New Education Policy

The Union Cabinet on 29th of July, 2020 took a very bold decision on reforming the 34-year-old education system that was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992 and remained unchanged since then. This decision was indeed a much needed task, and is very much appreciable and welcoming. To keep pace with the fast growing world in 21st century there is a necessity to implement such reforms. Right from renaming the National Education Policy to New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Human Resource and Development Ministry to Education Ministry, the new policy has many revocation as well as many new concepts. The Cabinet has also decided to increase the investment in education system from 4.3 per cent to 6 per cent of GDP. I believe that this is very impressive and should have been done long ago, because a nation's fundamental development rests with improvement in education system that will automatically lead the nation towards other developments. Improvement in education system doesn't merely mean improvement in number of literate population of a country. Education system includes various prospective one among which is producing a skilled work force. India lacks skilled work force (skilled labourers) and that may be one of the reasons why our local industries fail to export quality products and moreover foreign companies do not show much interest in setting up their manufacturing industries here. The new policy includes vocational training and internship from the 6th standard, which would be a big boost in producing skilled assets in near future. Apart from this, the policy also aims to induce scientific temper on students from the primary level and abolish rote learning. Due to non-involvement of concept and practical based systematic learning and due to instance compel from parents and elders to score marks in examinations along with the judgmental society, students deviate towards rote learning or parrot learning. This policy aims towards bringing all disciplines under one umbrella, which from my point of view is a wonderful step. In today's world a field of study cannot sustain alone and there are various aspects where acquiring knowledge other than the focused domain becomes necessary. No field of study is superior to other and a multidisciplinary study for undergraduate and postgraduate courses is very much required in present era. NEP 2020 is effective but a strategic execution will be required to make it practically effective. The government must bridge the gap between proposal and execution.

Uddipta Kumar Nath,

Lakhimpur.