Draft National Education Policy 2019
Committee Report Summary
- The Committee for
Draft National Education Policy (Chair: Dr. K. Kasturirangan) submitted
its report on May 31, 2019. The Committee was constituted by the Ministry
of Human Resource Development in June 2017. The report proposes an
education policy, which seeks to address the challenges of: (i) access,
(ii) equity, (iii) quality, (iv) affordability, and (v) accountability
faced by the current education system.
- The draft Policy provides
for reforms at all levels of education from school to higher education. It
seeks to increase the focus on early childhood care, reform the current
exam system, strengthen teacher training, and restructure the education
regulatory framework. It also seeks to set up a National Education
Commission, increase public investment in education, strengthen the use of
technology and increase focus on vocational and adult education, among
others. Key observations and recommendations of the draft Policy include:
School
Education
- Early Childhood Care
and Education: In addition to problems of
access, the Committee observed several quality related deficiencies in the
existing early childhood learning programmes. These include: (i)
curriculum that doesn’t meet the developmental needs of children, (ii)
lack of qualified and trained teachers, and (iii) substandard
pedagogy. Currently, most early childhood education is delivered
through anganwadis and private-preschools. However, there has been
less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood. Hence, the
draft Policy recommends developing a two-part curriculum for early
childhood care and education. This will consist of: (i) guidelines
for up to three-year-old children (for parents and teachers), and (ii) educational
framework for three to eight-year-old children. This would be
implemented by improving and expanding the anganwadi system and
co-locating anganwadis with primary schools.
- The Right to
Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act): Currently, the
RTE Act provides for free and compulsory education to all children from
the age of six to 14 years. The draft Policy recommends extending
the ambit of the RTE Act to include early childhood education and
secondary school education. This would extend the coverage of the
Act to all children between the ages of three to 18 years.
- In addition, the
draft Policy recommends that the recent amendments to the RTE Act on
continuous and comprehensive evaluation and the no detention policy must
be reviewed. It states that there should be no detention of children till
class eight. Instead, schools must ensure that children are
achieving age-appropriate learning levels.
a - Curriculum
framework: The current structure of school
education must be restructured on the basis of the development needs of
students. This would consist of a 5-3-3-4 design comprising: (i)
five years of foundational stage (three years of pre-primary school and
classes one and two), (ii) three years of preparatory stage (classes three
to five), (iii) three years of middle stage (classes six to eight), and
(iv) four years of secondary stage (classes nine to 12).
- The Committee noted
that the current education system solely focuses on rote learning of facts
and procedures. Hence, it recommends that the curriculum load in each
subject should be reduced to its essential core content. This would
make space for holistic, discussion-based, and analysis-based
learning.
- School exam reforms: The
Committee noted that the current board examinations: (i) force students to
concentrate only on a few subjects, (ii) do not test learning in a
formative manner, and (iii) cause stress among students. To track
students’ progress throughout their school experience, the draft Policy
proposes State Census Examinations in classes three, five and eight.
Further, it recommends restructuring the board examinations to test only
core concepts, skills and higher order capacities. These board
examinations will be on a range of subjects. The students can choose
their subjects, and the semester when they want to take these board
exams. The in-school final examinations may be replaced by these
board examinations.
- School
infrastructure: The Committee noted that
establishing primary schools in every habitation across the country has
helped increase access to education. However, it has led to the
development of very small schools (having low number of students).
The small size of schools makes it operationally complex to deploy
teachers and critical physical resources. Therefore, the draft
Policy recommends that multiple public schools should be brought together
to form a school complex. A complex will consist of one secondary
school (classes nine to twelve) and all the public schools in its
neighbourhood that offer education from pre-primary till class eight.
- The school complexes
will also include anganwadis, vocational education facilities, and an
adult education centre. Each school complex will be a semi-autonomous unit
providing integrated education across all stages from early childhood to
secondary education. This will ensure that resources such as
infrastructure and trained teachers can be efficiently shared across a
school complex.
- Teacher management: The
Committee noted that there has been a steep rise in teacher shortage, lack
of professionally qualified teachers, and deployment of teachers for
non-educational purposes. The draft Policy recommends that teachers
should be deployed with a particular school complex for at least five to
seven years. Further, teachers will not be allowed to participate in
any non-teaching activities (such as cooking mid-day meals or
participating in vaccination campaigns) during school hours that could
affect their teaching capacities.
- For teacher training,
the existing B.Ed. programme will be replaced by a four-year integrated
B.Ed. programme that combines high-quality content, pedagogy, and
practical training. An integrated continuous professional development will
also be developed for all subjects. Teachers will be required to
complete a minimum of 50 hours of continuous professional development
training every year.
- Regulation of
schools: The draft Policy recommends separating
the regulation of schools from aspects such as policymaking, school
operations, and academic development. It suggests creating an
independent State School Regulatory Authority for each state that will
prescribe basic uniform standards for public and private schools.
The Department of Education of the State will formulate policy and
conduct monitoring and supervision.
Higher
Education
- According to the All
India Survey on Higher Education, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in
higher education in India has increased from 20.8% in 2011-12 to 25.8% in
2017-18.
Table 1: GER comparison
across countries (2014)
Primary (Class 1-5)
|
Upper Primary (Class
6-8)
|
Upper Secondary (Class
9-12)
|
Higher Education
|
|
India
|
101.4
|
89.3
|
62.5
|
23
|
China
|
103.9
|
100.4
|
88.8
|
39.4
|
USA
|
99.5
|
101.9
|
93.2
|
86.7
|
Germany
|
103.3
|
101.6
|
104.6
|
65.5
|
Source: Educational
Statistics at Glance (2016), MHRD; PRS.
- The Committee
identified lack of access as a major reason behind low intake of higher
education in the country. It aims to increase GER to 50% by 2035 from the
current level of about 25.8%. Key recommendations in this regard
include:
- Regulatory structure
and accreditation: The Committee noted
that the current higher education system has multiple regulators with
overlapping mandates. This reduces the autonomy of higher
educational institutions and creates an environment of dependency and
centralised decision making. Therefore, it proposes setting up the
National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA). This
independent authority would replace the existing individual regulators in
higher education, including professional and vocational education.
This implies that the role of all professional councils such as AICTE and
the Bar Council of India would be limited to setting standards for
professional practice. The role of the University Grants Commission
(UGC) will be limited to providing grants to higher educational
institutions.
- Currently, the
National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is an accreditation
body under the UGC. The draft Policy recommends separating NAAC from the
UGC into an independent and autonomous body. In its new role, NAAC
will function as the top level accreditor, and will issue licenses to
different accreditation institutions, who will assess higher educational
institutions once every five to seven years. All existing higher
education institutions should be accredited by 2030.
- Establishment of new
higher educational institutions: Currently, higher
educational institutions can only be set up by Parliament or state
legislatures. The draft Policy proposes that these institutions
could be allowed to be set up through a Higher Education Institution
Charter from NHERA. This Charter will be awarded on the basis of
transparent assessment of certain specified criteria. All such newly
constituted higher educational institutions must receive accreditation as
mandated by NHERA within five years of being established.
- Restructuring of
higher education institutions: Higher education
institutions will be restructured into three types: (i) research
universities focusing equally on research and teaching; (ii) teaching universities
focusing primarily on teaching; and (iii) colleges focusing only on
teaching at undergraduate levels. All such institutions will
gradually move towards full autonomy - academic, administrative, and
financial.
- Establishing a
National Research Foundation: The Committee
observed that the total investment on research and innovation in India has
declined from 0.84% of GDP in 2008 to 0.69% in 2014. India also lags
behind many nations in number of researchers (per lakh population),
patents and publications.
Table 2: Investment on
Research and Innovation
Spending on research
and innovation (% GDP)
|
Researchers (per lakh
population)
|
Total Patent
Applications
|
|
India
|
0.7
|
15
|
45,057
|
China
|
2.1
|
111
|
13,38,503
|
USA
|
2.8
|
423
|
605,571
|
Israel
|
4.3
|
825
|
6,419
|
Source: Economic Survey
of India 2017-18; PRS
- The draft Policy
recommends establishing a National Research Foundation, an autonomous
body, for funding, mentoring and building the capacity for quality
research in India. The Foundation will consist of four major divisions:
sciences, technology, social sciences, and arts and humanities, with the
provision to add additional divisions. The Foundation will be
provided with an annual grant of Rs 20,000 crore (0.1% of GDP).
- Moving towards a
liberal approach: The draft Policy recommends making
undergraduate programmes interdisciplinary by redesigning their curriculum
to include: (a) a common core curriculum and (b) one/two area(s) of
specialisation. Students will be required to choose an area of
specialisation as ‘major’, and an optional area as ‘minor’.
Four-year undergraduate programmes in Liberal Arts will be introduced and
multiple exit options with appropriate certification will be made
available to students. Further, within the next five years, five
Indian Institute of Liberal Arts must be setup as model multidisciplinary
liberal arts institutions.
- Professional
development of faculty: The Committee observed that
poor service conditions and heavy teaching loads at higher education
institutions have resulted in low faculty motivation. Further, lack
of autonomy and no clear career progression system are also major
impediments to faculty motivation. The draft Policy recommends
development of a Continuous Professional Development programme and introduction
of a permanent employment (tenure) track system for faculty in all higher
education institutions by 2030. Further, a desirable student-teacher
ratio of not more than 30:1 must be ensured.
- Optimal learning
environment: The Committee observed that the curricula
remain rigid, narrow, and archaic. Moreover, the faculty often lacks
the autonomy to design curricula, which negatively impacts pedagogy.
It recommends that all higher education institutions must have complete
autonomy on curricular, pedagogical and resource-related matters.
Education
Governance
- The Committee
observed that there is a need to revisit the existing system of governance
in education, and bring in synergy and coordination among the different
ministries, departments and agencies. In this context, it recommends:
- Creation of a
National Education Commission or Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog, as an apex body
for education, to be headed by the Prime Minister. This body will be
responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating, and revising the
vision of education in the country on a continuous and sustained
basis. It will oversee the implementation and functioning of several
bodies including the National Council of Educational Research and Training
(NCERT), the proposed National Higher Education Regulatory Authority, and
National Research Foundation.
- The Ministry of Human
Resources and Development must be renamed as the Ministry of Education in
order to bring focus back on education.
Financing
Education
- The Draft Policy
reaffirmed the commitment of spending 6% of GDP as public investment in
education. Note that the first National Education Policy (NEP) 1968 had
recommended public expenditure in education must be 6% of GDP, which was
reiterated by the second NEP in 1986. In 2017-18, public expenditure
on education in India was 2.7% of GDP.
Table 3: Total Public
Investment in Education
Country
|
Investment in 2017
(as % of GDP) |
India
|
2.7
|
USA
|
5
|
UK
|
5.5
|
Brazil
|
6
|
- The draft Policy
seeks to double the public investment in education from the current 10% of
total public expenditure to 20% in the next 10 years. Of the additional
10% expenditure, 5% will be utilised for universities and colleges (higher
education), 2% will be utilised for additional teacher costs or resources
in school education and 1.4% will be utilised for early childhood care and
education.
- The Committee also
observed operational problems and leakages in disbursement of funds. For
instance, it observed that District Institutes of Education and Training
have about 45% vacancies which have led to their allocations not being
used or being used ineffectively. It recommends optimal and timely
utilisation of funds through the institutional development plans.
Technology
in Education
- The Committee
observed that technology plays an important role in: (a) improving the
classroom process of teaching, learning and evaluation, (b) aiding in
preparation of teachers and continuous professional development of
teachers, (c) improving access to education in remote areas and for
disadvantaged groups, and (d) improving the overall planning,
administration and management of the entire education system. It
recommends focused electrification of all educational institutions as
electricity is a pre-requisite for all technology-based
interventions. Further, it recommends:
- National Mission on
Education through information and communication technology:
The Mission will encompass virtual laboratories that provide remote access
to laboratories in various disciplines. A National Education
Technology Forum will also be setup under the Mission, as an autonomous
body, to facilitate decision making on the induction, deployment and use
of technology. This Forum will provide evidence-based advice to central
and state-governments on technology-based interventions.
- National Repository
on Educational Data: A National Repository will be
setup to maintain all records related to institutions, teachers, and
students in digital form. Further, a single online digital repository
will be created where copyright-free educational resources will be made
available in multiple languages.
Vocational
Education
- The Committee
observed that less than 5% of the workforce in the age-group of 19-24
receives vocational education in India. This is in contrast to 52% in the
USA, 75% in Germany and 96% in South Korea. It recommends
integrating vocational educational programmes in all educational
institutions (schools, colleges and universities) in a phased manner over
a period of 10 years. Note that this is an upward revision from the
National Policy on Skills Development and Entrepreneurship (2015) which
aimed at offering vocational education in 25% of educational
institutions. Key recommendations in this regard include:
- Vocational courses:
All school students must receive vocational education in at least one
vocation in grades nine to 12. The proposed school complexes must
build expertise in curriculum delivery that is aligned to the competency
levels under the existing National Skills Qualifications Framework.
- The proposed Higher
Education Institutions must also offer vocational courses that are
integrated into the undergraduate education programmes. The draft Policy
targets to offer vocational education to up to 50% of the total enrolment
in higher education institutions by 2025, up from the present level of
enrolment of well below 10% in these institutions.
- National Committee
for the Integration of Vocational Education: A
National Committee will be set up to work out the steps that need to be
taken towards achieving these goals. A separate fund will be setup
for the integration of vocational education into educational
institutions. The Committee will work out the modalities for the
disbursement of these funds.
Adult
Education
- As per Census 2011,
India still had over 3.26 crore youth non-literates (15-24 years of age)
and a total of 26.5 crore adult non-literates (15 years and above). In
this regard, the draft Policy recommends:
- Establishing an
autonomous Central Institute of Adult Education, as a constituent unit of
NCERT, which will develop a National Curriculum Framework for adult
education. The Framework will cover five broad areas: foundational
literacy and numeracy, critical life skills vocational skills development,
basic education, and continuing education.
- Adult Education
Centres will be included within the proposed school complexes. Relevant
courses for youth and adults will be made available at the National
Institute of Open Schooling. A cadre of adult education instructors
and managers, as well as a team of one-on-one tutors will be created
through a newly-established National Adult Tutors Programme.
