New Education Policy - recommendations

New Education Policy - recommendations
(prepared for a panel discussion) 

Sole objective of new education policy need to be Building global citizens of India who empowered to put India at the top of the global competitive map.

How do we do this.

1.       Self-oriented/ driven learning :  Currently the students are getting moulded to certain knowledge or skill sets. Emphasis in the primary education need to ensure kids how to learn them selves as information availability is high.

a.       Digitisation of learning experience, so that barriers are open

b.      Reduce the quantum of books and issue digitized tablets. On an average cost of money spent on books is over Rs. 1,20,000.

c.       Up gradation of existing teacher skills to own technology driven methodologies to help children, making it mandatory for the other teachers

2.       In Primary education, language is a critical important factor. Major barrier amongst students who technically strong but fail to communicate or express the same. First 2 years of primary education should be merely emphasized on language learning.  Three language formula emphasized in the 1976. 

3.       India hasn’t been able to make a mark in the Global innovation index.
Collaborative learning experience – Teachers are just facilitators

a.        Bring in critical thinking and creative learning approach and methodologies which include role play, brainstorming sessions, and push rote and text learning back to home.  This would be a step forward in India moving up the innovative index. If India doesn’t move up the innovative index in couple of decades we would still be doing unimportant work.  

4.       Value based and moral education.

a.       It is important for each child to realize that “10 rupees earned is better than 100 rupees found”. But unfortunately our existing moral system of education hasn’t been inculcated and be successful. Only medicine for this is value based teachers. Included a component in the teacher recruitment process to test the ethical quotient of the teachers.  

Also eliminating existing space for moral values would more space for other collaborative learning process.

5.       To reach out to rural segments, and bridging the need for more faculties. In the short term increasing the size of the teachers is difficult; therefore follow Teach for India model and higher students. These students would help the teachers or the school in restructuring the schools, modifying the curriculum locally, engage with students personally and to the families as well.

This would be a major step in building social leaders amongst students,

a.       Adoption of Teach for India model : self-sustainable educational model with alternative revenue sources

b.      Create a program called, “Each one teaches one” – is a part of CBSE curriculum but never followed.

Government and civil society can’t exist in isolation and move towards a change.

6.       Using civil society to monitor the implementation and engaging change.

-          Implementation of the policies at the grass route is extremely critical and tough for the government to monitor. Money has been sanctioned by the government towards infrastructure has to be implemented.
Create CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT CELL / Complaints cell.

-          This would reduce the nexus between school principals and District education officers.

(Background work)

Challenges:
40% of India’s population is illiterate.

 Indian classrooms are understaffed (1 in 4 teachers will be absent on any given day)

Teachers are not engaging ( Only 50% are likely to be teaching at any given time)

Drop-out rate is unusually high (More than 1 in 3 children who begin primary school will drop out before reaching 5th grade)

Education spend is relatively low (India spends only 3.3 percent of its GDP on education, compared to an average 5.8 percent in developed countries) (Source: India’s Educational Crisis, Teach For India)

 Unquantifiable improvements in a child’s mental abilities, lack of immediate results and the sorry state of public schools are the major factors behind the drop-out rate being unusually high in India. 

Though Education spend is relatively low in India in terms of GDP the high rate of teacher absenteeism is not due to low salaries

in India, the ratio of average teacher salary to per-capita income is more than 3.5. The corresponding figure for US and UK are less than 2.0 and those for East Asian countries are less than 2.5.

Kothari Commission (64-66) - - science and SUPW , vocational education, research- modernization, new methods, unversalize education,   - introduce common school system, develop modern indian languages - moral, social and spiritual values, religions of the world, group meditation

42nd constitutional amendment (1976) - Education changed from state to concurrent

,    policy - Union government in    1. Reinforcing national & integrative ,  character
  2. mainitaing quality education ,   3. manpower development research and , advanced study, international aspects

National Policy (NPE) 1986, Child centred approach,  - National system of education - Education for quality, - Promotion of adult education, - Elementary education and operation black

, board, - Pace setting (Navodaya vidyalaya), - Vocationalisation, - Rasising the status of the teacher, - accountability in education , - incentives to backward familiers, , Operation black board, Rural education , 86th constitutional amendment (2002) , - Right to education added to Article 21,

RTE (2009)
- Free and compulsory education (6 to 14  )
- No detention till completion of elementary
education
                - Limit in pupil teacher ratio
        - 25% economically disadvataged in private schools
         - professional qualification for all teachers,
         - minimum infrastructure