Recently our government launched a policy that probably looks like a revolutionizing step in the field of education. However, things are not as good as it seem to be, does it?
Well everyone is talking about The National Education Policy (NEP) and perhaps thinking it as a remarkable change and you will find nothing to criticize about it (Unless you are from the opposition!!)
What is it all about?
The policy has come up with the following points:
- 10+2 format is dropped, instead the new format will be 5+3+3+4 which means upto 5 pre school, 6 to 8 Mid school, 8 to 11 high school and 12 onwards graduation.
- Students can choose language from 8 to 11.
- Graduation courses will have one major and one minor.
- New teacher training board will be setup for all kinds of teachers in a country
- Focus will be on holistic approach and critical thinking.
The idea that a student can have a major and a minor in his/her graduation is a stepping stone for quenching the curiosity in subject other than the one he/she is studying is remarkable. Also, providing certificates to even a dropout student will not make his year a waste. Focusing on regional languages is a well thought out strategy.
However, the problem with our government is they're good at only launching skims and throwing endless amount of money on them. The major concern is the planning and execution. They've time and again proved that they launched policies and skims but didn't give a second thought afterwards it, the major example being GST. For a policy to truly flourish, it needs time and patience, it cannot happen in 5 years. For a plant to truly grow, time is required to deepen its roots. Also, there're people in our system planning to make the policy a flop, that's why corruption is the major cause of the failure of most of our policies. No matter how much money is spent on money, there're people just using that money for their own benefits, which again makes the policy less beneficial.
Now introspect about that boring maths teacher in your school. Do you really think that the textbookish approach with which he was going to teach for more than 10 years will go away just by implementing a new policy. No doubt, that attitude will not just go away by a matter of few months training, which means the policy will come in its true form after about 20 to 30 years. The policy might not look like a beneficial one after 5 years atleast.
The policy also talks about critical thinking which seems kind of funny as the real critical thinking is one of the hardest thing to achieve. Introducing critical thinking would literally mean disregarding all the grading patterns and only let the child play with their curiosity. Teachers should encourage a problem solving ability in students. In order to do that they should be given real life problem of a student older that him and be told to go haywire with the solutions. The marking pattern should be completely removed as no answer is a right or wrong answer in a critical thinking. Establishing critical thinking itself is a contradiction to our system. And that's why I'm curious to know how they are using critical thinking in their studies.
