Greetings, friends!
I have made multiple ARTICLE on the Indian education system, comparing Indian
education system with that of German system and the system in Singapore and elaborating on the demerits of
the Indian system But my main criticism regarding the Indian education system
in all these videos was Why is our system so poor?
About New Education Policy In India
What changes can be
brought about and what can we learn from the developed countries? I have kept
reiterating these main points in all these ARTICLE Today, I am very happy to say
that the new education policy that our government has brought in They have
addressed almost all the major points of criticism in their new policy and they
have brought a revolutionary change in the Indian education system I'm saying
that in a positive step- They've taken a very good step Come, let us find out
One of the first and major points of criticism is that our educational system
tries to fit the students into three categories after class 10 Science,
commerce and humanities And this is very problematic- If you chose one stream,
then you cannot study the subjects of the other streams But more often than
not, the students are interested in a variety of subjects For example, when I
was in the 11th, I chose the science stream but my interest also lay in
Political science and Economics But I was helpless, having opted for the
science stream, I could not study subjects like Pol Science and Economics What
could I have done?
POSTIVE & NEGETIVE POINTS OF NEW EDUCATION POLICY:
![]() |
Image Source-Google/ Imageby-Srishti Bisht
|
But now, the
government has changed this Now, the students have more flexibility to choose
their subjects Upon the implementation of this policy, a student can study
Political science with Physics and Chemistry with History A student can study
Science, commerce as well as Arts subjects This is an amazing initiative.
And I feel jealous as
a 90s kid we were compelled to choose amongst the three Now, the students would
have so much more flexibility to choose A second major change by the government
is that they have replaced the existing 10+2 academic structure with the
5+3+3+4 system now Now, it has become more similar to the education system of
the western developed countries In the 10+2 system, education began at the age
of 6 In this new system, education would now start at the age of 3 Preschool
would be from the age of 3-6 and then class 1 and 2 for the next two years Then
would be the "preparatory stage" for the next 3 years in which focus
would be upon playing, discovery and activity based classroom learning Class 6
to 8 would be the middle stage in which experiential learning would be focused
upon- sciences, mathematics, arts, social sciences and humanities Next would be
the secondary stage of class 9-12 in which multi disciplinary studies would be
focused upon Students would be provided with
ore flexibility and more choices The job of selling, or working in a
supermarket, or driving... -... plumbing, carpentry gardening... all the jobs
like these that do not come under the proper purview of engineering, humanities
or universities All that is viewed on the extra side, they are vocationally trained upto a large
extent - A vast difference is that in India, we view these jobs at a very low
level We look at things and presume that the people of the lower (caste/class)
do these kinds of jobs and our parents poke fun and say that if you don't
study, will you do carpentry and become a carpenter ? or a plumber? The
difference (here) is that these jobs are given the same respect in Germany I
kept reiterating in the previous videos that vocational training is given a lot
of importance in developed countries
POST GRADUATION CHANGES IN NEW EDUCATION POLICY :
Image Source-Google/ Imageby- ROJGARSAMACHAR |
The jobs like welding, electrician, carpentry, plumbing
These jobs are viewed at the same level as the rest of the skilled jobs In
India, these jobs are looked at with disdain, which is a mindset that needs to
change The government has implemented some structural changes to change this
mindset, which is praiseworthy for example, right from class 6, students would
have to do internships in vocational training jobs The students would be
imparted experience in such jobs There would be a bagless period of 10 days-
where he students would take no bags to school but experience jobs like-
carpentry, welding, gardening Vocational training in schools would be focused
upon even later This is a very critical thing without which, in my opinion, we
cannot become a developed country until and unless these changes are
implemented The government has fortunately taken a step in the right direction
regarding this Coding would be taught to children from class 6 and the
importance accorded to board exams in class 10 and 12 would be reduced Another
interesting and positive policy change is that the report cards handed to
students at the year end that is, the progress report, Until now, the teachers
assess how the student has performed in the entire year, according to them Now,
assessment will be done by not only the teachers, but the students will also
self evaluate themselves and say how have they performed in the entire year,
according to their perspective Not only will there be self evaluation, the rest
of the students of the class with also evaluate and say how a particular
student has performed according to the perspective of the rest of the
classmates This is a very useful step Because critical thinking is a very
important aspect- to evaluate oneself by oneself to think about what one is
doing and critically analyze one's own decisions And in the coming life...
We are told how we are performing by our teachers and
parents, when we are in school But when the school and college life gets over,
there is no one to tell you how your performance is going You have to do a self
evaluation of how you are performing in life and what you want to do ahead in
life So, this thinking should be imparted at an early stage to the students to
evaluate oneself and to see what others think about you and what your
evaluation is, from their perspective It is very useful Another important
change- I have kept on saying in my videos that the government should spend
more on education Seems as if the government has finally paid heed! The government
has decided that atleast 6% of the GDP will ow be spent on education Right now,
it is around 3%- which is insufficient And compared to the developed countries
and the rest of the developing countries, India spends very less on education
in measure of the percentage of the GDP 6% is a great target But a lot depends
on implementation as well- How soon is the government able to achieve it But
obviously, as a first step, setting a target of 6% is commendable There was a
problem of rote learning in the Indian education system . Most of the exams are
designed in a way that we need to memorize things And all that we learnt,
evaporates in a few months because we gave exams by rote learning So, the
government has also said that it would try and change this as well The exams
would be designed a way that would not require much memorization or rote
learning But how exactly this will be achieved is not clearly mentioned. So, it
remains to be seen I'm hopeful that positive changes will be implemented here
as well Talking about education after class 12- there is a multiple entry and
exit programme It means that- say, you started a degree- a B.tech degree and
one year later, you realize that you do not want to continue with it because
you don't like it So, you can drop midway.
All the subjects
that you have studied for one year, you can take their credits and get it
transferred to another degree This is extremely useful and already exists in
most of the developed countries It's great that this option will be available in
India as well This option now includes another feature- say the degree is of
four years If you drop out after one year, then you will get a certificate If
you drop out after the second year, then you will get a diploma After three
years, you will get a bachelor's degree and after four years - a bachelor's
research degree If you have already done a four year degree in bachelors, MA
and MSc degrees would only be of one year and two years if you have a
bachelor's degree of three years This is again consistent with the
international standard Top 100 foreign institutes have been given permission to
set up their campuses within India What's interesting is that this is a policy
that Congress wanted to bring in when it was in power but back then, BJP had
opposed it. And now, it itself is bringing it in Focussing on vocational
education, the government has said that in the next ten years, it will be
integrated in all the schools and higher educational institutions in a phased
manner It is being aimed that by 2025, 50% of the learners in schools and
higher educational institutions will have had exposure to vocational education
A common national professional standard will be set for all the teachers by
2022 A four years integrated BA degree would be the minimum qualification
required to become a teacher by 2030 These, in my opinion were the positive
points brought by the government in this new policy Let us now talk about the
negative/controversial points which are being criticized by the people This new
policy has been criticized the most on the point of language This policy reads
that, "wherever possible the medium of instruction till 5th grade and
preferably till class 8 and beyond will be the home language, local language or
the regional language" That is, the
education of the child until the 5th grade should be in home language, mother
language and regional language It is nowhere written that doing so is
compulsory But those who criticize it say that this will force the schools to
not teach in English and instead teach in regional languages which will not be
beneficial for most of the people Say, you live in Kerala and your child has
studied until class 4 in Kerala Thereupon, you shift to Maharashtra Most of the
schools would teach in Marathi in Maharashtra and the child will not be able to
adjust This would restrict the movement of the people from one state to another
and this might have a detrimental effect It is written in the policy that no
language would be forced.
Although, it is also
said that they would try to make Sanskrit and other classical languages
available at every level in schools as an option and after class 9, the options
of foreign languages will also be available like they are right now In my
opinion, it is important to give priority to English because today, English, in
a way , has become a global language of communication worldwide No matter which
country you come from, I believe it is essential to learn English if you want
to do any thing at an international level It is becoming essential to learn
English in every country And this is an advantage for India in comparison to
China and the rest of the South East Asian countries because there, people are
not able to learn English to this extent Since people in India speak English,
they are able to compete in western
countries, US and Europe Second- Several
student and teachers' bodies have criticized this policy of being anti
democratic Some parties have also criticized it.
For example, CPI(M) has put forward the most criticism They
allege that the states were not consulted before making this policy Since
education is a concurrent subject that comes under both the Centre as well as
state list the states should have been consulted more before introducing this
policy It is also alleged that this policy promotes centralization because this
policy has a point that states that a new teachers' training board will be set
up for all kinds of teachers in the country and no state can change that The
power has been taken from the states and placed with the central government The
powers have been made more centralized that the decision making regarding
education would be done by the center And finally, some points of criticism
said that this policy is very theoretical It does change things theoretically.
But to implement them practically in real life is going to be a very long drawn
and difficult process because there are so many government schools where
children in the 5th class have no teachers and sound infrastructure is not
available in schools The students are not educated properly and they drop out
early There are so many government schools with a serious dearth of
available teachers so how are they going
to impart vocational training and give the option of variety of subjects to
children All this seems impossible to give
This is another point of criticism because all these
changes being brought superficially are extremely difficult to implement in
reality In my opinion, it is a legit point of criticism and it is to be seen
how much of these policies are implemented and what changes are seen on the
ground level in reality I hope you would have liked this ARTICLE .
0 Comments
Hey guys if you have any questions
Then ask in comment section