Page 14 - 15JAN2020E-1

CoverStory

he National Education Policy (NEP) is being promotes active pedagogy that will focus on the de-
finalized and after feedback from all stake- velopment of core capacities, life skills, including 21st-
holders is likely to be submitted for approval century skills. He disclosed the policy has been devel-
shortly. The Minister of Human Resource oped by taking into account of almost every voice that
TDevelopment (HRD) Ramesh Pokhriyal is associated with education in the country. We have
confirmed this in a written reply in Rajya Sabha on taken inputs from 1,10,000 gram committees and even
December 5, 2019. received more than 2,00,000 suggestions from public.
According to the PRS Legislative Research, the Draft We are fortunate that everyone so far has applauded
Policy has suggested spending 6 per cent of GDP as the new policy and have supported our efforts.”
public investment in education. Significantly, the first The Ministry is implementing a Central Sector
National Education Policy (NEP) 1968 had recom- Scheme of Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National
mended public expenditure in education must be 6
per cent of GDP, which was reiterated by the second
NEP in 1986.
In 2017-18, public expenditure on education in In- In 2017-18, public
dia was 2.7 per cent of GDP. The draft Policy seeks to
double the public investment in education from the expenditure on
current 10 per cent of total public expenditure to 20
per cent in the next 10 years. Of the additional 10 per education in India was
cent expenditure, 5 per cent will be utilized for univer-
sities and colleges (higher education), 2 per cent will 2.7% of GDP. The draft
be utilized for additional teacher costs or resources in
school education and 1.4 per cent will be utilized for Policy seeks to double
early childhood care and education.
The Committee also observed operational problems
and leakages in disbursement of funds. For instance, the public investment
it observed that District Institutes of Education and
Training have about 45 per cent vacancies, which in education from the
have led to their allocations not being used or being
used ineffectively. It recommends optimal and timely current 10% of total
utilization of funds through the institutional develop-
ment plans. public expenditure to
While the proposed new education policy is yet to
be finalized, to enhance multidisciplinary approach in
teaching learning and to sensitize the new generation, 20% in 10 years
Artificial Intelligence has been introduced as a subject
in schools across the country from 2019-20. The CBSE
has collaborated with several organizations such as Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT)
Intel, IBM and Microsoft etc for training programmes which aims at building a strong professional cadre of
on Artificial Intelligence. teachers by setting performance standards and cre-
The Minister also confirmed that “feed back on the ating top class institutional facilities for innovative
Draft National Educational Policy under the Chair- teaching and professional development of teachers.
manship of Dr K Kasturirangan had been received Existing Central, State and Deemed to be Universi-
from all stakeholders including different minis- ties/Educational Institutions are approved as centres
tries and State Governments”. He said that the Draft under the various components of the scheme and
National Education Policy 2019 is built on the founda- teachers in private institutions can also participate in
tional pillars of “Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability various capacity building programmes as well as in-
and Accountability.” The new policy aims to reduce duction training.
the content load in the school education curriculum. Further, Annual Refresher Programme in Teach-
It also promotes active pedagogy that will focus on the ing (ARPIT), a major and unique initiative of online
development of core capacities, life skills, including professional development of higher education fac-
21st-century skills. ulty using the MOOCs platform SWAYAM is being
He informed that the schools will be re-organised implemented, for which discipline-specific institu-
into school complexes. It also seeks to reduce the con- tions have been identified and notified as National
tent load in the school education curriculum. It also Resource Centres (NRCs), which are tasked to prepare

14