The new education policy draft, expected to focus on rationalisation of school curriculum to reduce academic load and create more time for sports and snip off overlapping regulations, is likely to be delivered to the Centre by October 31.

The much awaited draft, which has seen four extensions, has been finalised and it is expected to pay particular attention to Indian languages, sports and mathematics, overlapping and multiple regulatory mechanisms in higher education and strengthening of public institutions.

After it’s submission, the ministry of human resource development will examine it to add or delete before presenting it to Parliament. The revision is a significant exercise as the education policy in place was framed in 1986 and was revised in 1992.

The new national education policy (NEP) was an election promise by the Modi government and repeated delays, including setting up of a new committee under former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Kasturirangan in June 2017, has raised a question mark whether it will be adopted before the term of the government ends in May, 2019.

However, according to reliable sources in the government, the policy has been framed with a 20-year-vision (2020-2040) and “therefore, the government has ample time for it to be presented for approval by both the Houses.” As reported by TOI earlier the draft policy could be presented in Parliament in the winter session.

The deadline for the committee tasked with drafting the NEP was moved to October 31, 2018 after the third deadline of August 31 was extended in July 2018. Initially the former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian-headed panel was entrusted with the task of drafting the new NEP when Smriti Irani was the HRD minister. The committee submitted its report in 2016. However, the government set up the Kasturirangan committee with eight members in 2017 after HRD minister Prakash Javadekar took charge and asked it to frame the draft after taking inputs from the Subramanian committee report.

According to sources, the new policy will be in sync with many of the reforms already initiated by the government. “This has also been a reason for the delay as they keep on updating the draft. Big restructuring in the regulatory frame work is one of the focus. There will be increased stress on traditional knowledge, Indian languages and mathematics at school level.”

Sports as an integral part of school curriculum and rationalisation of the curriculum are some of the other areas. In fact, many of these areas have been mentioned on numerous occasions by the HRD minister Prakash Javadekar at various platforms.

Source : Economic Times