NEP 2020 is a policy the Indian government announced in order to do away with the infamous old stress-inducing and stiff system. It plans to do this by removing brackets of sections like Commerce, Humanities and Science. Instead, students will have the choice to pick different combinations of subjects like history with physics, or accounts with political science. No more shall we hear about Sharma ji ka ladka with his PCMB stream, for now every kid would have their special rainbow of subject choices.

 

The policy also comes with the proposed increase in the range of the Right to Education Act (RTE), with it now ranging not from ages 6 to 14 but instead from 3 to 18, a change perhaps a few decades too late, but at least it is here now. While it seems like a necessary step, it would be a herculean task to bring two crore children who are not studying into the school system. Whichever way you cut it, the government would need to open at least fifty schools a week to accomplish this goal in fifteen years. They would also need a much larger pool of trained teachers to ensure that every child gets quality education. This itself has proven to be quite difficult with the already existing students. You can take the example of the Nunmatti village in the Godda region of Bihar, where the only excelling students are a bunch of goats who chomp on the grass growing from a government school’s cracked floor. Perhaps the government schools that will fall out of use will be repurposed as gaushalas.

 

The policy also wishes to reduce the importance of the Board Exams, finally realizing that the Board Exam is a major contributor to teenage stress in India. The exam would now be conducted twice per year in order to give the students a choice as to when they wish to give the exam. The high school students might be sad to learn that this policy would most probably not affect their choice of subjects and that they would probably have to simply make due with their humanities, commerce and science streams. Hopefully the future generation of students would not have to fight the school heads for flexibility in their subject choices, like their seniors have done for years before with no avail. While this might be a good news for many, removing brackets of different streams comes with its own setbacks, since mainstream entrance exams like JEE, NEET and CAT would not be able to accommodate such a wild array of subjects in their current syllabus. Atishi Marlena ma'am commented that some subjects go well together when one wants to pursue a career, while many others don’t. After all, it won’t make much sense for an aspiring microbiologist to be quitting on biology. So while this new guideline may seem revolutionary at the surface level, it is still necessary to question the policy during it's implementation.

 

A new 4-year multidisciplinary bachelor’s program has been pitched, bearing no similarities to the old bachelor’s program that Delhi University had (one which the government made sure was removed 6 years ago). This brand new program ensures that students can exit the course after one year with a certificate, after two years with a diploma and after three years with a bachelor’s degree. After 4 years the student would be able to enter a research degree program. The pattern for master’s degree and PhDs has not been changed as of yet.

 

For all those who were excited to finally get a bit more freedom with the new education policy, I would suggest you to take your horses and hold them tightly, because these new rules are more so guidelines than rules. They would eventually be implemented in most schools but that change may take a few years for some and a decade for others. Some may not choose to follow the policy beat to beat, and a few changes which you really liked might not be implemented in the school of your choice at all. Much like Tamil Nadu, which didn’t follow the three language guideline of the previous policy, we suspect there might be a few states which might not choose to follow the new system of regional and bilingual language teaching, which asks schools to teach students in their mother tongue up to class 5.

 

Looking at the education policies elsewhere, many bear resemblance to our own NEP. Singapore, known worldwide for its high performing education system, made failure to ensure enrollment of children in school a criminal offence, holding the parents of the children liable. It is important to note, however, that they made these bold changes after their economic boom in the 80s. Looking at India’s current economic situation, we must take the government’s claims with a pinch of salt. The US has an extremely diverse education system, something that our own system aspires to achieve. It must be pointed out that despite these efforts, the US still ranks relatively low in regards to the academic caliber. The Finnish education system aims to cater to every student’s need, something that would be difficult to even consider in India after taking one look at our student-teacher ratio. It is clear that while the claims of our government seem promising, many are still skeptical about its implementation.

 

By the looks of it, the new education policy is a mixed bag. While on one hand, the government is finally attempting to change our rigid education system, there are also plenty of problems regarding funding and causing a massive cultural shift. One would be naive if they do not realise that the government is more about causing change than they are about the people for whom they are changing the system in the first place. While change is welcome, abrupt change brought about without figuring everything out can lead to chaos.