New education policy 2020

Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the National Education Policy 2020

Highlights:

Use of school complexes beyond school hours and public library spaces for adult education courses and for other community activities.

Every child to learn at least one vocation (such as crafts, pottery, skilled craft, trade etc).

A 10-day bagless period sometime during Grades 6-8 to intern with local vocational experts.

Pre-school sections covering at least one year of early childhood care and education will be added to Kendriya Vidyalayas.

A dedicated unit for the purpose of the building of digital infrastructure, digital content and capacity building will be created to look after the e-education needs of both school and higher education. 

A new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, NCFTE 2021, will be formulated by the NCTE in consultation with NCERT. By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. degree .

Higher Education Commission of India(HECI) will be set up as a single body for the entire higher education, excluding medical and legal education.

Every state/district will be encouraged to establish “Bal Bhavans” as a special daytime boarding school, to participate in art-related, career-related, and play-related activities. Free school infrastructure can be used as Samajik Chetna Kendras.

Bagless days will be encouraged through various types of enrichment activities involving arts, quizzes, sports, and vocational crafts.

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/regional languages.

There will be no hard separation among ‘curricular’, ‘extracurricular’, or ‘co-curricular’, among ‘arts’, ‘humanities’, and ‘sciences’, or between ‘vocational’ or ‘academic’ streams.

Classroom teaching will shift, towards competency-based experimental learning and education

Curriculum content will be reduced in each subject to its core essentials, and make space for critical thinking, inquiry-based, discovery-based, discussion-based, and analysis-based learning.

Prior to the age of 5 every child will move to a “Preparatory Class” or “Balavatika” (that is, before Class 1), which has an ECCE-qualified teacher.

models of Board Exams, such as - annual/semester/modular Board Exams

The National Testing Agency (NTA) will offer a high-quality common aptitude test, as well as specialized common subject exams in the sciences, humanities, languages, arts, and vocational subjects, at least twice every year for university entrance exams.

exam will be conducted in two parts: Objective and descriptive. Exam can be conducted twice a year.

Students of class 6 and onwards will be taught coding.

The 10+2 structure in school education will be modified with a new 5+3+3+4 covering ages 3-18. Currently, children in the age group of 3-6 are not covered in the 10+2 structure as Class 1 begins at age 6.

New Education Policy proposes the setting up of an Indian Institute of Translation

An Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) shall be established which would digitally store the academic credits earned

The undergraduate degree courses will be of either 3 or 4- year duration, with multiple exit options. A certificate course after completing 1 year or a diploma after 2 years of study, or a Bachelor’s degree after a 3-year programme. 4-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programme.

The new academic session will begin in September-October – the delay is due to the unprecedented coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.