India: National Education Policy

The National Education Policy aims to restructure the regulation and governance of the Indian education system to address (sustainable) developmental goals of the country. The general objective of the National Education Policy is to create an equitable and inclusive education system that can provide learning for all. The system has to equip all learners in India with foundational literacy and numeracy, a ‘light but tight’ regulatory framework to ensure integrity and resource efficiency of the system, promotion of Indian culture and traditions, and a focus on multilingualism and respect for the diversity of local contexts. The policy aims to promote the role of teachers in Indian society and culture and to develop foundational capacities (e.g. literacy and numeracy) in pupils, as well as social, ethical, emotional, and critical-thinking capacities in all learners.

Concept of lifelong learning

The concept of lifelong learning in the Indian policy is connected to the development of foundational skills and competences that allow its citizens to participate in society, reducing socio-cultural disadvantages and unemployment. The policy mentions the necessity of fostering lifelong learning activities at all educational levels and proposes to create an adult education curriculum framework to develop skills and competences in the adult population.

Main challenges

The policy seeks to address a range of current educational challenges, including:

• A lack of quality early childhood education and care, in particular with reference to children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
• A learning crisis concerning foundational skills attainment, with a large proportion of students in elementary school not having attained foundational literacy and numeracy.
• School drop-outs: there are some serious issues in retaining children in the school system. A significant proportion of enrolled students drop out after Grade 5 and especially after Grade 8.
• Harmful effects of the current assessment system: Especially at secondary school level, valuable time for true learning is replaced with excessive exam coaching and preparation. These exams force students to learn a very narrow band of material in a single stream, rather than allowing the flexibility and choice that will be important in the education system of the future.
• With regards to higher education, challenges include a severely fragmented higher educational ecosystem; less emphasis on the development of cognitive skills and learning outcomes; a rigid separation of disciplines, with early specialization and streaming of students into narrow areas of study; limited access, particularly in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, limited teacher and institutional autonomy; and large affiliating universities resulting in low standards of undergraduate education.

Main targets and measures

The policy includes an extensive list of proposed strategic actions and directions to improve the Indian education system, including the provision of lifelong learning opportunities for all. Main targets particularly refer to the major transformations in the labour market and to global issues such as climate change. The policy aims to address the need for a skilled workforce for future economies and underlines that it is becoming increasingly critical for children not only to learn, but, more importantly, to learn how to learn. Also, teacher education and professional education are seen as key to achieve holistic learning and high-quality skills development. Further lines of action include:

• Universal foundational numeracy and literacy skills: Described as an urgent priority for the education system, universal numeracy and literacy skills in primary schools are to be attained by 2025. The policy vaguely mentions a necessity to implement a stronger curricular focus on developing such skills. Overall, the education system should be holistic, enjoyable, and engaging. The policy aims to achieve 100 per cent youth and adult literacy by 2035.
• Reducing drop-out rates: The policy aims to increase the gross enrolment ratio in higher education, including in vocational education to 50 per cent by 2035 (from 26 per cent of 2018). In order to do so, the policy aims to provide good infrastructure (i.e. building new schools, upgrading and improving those that need it) to bring children back to school (and/or to prevent drop-out). Moreover, it proposes the creation of education centres, in cooperation with civil society as well as philanthropic organizations/non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
• Adult education, professional education and lifelong learning: The policy highlights the need for professional education to be integral to the overall higher education system. Moreover, the policy identifies as fundamental the creation of an adult education curriculum framework (section 21.5) to develop skills and competences for adult learners. This curriculum framework should consist of several programmes with clearly defined outcomes (e.g. foundational literacy and numeracy, critical life skills such as digital and financial literacy, vocational skills development). It will be to the responsibility of adult education centres, together with higher education institutions and NGOs, to develop and offer such activities.
• Digital education, internationalisation, and Indian languages promotion: The education system must make good use of technology and integrate it in pedagogy. At the same time, the plan envisages a shift from summative assessments to formative and competency-based assessments. The system needs to integrate digital learning opportunities in educational curricula. Internationalization must be promoted via higher education institutions collaborations and student mobility. The policy aims to strengthen the usage of Sanskrit and local languages in higher education institutions and their programmes.

Particular feature of the policy

An interesting feature of the policy is the role of digital and online education. In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and possible future crises, the policy underscores the need to ensure alternative modes of quality education whenever and wherever traditional and in-person modes of education are not possible. It seeks to optimise the existing digital learning platforms and ICT-based educational initiatives in order to meet current and future challenges regarding lifelong learning provision. However, in order to make use of digital education, learners as well as teachers needs to acquire relevant digital skills to reduce the digital divide and therefore promote quality digital education for all.

The policy sets out several future initiatives concerning digital education:

• Pilot studies to evaluate and ameliorate digital education programmes;
• Improvement of digital infrastructure for education;
• Creation of a digital repository of educational contents, including the creation of coursework, learning games and simulations, augmented reality and virtual reality;
• Blended models of learning;
• To address the digital divide, existing mass media, such as television, radio, and community radio, will still be used extensively for telecasts and broadcasts.

Relevant documents that the policy refers to

• National Policy on Education (1986, 1992)
• Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009