Indian National Policies on Education
NEP serves as a comprehensive framework to guide the development of education in our country. When 42nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1976 moved education from the State to the Concurrent List, it led to high expectations that education quality would improve at every level. The 86th Amendment in 2002 passed an act making Education as enforceable right, heralding a new course and direction for the education reform in the country. So far two policies were formulated by the government, one in 1968 and another in 1986. The NEP 1986 was revised in 1992.
The 1968 policy recommended a national school system, enabling access to school education for all the young citizens of the country. It envisaged a common educational structure (10+2+3) which was accepted across the country. Use of mother tongue was advocated as the medium of instruction mainly in the early school years.
Later, Rajiv Gandhi recommended the use of technology to modernize the thought and structure of our education system. Attention was paid on restructuring teacher education, early childhood care, women’s empowerment and adult literacy. Both the policies laid emphasis on improving quality of education and ensuring equity to all sections of society. The policies provided direction to the local governments to emulate and steer the education setup in their respective states.
NEP 1986 was more successful than 1968 policy due to well allocated budget for execution and implementation plans. In addition, when the first policy was published education was a state subject and the centre played a weak role in ensuring it successful implementation. The second policy was drafted after the Constitutional Amendment of 1976 when education was moved into concurrent list. With this, centre played a major role in introducing a number of programmes supplementing the policy ideals.
Key elements of National Education Policies
The foundation for the popular 10+2+3 structure of education and the three language formula was introduced by NEP 1 which brought uniformity in the education system of the country. The Pan India slogan of “ Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan” was the chief element of NEP of 1986.
The policy document of third NEP, 2016 is under discussion and debate. It is under public domain for feedback and recommendations. The policy may be finalized and implemented in a short time which will change the face of education in India. The NEP, 2016 was collated by a committee chaired by Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramaniam.
The committee has recommended significant interventions, one being, amending the Right to Education (RTE) Act to bring back detention of students after Class V apart from several other reforms which ought to improve the quality of provision at all levels.
