The National Education Policy 2020 has come 38 years after the last Education Policy. It is an ambitious project aimed at making India the Vishwa Guru of the world. The philosophy behind the NEP 2020 is to reclaim India’s past glory as a repository of ancient wisdom which has the first universities Takshashila and Nalanda. All these were destroyed first by Mughal invaders and later by the British rulers whose design it was to produce clerks and servants of the Empire. All these novel ideas underlying the architecture of the NEP 2020 are admirable and the intent too is noble. At the end however what matters is implementation. There are so many ideas embedded in the Policy which will require a thorough overhaul of the present education system which has created batches and batches of unemployable graduates. There is a dire need to reverse the present system but time is of the essence.
The teaching community under the present system must have the passion and the flexibility to adapt to multi-disciplinary learning techniques and the new hybrid model of teaching. This would require a human resource that is committed to the cause of education. Is it possible to harness such a band of dedicated educators that have come from a system that was highly unimaginative and relied on stereotyped learning outcomes? The NEP’s hallmark is quality with equity. This means quality education that is also affordable. Emphasis is laid on skills training but using local resources and adaptive to local needs. The NEP proposes smart classrooms that would be linked to a Digital University. For connectivity the Union Government had sanctioned 889 mobile towers in Meghalaya alone but for some reason not even 25% of the target has been achieved due to logistical challenges. Again in a State like Meghalaya where the Lower Primary school infrastructure are in shambles implementing the NEP is a tall order. The infrastructure needs a robust overhaul and revamp.
In the area of skilling, the NEP needs to be more flexible and more nuanced towards the needs of the markets in the region for that would assure employability. For this the states have to continue to feed their inputs to the Union Education Ministry. Moreover, the NEP at this point appears to stress more on higher education than on primary and high school education, when it would have been more prudent to strengthen the foundational pillars of education. At the university level students have already found their feet. It is at the high school and undergraduate level that they really need to find their feet. Clearly there is a huge chasm between embracing the NEP 2020 and putting it to work on the ground, especially for a state like Meghalaya.
