Implementation Strategies of National Education Policy 2020: Psycho-Legal Analysis towards Achieving its Objectives

Abstract

Education is considered to be the fundamental aspect of human life as people’s well-being, growth and development. It is the basic element of life where members of the society get the knowledge, awareness, job skills and cultural practices. From school level to higher education, the relevance and significance is more for the organized society where every individual works for the betterment and quality lifestyle. In India, education is the fundamental right given under the Constitution of India, 1950 to all the citizens. The directive principle of state policy (Part IV) and fundamental duties (Part IVA) of the Indian constitution contain the provisions of education for the children. The new education policy 2020 is aimed at inclusive and equitable education for all from school to university level education. The National education policy 2020 (NEP) is the government of India’s leading initiative, succeeding the 1986 National education policy (Suresh et. al., 2021). It was enacted considering India’s on-going progress and global leadership in economic development, as well as towards providing universal access to high-quality education to all of its people. It aims at bringing social fairness and equality, scientific progress, national integration, and cultural preservation. The heritage of India’s educational system which is based on Jnan (Knowledge), Satya (Truth) and Pragyaa (Wisdom) are the guiding principles of the policy. The new policy of 2020 in order to develop the education standards at higher levels proposes several transformations in the present system in different arenas. Firstly, it proposes to increase Gross Enrolment Ratio by 50% by 2035 by adding 3.5 Crore new seats to the existing facility. Secondly, it aims to provide a diverse combination of subjects with multidisciplinary undergraduate education. The NEP 2020 emphasises the involvement of mental health workers at the school level to ensure proper well-being of children. In order to cater to the need of learning disabled children in the middle and secondary levels of schooling, recruitment of special educators will be undertaken. As change remains to be the only constant, under NEP Outcome based Education envisages a pedagogical model whereby the curriculum restructuring, effective pedagogic and outcome-based assessment practices have been adopted to inculcate high order thinking and learning skills as opposed to the conventional views of collecting credits. This design entails a student centric system predesign to certain attainment methodology to minutely capture the learning objectives and learning outcomes. It is the realignment of each outcome with its parallel objective treated as a single identifiable pointer to gain an optimum attainment.