NEP: A mammoth project
A few days ago my daughter posed a checkbox list which needed a quick score on traits that I had identified in her as a child. When the total score matched the desired number, her question to me was baffling. Being an educator why had I not identified her as a child with high IQ when I was so aware of these traits and get there to take the intelligence tests early or allow her to take the Mensa test. Why did I have to wait for a University abroad to identify her high IQ and prod her to become a Mensa member today? That to become a Mensa member today after going abroad and identified by sensitive teachers in the UK and the US was a mirror shown on my face by my young daughter. Well how many of us were even aware of Mensa then in the late nineties in India and how many schools or higher education institutions would have encouraged a child to take up Mensa tests?
Connecting and highlighting some of the fundamental principles of the National Education Policy (NEP), the new NEP speaks of
‘recognizing, identifying and fostering the unique capabilities of each student by sensitizing teachers as well as parents to promote each student’s holistic development in both academic and non-academic spheres’ and also speaks of
‘multidisciplinarity and a holistic education across domains to ensure unity and integrity of all knowledge’ apart from
‘teachers and faculty as the heart of the learning process and that their continuous and consistent professional development and service conditions’ are integral and important to improvise the education system in the country.
Optically they make good reading and the shoulders stand broadened and strong as we read them through; but when and how will all of these be implemented and how concerted an effort will all stakeholders place is the big challenge. Extensive use of technology at these times of the pandemic has convinced some of the stakeholders that schools and colleges and Universities have barely any role to play. If that be the conviction, then the very definition of the Indian education system is lost. Technology as per the NEP is one component of the entire process of education, but the heart of the entire NEP rests with building on creativity, critical thinking, human values, research, and inclusion. All of these are possible with teachers positioned at the heart of the entire education system. Indian parents are reluctant to pay the fee for quality education and the efforts that go behind the continuous and persistent work of the teacher while preparing for a class even during these times and we are talking of pay cuts and resistance to pay for the sustenance of an education system when one pandemic disrupted the world. A parallel to this disruption has been experienced in history before during the Wars. The consequences of it have been very many, often leading to high rates of juvenile delinquents in the past. Fortunately with the invasion of technology today, the present crisis in education has been well handled by schools and higher education institutions and we may not have a very high rate of children who are unable to read and write or youth who have to abandon their studies and work to survive. With this transformation in education, pedagogy has seen a paradigm shift and teachers have adapted well to it which fits beautifully into the vision of the NEP.
The move towards fostering multidisciplinary universities is certainly welcome as we can now synthesize different domains of study and we move away from working in silos to working collaboratively and applying different skills of expertise to achieve better outcomes. The new-gen would be the most benefitted from this as this is a generation that believes in networking, in sharing, in going digital, in sharing and working seamlessly. Challenge lies in how best a higher education institution would break the existing boundaries and think and act differently. We can no longer be afraid to rethink these new norms of education and research in India. This would pave the way for classifying institutions as research-intensive or teaching-intensive Universities in the long run. In turn, the NEP also promises higher aspirations for seamless learners and global universities as India favours internationalization and will promote more collaborations with higher education institutions.
With its name changed from MHRD to the Ministry of Education, we look forward to a boost in education in future India. The key takeaways lure us all educators and make us all the more optimistic and seem convincing enough to say that it does not remain to be a part of the election manifesto of the ruling party. Challenge lies in its operational details and empathy for ground-level challenges. Change comes at a cost! A mammoth project indeed that lies ahead of us…..