NEP 2020: National Education Policy on fast track, nationwide implementation to start in June

A review committee will monitor task forces set up in 2020, at the central and state level for administering the policy for schools and higher education institutions; a dashboard will be supervised on a monthly and quarterly basis

 

The implementation process of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, is set to hit top-gear with a live dashboard being set up by the Ministry of Education to monitor its progress, beginning June 2021 onwards.

The Ministry has identified 181 tasks, which will have to be completed under NEP 2020.

This includes à la carte subject options across all undergraduate and postgraduate streams, a regional language-based education, entry and exit flexibility in university degrees and credit bank system, among others.

Across state governments like Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Goa, task forces were constituted to study the implementation of NEP 2020 and related challenges.

The task force in Karnataka has released its report, where it has suggested that the policy will be implemented from 2021 onwards.

However, the state as well as the central governments are yet to give their advisory on these recommendations, which have not yet been made public.

"A dashboard will be monitored on a monthly and quarterly basis by the Ministry of Education. For each task, a deadline will be fixed and communicated to individual state agencies," said an official.

Monitoring tasks

The Ministry is also setting up an implementation and review committee that will be headed by higher education department officials, whose brief it will be to closely monitor the progress of the tasks.

Additional taskforces will also be set up to decide on the credit-bank system and transformation of IITs into multidisciplinary institutes.

Under the credit bank, whenever a course module is completed, an academic credit will be added to the student/scholar’s digital locker.

If the student drops out of college after two years and decides to join back a year later, the academic credits stay intact in his or her digital locker.

Official accountability

In case of implementation delays, associated officials at the state and district levels will be called to explain the reasons for the hold-up.

In June 2020, the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval to the National Education Policy.

Consequently, the Human Resource Development Ministry was renamed as the Ministry of Education.

As of March 31, 2021, India has 425 state universities, 125 deemed-to-be universities, 54 central universities and 375 private universities.

The newly-setup dashboard will review progress at the level of each state, with special focus on the central universities.