Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “ New Education Policy” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

 New Education Policy

Education is the most important national activity, the backbone of a country’s progress. It helps to strengthen the very fabric of nation “to produce men of education enlightenment and character”. The New Education Policy is likely to lead to 100 per cent literacy in the 15-35 age-groups in the wake of the century. The teachers and the taught as well as the various Government agencies are going to be equal partners in this new exercise. The salient features of the New Education Policy 1986 are introduction of a national core curriculum at the school level; special emphasis on the education of women and of the Scheduled Castes/Tribes; introduction of semester system at the secondary stage; examination reforms; establishment of an all-India education service; establishment of pace-setting institutions called `Navodaya Vidyalayas’, in all parts of the country as a part of the effort to provide equal opportunities, especially in rural areas; to raise the quality of higher education; de-linking of jobs from degrees; strengthening of University Grants Commission, the All-India Council of Technical Education, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Indian Medical Council; continuation of the 10 plus 2 plus 3 system of education; splitting of 10 school year:, into elementary system comprising five years, followed by three years of middle school and two years of high school; and provision of vocationalisation after the secondary stage.

A significant feature of the new policy is the setting up of model schools, called `Navodaya Vidyalayas’, for introducing a uniform curriculum in school education. About 5 lakh teachers have been trained by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) during the summer vacations in order to familiarize them with the new concepts involved. Education, which has been made a scapegoat for all social and moral evils in the country, has been put on a sound footing with this new policy. The setting up of Navodaya Vidyalayas’ in almost all the districts of country is a right step in the direction of introducing a uniform educational curriculum. Intended to be pace-setting schools to provide quality education, these schools have been affiliated to the Central Boards of Secondary Education, have a uniform curriculum and implement the three-language formula (Hindi, English and the regional language), thus setting at rest the southern fears that Hindi was being imposed through backdoor on the non-Hindi-speaking areas, at rest. Another objection to these model schools—that these will perpetuate elitism of the public school brand—is baseless as these schools have been located in the rural areas. Each school has a sprawling buildings, hostels for boys and girls, laboratories, workshops, library, games-room, gymnasium hall, and so on.

Our system of education has often been called outdated and unrealistic. Due emphasis has been laid in the new education policy on the vocationalisation of education in order to equip the students to take up the vocation of their choice at the end of their school education. That would definitely curtail the rush to institutions of higher learning by the hordes of students who find themselves at a dead end when they leave school. If this can be achieved, we shall have given practical shape of Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of basic education or `Nai Talim’. The question of de-linking jobs from degrees will only be the next logical step.

Another area of education crying out for immediate reforms is our system of examinations that gives sleepless nights to many a student and induces mass copying, cheating and intimidation in the care of several others. The new Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) must take up this area on a top priority basis in order to remove the fear, and accompanying horrors, of a three-hour, closed-door examination that saps our students energies and compels them to employ underhand means for achieving success by means, fair or foul. Due emphasis had also been given in the new policy to increase the level of higher education and bring about necessary changes in the medical and agricultural education.

Education in the country now stands on the threshold of the 21st century. As an important instrument of change and development, it must be depoliticized and modernized if the new education policy is to be an unqualified success.