Reforms in Education sector

Reforms in Education sector

News: From a new policy that outlines the education roadmap for the next 20 years to sweeping changes in school textbooks and the opening up of the Indian higher education space to foreign players, the Modi government’s second term has proven to be more eventful in terms of education compared to the first.

What is done?
NEP 2020 and Reforms:
 The NEP 2020 is a policy document outlining a series of reforms to be pursued in education till 2040. India has had three policies to date.
 The NEP 2020 proposes vital shifts from creating a system in which “children not only learn but more importantly learn how to learn” to one in which “pedagogy must evolve to make education more experiential, inquiry-driven, flexible” and in which there is “no hard separation between arts and sciences”.

National Curriculum Framework:
 The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), is a crucial policy document for revising textbooks and classroom pedagogy. Among its key recommendations are conducting board examinations twice a year, creating a semester system for Class 12 students, and providing students with the freedom to pursue a combination of science and humanities, aiming to reduce the rigid boundaries between arts, commerce, and science in classes 11 and 12 across all school boards.

Foreign Universities:
 Currently, The UGC is giving the final touches to a regulation that would allow foreign universities to establish campuses in India that have their own admission process, the freedom to determine fee structures and recruit faculty and staff from here and abroad.

Female Representation:
 The supernumerary seats were introduced for women at IITs and NITs in 2018, resulting in a rise in female representation from 9% in 2017 to 20% in 2022 at IITs over five years.
 Additionally, in 2021, all 33 Sainik Schools transitioned from being all-male to admitting girl cadets, following a successful pilot in 2018.
 According to AISHE data, there has been a reduction in gender disparity in higher education enrolment since 2014.

Other reforms:
 Scrapping of no-detention policy under the Right to Education Act, 2009.
 A single agency to conduct all entrance tests to higher education, the National Testing Agency, was set up in 2017.
 Higher Education Financing Agency or HEFA was set up in 2017 to leverage funds from the market to finance infrastructure development in educational institutions through long-term loans.

What reforms are needed?
 The National Research Foundation (NRF), intended to incentivise interdisciplinary research, has not materialised despite being announced in consecutive union budget speeches from 2019 to 2021.
 Since 2015, the overall allocation towards education has been stagnant at 2.8% to 2.9% of the GDP. The ruling party had promised to raise public spending on education to 6% of GDP in its election manifesto so did the NEP 2020.
 The Higher Education Commission of India, intended to replace UGC and AICTE as an overarching regulator, has yet to be established even five years after its initial announcement.
 No update on Digital university as was announced in last year’s budget speech.
 Vacant faculty and leadership positions is on the rise.
 Despite provisions of autonomy under the Institutions of Eminence scheme, it has failed to materialize on the ground.