these and other challenges. So the new committee, very recently, came up with a policy that makes provisions for major reforms at all levels of education- from school to higher education. The new education policy stresses the importance of early childhood care and makes certain provisions so that the focus can be brought on it. Besides this, the new policy seeks to reform the current evaluation system for students, make teacher training programmes more effective and bring major structural changes in the overall regulatory framework for education. Some other objectives of the new policy includes enhancing the public investments in education, making provisions for adoption of certain methods that enhance the use of technology in education and increase the focus on vocational and adult education.
The early childhood education faces some very big problems. Members of the committee agree that present curriculum is not designed according to the developmental needs of children. They further observed that there is a lack of qualified and trained teachers . In fact, most early childhood education is delivered through anganwadi workers and preschools that are privately owned and this 'system' tends to focus less on the educational aspects of early childhood. So, the draft Policy came up with a recommendation that aims at developing a two-part curriculum for education of children who are in their early childhoods. This new curriculum will consist of: (i) guidelines for up to three-year-old children (for parents and teachers), and (ii) educational framework for three to eight-year-old children. For its implementation, improvement and expansion of the anganwadi system has been proposed. In order to bring reforms at school level, the Policy recommends extending the ambit of the Right To Education Act to include early childhood education and secondary school education. This would ensure that all children between the ages of three to 18 years are covered under the act. The policy further suggests that the amendments to the RTE Act on continuous and comprehensive evaluation and the 'no detention policy' must be re-examined. The members of the committee are of the opinion that there should be no detention of children till class eight. Instead, schools should make sure that children should achieve learning levels that are age-appropriate.
Coming to higher education, the committee feels that 'lack of access to higher education' is a major contributor to the low Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in the country. The NEP aims to increase GER to 50% by 2035 from the current level of 25.8%. The committee noted that the autonomy of higher educational institutions get stifled in our country because of multiple regulators in the field. NEP has proposed establishing of a National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) which will be an independent authority and all the existing individual regulators in higher education will be replaced by it and the work of professional councils such as AICTE and the Bar Council of India would be limited to setting standards for professional practice. The role of the University Grants Commission (UGC) will also be restricted to providing grants to higher educational institutions. Even NAAC, which accredits different institutions in our country, will get separated from UGC and will independently and autonomously function as a top level accreditor. Also, by 2030, all institutes will be accredited, the new policy mentions.
For setting up higher educational institutions, the current practice of getting a law passed in State or Parliament would not remain the only way to open a higher education institute. Institutions can, according to the draft policy, also be established by a Higher Education Institution Charter from NHERA. This Charter will be awarded on the basis of transparent assessment of some pre-set criteria. This move is likely to enhance the number of higher educational institutes. This is probably one of the major aspects of the policy that can have good influence on my discipline. Psychology, as of now, is becoming a popular a subject and I feel that at masters or PhD level, there aren't many institutes that offer quality research based education in the area. When opening and sustaining a good educational institute becomes convenient and transparent, the sheer number of institutions is likely to go up. When the number of institutes goes up, GER is also expected to increase.
Another significant aspect of New Education Policy is its enhanced focus on promoting research in India. According to the new policy, higher education will be categorized into three types:
i) Research Universities- These universities will focus equally on research and teaching. These institutions will be expected to dedicate themselves in cutting-edge research for new knowledge creation.
ii) Teaching Universities- These will focus on high quality teaching and also on cutting-edge research. Over two decades, the new policy claims, the number of these institutions could reach 2000.
iii) Colleges- These will focus on high quality teaching mostly.
Besides devoting two out of three possible types of institutions on 'research' in one way or another, the new policy talks about establishment of a National Research Foundation. This foundation will be an autonomous body. It will be involved chiefly in funding the different research activities in the country, acting as a mentor to various institutes that plan to take up research and building 'capacity' for good quality research in the country. The foundation will fund research in all disciplines-science, technology, social sciences and arts and humanities. An annual grant of Rs 20,000 crore will be given to the foundation. This is equivalent to 0.1% of GDP.
This enhanced focus on research in the country is another aspect of the new policy that is going to have a huge impact on my field. Psychology involves study of human thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Research is of central importance in Psychology. Understanding human thoughts, feeling, behaviour and then describing why they feel or behave the way they do is not possible without research. It is research in Psychology that has helped in classifying the mental disorders so that we can better understand them. It is through research that we evaluate the effects of such disorders on the individual and society. It is through research that Psychological tests are developed so that they can be used to measure various psychological phenomena. And it is through research that we develop approaches that can help in improvement of general well-being of people. So this move by the government to increase the focus on research is very likely to have a positive impact on my field. Since Psychology relies heavily on research, the 'new knowledge' that is created today might lose some of its validity or accuracy over a period of time and any professional working in the area needs to keep himself or herself updated. Now, sadly, in our country, there are universities where faculties have not been able to keep themselves updated about the latest developments in their respective fields. The reason for this, according to the committee, is not just personal. According to the members of the committee, poor service conditions and extremely heavy teaching loads at higher education institutions are two major causes behind this. Even lack of autonomy and ambiguous (and often biased) career progression system are also responsible for this. So, for professional development of faculties, the new Policy has recommended that the Continuous Professional Development programme must be developed. They have also suggested introduction of a tenure system in Indian universities by 2030. Incentives like this can surely motivate faculties to keep themselves updated with latest research in their fields and it will undoubtedly improve the quality of education not just in my discipline but in every other discipline as well.
REFERENCE
Draft National Educational Policy (2019). Retrieved from https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf
Submitted by : Neelabh Kashyap (1951068)
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