THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The new National Education Policy (NEP) announced by the Centre has ignored all suggestions put forward by the state government pertaining to overhauling the school education structure. The general education department says the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development’s new policy has not devised an “implementation strategy” and this will lead to discrepancies in the school education system from state to state.
In the present format, the school education structure and curriculum are different in each state. However, the new policy envisages a uniform structure throughout the country and the states are bound to implement it.K Jeevan Babu, director, general education department, said, “The state is yet to get clarity on the implementation strategy of the new policy. We had made many suggestions earlier to the Centre. However, it is learnt that the Centre has implemented its draft policy without incorporating any suggestions from us. But we will implement it after getting the right implementation strategies,” he told TNIE.
In his reaction to the NEP earlier, General Education Minister C Raveendranath said the new policy would destroy the federal structure of the education system in the country. Sources said a high-level meeting will be convened soon in the state with educational experts to discuss the road map to implement the new policy. The policy will come into existence from 2021-22 academic year.
The state had earlier expressed its reservations on several proposals outlined in the draft NEP which was released last year. It had expressed its concerns over several recommendations that might adversely affect the existing education system and criticised the new policy for removing the power granted to the states for designing syllabus.
The new policy aims to enable an individual to study one or more specialised areas of interest at a deeper level, and also develop character, scientific temper, creativity, spirit of service, and 21st-century capabilities across a range of disciplines including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, among others. The NEP has also made a strategic shift from the existing 10+2 curricular and pedagogical structure to the 5+3+3+4 design covering the children in the age group of three to 18 years.