New Education Policy will change India’s Future: PM Modi

TNI Bureau: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed the nation at 4.30 pm today to mark the first anniversary of the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

This is the first education policy, replaces the 34  year old National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986.

Last year on this day, India took a giant stride forward in the field of education by launching the National Education Policy. The goal of this strategy was to transform the education sector and bring it up to par with world-class institutions that help our students achieve their full potential.

Here are the key announcements made by the Prime Minister:

• From the current academic year, Government has made a historic decision to provide 27% reservation for OBCs and 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections in the All India Quota Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses. Thousands of our kids will benefit from this every year, and it will usher in a new era of social justice in the nation.
• In CBSE schools, SAFAL (Structured Assessment For Analyzing Learning Levels) is a competency-based assessment framework for Grades 3, 5, and 8.
• Vidya Pravesh is a three-month play-based school preparation programme for students in Grade 1.
•  NDEAR, NETF and first-year engineering courses in regional languages are among the newly established programmes.
• 14 engineering colleges in 8 States will now start engineering courses in 5 Indian languages- Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi & Bengali.
• Academic Bank of Credit is envisioned as a digital bank that stores a student’s credit from any course. It is a key tool for supporting interdisciplinary and comprehensive education, as well as various entrance and exit points.
• NIOS will be introducing Indian Sign Language as a topic for secondary school students, for which course material has been produced and is being given as a language subject by NIOS.
• NISHTHA 2.0 is an NCERT-designed integrated teacher training programme was introduced.
• For public awareness, the government will create a dedicated website for students to study Artificial Intelligence.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated after launching a number of initiatives in the education sector that these programmes will play a significant role in the future. According to him, “I believe that India’s new national education policy is one of the big factors in the great sacrifice of nation building.”

In the All India Quota for medical admissions, the Modi-led government has granted reservations for OBC and EWS (economically weaker segment) students earlier today. Students from other backward class categories (OBC) will now receive a 27 percent reservation for graduate (MBBS, BDS), postgraduate, and diploma level medical courses, while those from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) would receive a 10% reserve.