The Times Kuwait, in collaboration with eminent educationist and principal of Indian Learners’ Own Academy in Kuwait, is starting a regular fortnightly column on education that aims to apprise our readers about the latest developments on education, and in particular on the new National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) that was unveiled recently by the Indian government. If you have any queries about NEP 2020, its clauses and its implications on you as a student, or as a parent of a school-going child, we would like to hear from you, send your queries to
editortimeskuwait@gmail.com. Principal Sharma will be providing you with the most accurate answers and right guidance to all your questions.
By Asha Sharma
Principal
Indian Learners’ Own Academy, Kuwait
The year 2020 started with news of the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Since then,life has come to stand still. In India clouds of fear, scarcity, misery, and negativity flooded the country in the wake of the pandemic. Amidst these dark clouds, the passing of a New Education Policy 2020 by the Indian Parliament came like a silver lining.
I would call it a renaissance in the field of education, as India has tried to revive its golden past in education through this policy. There was a time when people from all over the world used to throng the renowned ancient universities in India, such as Nalanda, Takshila, Vikramshila, Vallabhi and Nagarjuna. Scholars from far and wide stayed at these universities and took valuable learnings from India and spread it to their own countries, with the Indian ‘gurukul’ system of education often being used as a reference point.
When the fame of India’s riches to other parts of the world, many invaders came to plunder India. They not only plundered India of its riches but broke the monuments and burnt the scriptures that formed the basis of the education system in India. Each language community in India had rich literature, which had no value for the invaders. Then came the British Raj. The last blow to our glorious system of education was given by the Macauley’s Education policy. The quote from his speech delivered at British Parliament on 2 February, 1835 certifies that he was convinced that to ruin India, its education system was to be struck first.
He wanted to produce clerks and wanted Indian system of education to be starved of reason, research, logic, skills and values. India sank into the dark ages of its culture and education. It is strange that we took more than 70 long years since Independence to break those shackles of subjugation and try to revive our glorious past.
This hopefully is going to happen through the new National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), which will not only bring back all the lost values and pride of our past but will also amalgamate new research and findings in our system. No other education report prepared by eminent educationists, such as the Mudaliar report (1952-1953), Kothari report (1964-1966), Janardhan Reddy report 1992, have been discussed at such length in public as this new education policy.
The model which has come to the fore of NEP 2020 is a vision statement. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT0 is working on the details and is taking inputs from each sector. People are more informed and vocal now. Mass media is playing a very vital role to make it more comprehensive and practical, and a lot of appreciation and reaction is pouring in over NEP 2020.
India has awakened to the failure of the prevailing education system and the NEP 2020 aims to streamline all the education boards in India to bring uniformity in education and will most likely be implemented from 2021.