New Education Policy is either silent or confused, doesn’t say how it will be achieved: Manish Sisodia
Delhi education minister and deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia today said the National Education Policy 2020 is "a forward-looking document which accepts flaws of today's education system." He however said the new policy was unable to break free of pressures of education's old tradtions.
Addressing a presser, Sisodia said, "Nation was waiting for a new Education Policy for 34 years. It's now here. It's a forward-looking document which accepts flaws of today's education system but has two issues with it - Firstly, it was unable to break free of pressures of education's old tradtions and secondly, the Policy doesn't say how will the reforms, it speaks of, will be achieved. The Policy is either silent or confused on those issues."
Teaching up to class 5 in mother tongue or regional language, lowering the stakes of board exams, a single regulator for higher education institutions except for law and medical colleges and common entrance tests for universities are part of the sweeping reforms in the new National Education Policy(NEP) unveiled on Wednesday.
Replacing the 10+2 structure of school curricula with a 5+3+3+4 curricular structure corresponding to age groups 3-8, 8-11, 11-14 and 14-18 years respectively, scrapping M.Phil programmes and implementing common norms for private and public higher education institutions are among other salient features of the new policy.
The NEP approved by the Union Cabinet at a meeting presided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi replaces the 34-year-old National Policy on Education framed in 1986 and is aimed at paving the way for transformational reforms in school and higher education systems to make India a global knowledge superpower.
The Cabinet also approved renaming the Human Resources Development(HRD) Ministry back as Education Ministry.
The Ministry of Education was renamed as the HRD ministry in 1985 during the tenure of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The next year the National Education Policy (NEP) was introduced.
(With PTI inputs)
