New Delhi :- After the announcement of National Education Policy, 2020, the Ministry of Education has communicated to all States/UT Governments for taking steps for implementation of NEP 2020.

Some of the provisions/highlights of NEP 2020 are as follows:

(i) Ensuring Universal Access at All Levels of schooling from pre-primary school to Grade 12;

(ii) Ensuring quality early childhood care and education for all children between 3-6 years;

(iii) Introducing New Curricular and Pedagogical Structure (5+3+3+4);

(iv) Ensuring no hard separations between arts and sciences, between curricular and extra-curricular activities, between vocational and academic streams;

(v) Establishing National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy;

(vi) Emphasis on promoting multilingualism and Indian languages; 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.

(vii) Assessment reforms –Introducing Board Exams on up to two occasions during any given school year, one main examination and one for improvement, if desired;

(viii) Setting up of a new National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development);

(ix) Equitable and inclusive education –Ensuring special emphasis to be given on Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs);

(x) Establishing a separate Gender Inclusion fund and Special Education Zones for disadvantaged regions and groups;

(xi) Robust and transparent processes for recruitment of teachers and merit-based performance;

(xii) Ensuring availability of all resources through school complexes and clusters;

(xiii) Setting up of State School Standards Authority (SSSA);

(xiv) Providing Exposure of vocational education in school and higher education system;

(xv) Increasing GER in higher education to 50%;

(xvi) Introducing Holistic Multidisciplinary Education with multiple entry/exit options;

(xvii) Introducing Common Entrance Exam for Admission to HEIs to be offered by NTA;

(xviii) Establishment of Academic Bank of Credit;

(xix) Setting up of Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERUs);

(xx) Setting up of National Research Foundation (NRF);

(xxi) Framing ‘Light but Tight’ regulation;

(xxii) Setting up of single overarching umbrella body for promotion of higher education sector including teacher education and excluding medical and legal education- the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI)-with independent bodies for standard setting- the General Education Council; funding-Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC); accreditation- National Accreditation Council (NAC); and regulation- National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC);

(xxiii)   Expansion of open and distance learning to increase GER.

(xxiv) Internationalization of Education.

(xxv) Professional Education will be an integral part of the higher education system. Stand-alone technical universities, health science universities, legal and agricultural universities, or institutions in these or other fields, will aim to become multi-disciplinary institutions.

(xxvi) Teacher Education –Introduction of 4-year integrated stage-specific, subject- specific Bachelor of Education.

(xxvii)  Establishing a National Mission for Mentoring.

(xxviii) Creation of an autonomous body, the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) to provide a platform for the free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration. Appropriate integration of technology into all levels of education.

(xxix) Achieving 100% youth and adult literacy.

(xxx) Introducing multiple mechanisms with checks and balances to combat and stop the commercialization of higher education.

(xxxi) All education institutions will be held to similar standards of audit and disclosure as a ‘not for profit’ entity.

(xxxii)  The Centre and the States will work together to increase the public investment in Education sector to reach 6% of GDP at the earliest.

Education being in the concurrent list, Centre and States are equally responsible for providing quality education to all. Few States had expressed their concerns on certain issues related to the NEP, 2020. To address their concerns and also to discuss innovative ideas for NEP implementation, a series of workshops / consultation-cum-review meetings have been held with States/UTs from time to time.  Also implementation of NEP 2020 was discussed in National Education Ministers' Conference held in Gujarat in June 2022; National Conference of Chief Secretaries held in June 2022; 7th Governing Council Meeting of NITI Aayog held in August 2022; Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Samagam 2022 and 2023 etc.

The information was given by the Minister of State for Education, Dr. Subhas Sarkar in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

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