JEE/ NEET, THE WHOLE ENTRANCE FESTIVAL AND DUMMY SCHOOLS! Author - Gokul M Kumar Joint Entrance Exam and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, both are ranked among the world's toughest exams. Every year an average of 13 lakh students attend NEET and 12 lakh students attend JEE. Like Ganeshotsav and Holi, these entrance exams became one of the festivals of India, not only because of the population involved in it but also because of the economics involved in it. Allen ( one of the top Entrance coaching institutes in India) says on their website that they had given prices worth 1.5 crores in the year 2019 alone. For drawing a clear picture of the entrance economy we could simply check Allen’s fees, for the first year itself it cost around 120000. The economy is so huge therefore a lot of educational products and services are offered in this segment alone. Even a tablet program offered by Akash Byju alone costs around 75000. What is a dummy School? Dummy Schools are a produc...
New National Education Policy - 2020 about School Education
1. Affordability,
2. Accessibility,
3. Quality,
4. Equity
5. Accountability
– to ensure continuous learning. This policy aims to make sustainable development and transform India into a vibrant knowledge society and global knowledge superpower by making both school and college education more flexible and multidisciplinary, suited to 21st-century learning needs by the year 2030.
The modern-day society and economy called for a need to acquire new skills regularly. Thus, providing quality education and creating lifelong learning opportunities for all, leading to a decent employable workforce as enlisted in United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
The NEP 2020 aims at revolutionary changes in both school and higher education that prepare the next generation to compete in the new global digital age. Thus, there is much emphasis upon multidisciplinarity, digital literacy, written communication, problem-solving, logical reasoning, etc.
“The Vision of this Policy ”
“ National Education Policy envisions an education system rooted in Indian ethos that contributes directly to transforming India, that is Bharat, sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high-quality education to all, and thereby making India a global knowledge superpower.”
.
The NEP document is divided into 4 parts
1. School Education
2. Higher education
3. Other key areas of focus
4. Make it happen
Let's focus on School education in detail
SCHOOL EDUCATION
The current School system can be divided into two
10\High school
+2\Higher secondary
The pupils between the age of 6-16 are admitted to 10 and the pupils between the age of 16-18 are admitted in +2. But according to the new pedagogy, the whole school system is divided into 4.
Foundation { age 6,7 and 3 years (Anganwadi)}
Pre Primary class { class 3 - 5}
Middle (class 6-8)
Secondary (Class 9 - +2}
Early childhood care and education
Studies show that a child's brain development happens before the age of 6. So the NEP plans to give importance to the age group that comes under ECCE.ie, 3-6. A kid who enters the first standard at the age of 6 should be school ready.
That the govt initiate plans to prepare high-quality ECCE For teachers in Anganwadi and the current workers or teachers will be trained with the help of NCERT and the curriculum will be prepared under the supervision of MHRD.
Another plan is to introduce a midday meal system in preparatory classes.
Foundational Literacy and Numeracy
Surveys conducted by various governmental and non-governmental bodies indicate that the country is in a learning crisis - a large number of students currently in elementary schools which is over 5 crore in number, have not attained the ability to read, write and perform basic mathematical operations
The government plans to eradicate this problem by 2025.
Currently, a large number of students fall behind in the first few months of the primary class. So to check whether all the students are school-ready, induction of a 3-month play-based school preparation module is planned. And another counter-strategy is to fill all the teacher vacancies in backward areas where students to teacher ratio are very high or with high illiteracy rates.
The new teacher appointed must be proficient in the local language. A pupil to teacher ratio, ptr will be ensured as 30:1, were as in backward areas the ptr will be maintained as 25:1
Curtailing dropout Rates
The primary goal of the schooling system is to ensure that children are enrolled in and are attending school. India had attained near-universal enrollment in elementary education through the right to education act and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and many other programs like mid-day meals. But the data of higher classes show some severe issues in retaining students.
As per the data, the enrolled students from elementary retains 90% on 6-8 classes and it diminishes to 56.5 % on 11-12 classes. This indicates that the dropout accelerates after the 8 the standard. According to the survey conducted by National Sample Survey Organization in 2017-18, the number of school dropouts between the age of 16-18 is 3.22 crore. It will be a priority to bring back these children to school and retain the possible dropouts by 2030. There are two initiatives to bring children back to school and prevent further children from dropping out.
. The first is to provide effective and sufficient infrastructure so that all students have access to safe and engaging school education at all levels from pre-primary school to Grade 12. Besides providing regularly trained teachers at each stage, special care shall be taken to ensure that no school remains deficient in infrastructure support. One of the countermeasures is to upgrade and upscale the government schools which already exist, build additional schools were ever it is needed, and provide safe and practical conveyances and/or hostels, especially for the girl children, so that all children have the opportunity to attend a quality school and learn at the appropriate level. Alternative and innovative education centers will be put in place in cooperation with civil society to ensure that children of migrant laborers and other children who drop out of school due to various reasons are brought back
The second initiative is to achieve morel participation in school by carefully tracking students and their learning levels, to ensure that they
(a) are admitted school and attending it,
and
(b) have an option to catch up and reinitiate schooling in case they have left behind or dropped out.
To provide quality education to children ( up to 18 years ) from the preschool level to 12th grade, suitable facilitating systems shall be put in place. Altruistic counselors or well-trained social workers connected to schools and teachers who are connected with students and their parents will travel through and engage with communities to ensure that all school-age kids are attending the school. Qualified Social workers from NGOs, Social organizations, or various other Government departments could be connected to schools, through various innovative mechanisms adopted by the Government, to help in carrying out this important job.
After this the next priority is to ensure the quality of the system ie, the kids (especially girl children from a lower social-economical class ) can be retained by employing teachers with a command of local language and overhauling the syllabus with more engaging content.
A special emphasis should be given to engaging the students who are unable to attend the physical schools by extending the hands of ODL (Open and Distance Learning) offered by NIOS( National Institute of Open Schooling) and SIOS(State Institute of Open Schooling).
The norms of setting up schools are ought to be relaxed in order to encourage government and non-government philanthropist organizations to set up schools in accordance with social, linguistic, and cultural diversity which will encourage a better quality of schooling for the children from socially backward areas.
And another initiative is to involve educators, retired scientists, government/semi-government employees, School alumni, and literate volunteers for enhancing learning by providing at schools. Ie, new systems like one-on-one tutoring for students, the teaching and holding of extra-help sessions, teaching support and guidance for teachers, career guidance for students; etc.
And furthermore, changes in the pedagogy and curriculum are ought to be introduced, which we will cover in the next blog.
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