Study Notes On National Education Policy- School Education For UGC NET Exam

• First National education policy was formulated in 1968 under the government of Indira Gandhi.
• Second National education policy was formulated in 1986 under the government of Rajiv Gandhi.
• Third National education Policy formulated in 2017 under the government of Narendra Modi.
• Cabinet approved the National Education Policy on 30 July 2020.
• Committee to draft New Policy on Education was head by K.Kasturirangan.
• Committee was constituted by Ministry of Human Resource and Development in 2017.
• Ministry of Human Resource and development renamed as Ministry of Education.

The vision of this Policy

This National Education Policy aims at building a global best education system rooted in Indian ethos, and aligned with the principles enunciated above, thereby transforming India into a global knowledge superpower.

SCHOOL EDUCATION

• Universal provisioning of quality early childhood development, care and education must be thus be achieved by 2030, to ensure that all children entering Grade 1 are school ready.
• An excellent curricular and pedagogical framework for early childhood education for children up to the age of 8 will be developed by NCERT, in two parts, namely, a sub- framework for 0-3 year olds, and a sub-framework for 3-8 year olds.
• Anganwadi workers/teachers with qualifications of 10+2 and above shall be given a 6-month certificate programme in Early Childhood Education and those with lower educational qualifications shall be given a one-year diploma programme.
• The implementation of early childhood education will be carried out jointly by the Ministries of Education, Women and Child Development (WCD), Health and Family Welfare (HFW) and Tribal Affairs.
• Universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary school and beyond by 2025.
• Pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of under 30:1 at each school
• Socio-economically disadvantaged areas will aim for a PTR of under 25:1.
• A national repository of high- quality resources on foundational literacy and numeracy will be made available on the National Teacher’s Portal.
• An interim 3-month play- based ‘school preparation module’ for all Grade 1 students will be developed by NCERT and SCERTs in order to ensure that all children are school-ready.
• The GER for Grades 6-8 was 90.7%, while for Grades 9-10 and 11-12 it was only 79.3% and 51.3%, respectively.
• As per the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) an estimated 6.2 crores children of school age (between 6 and 18 years) were out of school in 2013.
• 100% Gross Enrolment Ratio in pre-school through secondary school by 2035.
• NIOS will offer the following programmes in addition to the present programmes: education at A, B and C levels that are equivalent to Grades 3, 5, and 8 of the formal school system; secondary education programmes that are equivalent to Grades 10 and 12; vocational education courses/programmes; and adult literacy and life-enrichment programmes.
• States will be encouraged to develop State analogues of these offerings in regional languages by establishing State Institutes of Open Schooling (SIOS).
• The curricular framework for school education will be guided by a 5 + 3 + 3 + 4 design, consisting of the Foundational (3 years of preschool + Grades 1-2), Preparatory (Grades 3- 5), Middle (Grades 6-8), and High school (Grades 9-12 in two phases, i.e. 9 and 10 in the first and 11 and 12 in the second) stages respectively, with an option of exiting at Class 10 and re-entering in the next phase .
• Students will be given increased flexibility and choice of subjects to study, particularly in secondary school - including subjects in physical education, the arts, and vocational crafts.
• There will be no hard separation among ‘curricular’, ‘extra-curricular’, or ‘co-curricular’ areas, among ‘arts’, ‘humanities’, and ‘sciences’, or between ‘vocational’ or ‘academic’ streams.
• Wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/mother-tongue/local language.
• The three-language formula will be implemented.
• Students whose medium of instruction is the local/home language will begin to learn science and mathematics, bilingually in Grade 6 so that by the end of Grade 9 they can speak about science and other subjects both in their home language and English.
• Every student in the country will participate in a fun project/activity on ‘The Languages of India’ sometime in Grades 6-8. In this students will learn about the remarkable unity of most of the major Indian languages.
• Sanskrit will be offered at all levels of school and higher education.
• In addition to Sanskrit, the teaching of all other classical languages and literature of India, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Pali, Persian, and Prakrit, will also be widely available in schools as options (possibly as online modules),
• Foreign languages, such as Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, French, German, Spanish, or Russian will also be widely offered at the secondary level, for students to learn about the cultures of the world and to increase their global knowledge and mobility according to their own interests and aspirations.
• Indian Sign Language (ISL) will be standardised across the country.
• According to U-DISE 2016–17 data, about 19.6% of students belong to Scheduled Castes (SC) at the primary school level, but this proportion falls to 17.3% at the higher secondary level. These enrolment drop-offs are even more severe for ST students (10.6% to 6.8%), Muslim students (15% to 7.9%), and children with disabilities (1.1% to 0.25%), with even greater declines for female students within each of these SEDGs. The decline in SEDGs’ enrolment in higher education is even steeper.
• ‘Gender-Inclusion Fund’ to provide a quality and equitable education for all girls as well as transgender students.
• Efficient Resourcing and Effective Governance through School Complexes/Clusters.
• According to U-DISE 2016–17 data, nearly 28% of India’s public primary schools and 14.8% of India’s upper primary schools have less than 30 students. The average number of students per grade in the elementary schooling system (primary and upper primary, i.e., Grades 1–8) is about 14, with a notable proportion having below 6; during the year 2016–17, there were 1,19,303 single-teacher schools, the majority of them (94,028) being primary schools serving Grades 1–5.
• State government will rationalise school by 2025
• School complexes/clusters will be developed. They will consist of one secondary school together with all other schools offering lower grades in its neighbourhood, in a radius of five to ten miles.
• The Department of School Education which is the apex state-level body in school education will be responsible for overall monitoring and policy making for continual improvement of the system.
• State School Standards Authority (SSSA) will be set up by State/UTs to ensure that all schools follow certain minimal professional and quality standards,
• Academic matters, including academic standards and curricula in the State, will be led by the SCERT (with close consultation and collaboration with the NCERT),
• Free and compulsory access to high quality and equitable schooling from early childhood education (age 3 onwards) through higher secondary education (i.e., until Grade 12).
• B.Ed degree would be of 4-year and it would be offered only by accredited multidisciplinary higher educational institutions.
• A common guiding set of National Professional Standards for Teachers will be developed by 2022.
• A 50 hours of Continuous Professional Development opportunities every year for teachers professional development.
• By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. degree.
• Vocational Education to start from 6th standard.
• All students will take State School examinations in Grades 3,5 and 8 in addition to Board Examinations in Grades 10 and 12.
• National Assessment Centre for School Education (NACSE) will be standard setting body under Ministry of Education.
• NTA will conduct Undergraduate and graduate entrance examination.

We hope you all understood National Education Policy with respect to School Education.

Thank you.

Team BYJU'S Exam Prep.