Draft National Education Policy, 2019

The draft of the New Education Policy has been recently submitted by the Committee led by the Chairman Dr. Kasturirangan on education policy.

Why there is a need for a new education policy?

Current National Policy on Education, 1986 modified in 1992 requires changes to fulfill the futuristic needs of India's growing youth population. A new Education Policy is designed to cope up youth with modern requirements like research, education, and innovation. 

Previous National Education Policy

It was first produced in 1968 by then PM Indira Gandhi and in 1986 by then PM Rajiv Gandhi.

The National Policy for Education (NPE) was later amended in 1992.

Why Southern States opposing New NPE?

After the draft was produced before states for their recommendations and suggestions, Tamil Nadu opposed the Policy and so does the other Southern States, What makes them oppose the policy?

 NPE 2019 contains 3 Language formula with some modification as it mandates Hindi education for Non-Hindi speaking states and 1 modern Indian Language for Hindi speaking states.

This results in opposition from the Southern States led by Tamil Nadu because of it the idea of mandating Hindi was dropped.

Recommendations:-

1) Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) should be renamed to Ministry of Education (MoE).

2) Right to education should be extended, the new law will cover children aged 3yrs-18yrs.

3) Reduce content load in the school curriculum.

4) 4-year B.Ed. should be the minimum qualification for teachers.

5) Restructuring the higher educational institution

i) Focused on world-class research and high-class teaching.

ii) High-quality teaching + Contribution to research.

iii) High-quality teaching for undergraduate courses through 2 mission plan ie. Mission Nalanda and Mission Takshila.

6) Restructure Undergraduate courses(BSc, BCom, BA, etc).

7) An apex body named Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog should be formed for governing policies and maintain the relationship between States and Center for Education and Teaching.

8) An Apex body to improve research culture in India National Research Foundation.

There is more than 3 language formula in NPE 2019. 

For full details, you can browse to the official site