Education Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday said the National Education Policy (NEP) was a forward-looking and progressive document that acknowledges the flaws in our education system and seeks to better it.
However, he said the problem with the policy is that there is no clarity on how it is to be implemented and does not break-free from the pressures of the old education system.
‘Poorly funded’
“The NEP is poorly funded and highly regulated policy that has multiple regulatory bodies that will end up clashing with each other,” the Minister said, adding that it is a welcome move that 6% of the GDP needs to be devoted to education. Mr. Sisodia has called for a law to ensure that the funding is received during the Budget else, it would be impossible to roll-out the policy.
He said the positive aspects of the policy include that the HRD Ministry will now be an Education Ministry and also hoped for a change in the way the Ministry works.
“For the first time, early childhood education has been brought in the mainframe and there are talks about serving breakfast along with lunch under the mid-day meal scheme. Instruction during foundation years in mother tongue is also a positive step,” Mr. Sisodia said.
One of the biggest flaws he said was the policy does not talk about how to improve government schools but encourages private ones. The Minister said a four-year B.Ed course for future teachers was a good step but questioned why the policy does not talk about training existing teachers. Elaborating on why he felt that the policy does not break away from the traditional education system, Mr. Sisodia said: “The policy says that board examinations will be made easier and conducted twice a year. Board examinations do not need to be made tougher or easier but it needs to do away with rote learning and move to a continuous assessment model instead.”
He pointed out that the policy was completely silent on sports.
He said he hoped that the Centre looks into the suggestions made by him as there was still time to make changes to the document.