Students can ‘Choose Board Exam Subjects’ Based on their ‘Personal Interest’ : The New Educational Policy Explained!

The Union Cabinet approved the New National Education Policy (NEP) on Wednesday. Further, the HRD Ministry was renamed as the Education Ministry. While making the announcements the Union Ministers said that the ministry will be the single regulator for all higher educational institutions. Adding to it, all MPhil courses are to be discontinued across the country.

“E-courses will be developed in eight regional languages initially and virtual labs will be developed,” said the Higher Education Secretary Amit Khare. Adding to this, the top 10 foreign colleges will be allowed to set-up their campuses in India. All arts and science students are likely to be more holistic as the ministry announced that the students of arts and humanities must learn more science and that the students of science will learn more arts.

The 10+2 school system has been broken down into 5+3+3+4. The first five 5 are the foundational stage (age 3-8), followed by 3 years of Preparatory stage (age 8-11), 3 years of Middle stage (age 11-14) and 4 years of secondary stage (age 14-18).

After political parties opposed the ideas of imposing Hindi for Grade 6 students, from Tamil Nadu, the government has dropped the idea. Further, all educational institutions are to be held as ‘not for profit’ organisations.

Board exams approach is also changed, as students can now choose any of the subjects to give board exams for, depending on their individual interests. Two board exams are to be conducted to help students prepare.

“Wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/ mother tongue/ local language/ regional language. Thereafter, the home/local language shall continue to be taught as a language wherever possible. This will be followed by both public and private schools,” the policy states.

“The three languages learned by children will be the choices of States, regions, and of the students, so long as at least two of the three languages are native to India,” says the new ‘three language policy’.

The NEP has also states that the National Testing Agency will now be provided with additional charge to conduct entrance exams for admitting students in universities across the country.

Many celebrities have expressed their opinions on Twitter regarding NEP.

Remember when we always complained of Rote Learning? Just before the exams ‘chalo rat lo’. Its system British left us. Who needed a nation of uncreative followers. The new education #NEP2020 policy is brilliantly innovative. Its what the new generation needs to leap India forward

— Shekhar Kapur (@shekharkapur) July 30, 2020