Govt launches consultations for drafting of new education policy

New Delhi: The government Monday launched the exhaustive exercise for holding consultations aimed at the drafting of a new national education policy and invited suggestions and discussions towards that end.

The launch was announced in all dailies across the country today with the public being asked to participate in the process on the website http://www.mygov.in.

"Suggestions are invited on 33 themes identified for discussions. Consultations will start soon from villages, block and districts to state and national level," said advertisements appearing in the dailies.

"The objective is to formulate a new education policy for the country through an inclusive, participatory and holistic approach.

"The government would like to bring out a National Education Policy to meet the changing dynamics of the population's requirement with regards to quality education, innovation and research," said a note on the website.

The aim of the initiative is to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in science, technology, academics and industry, it added.

People giving suggestions on the website would have to join a group. The group consists of tasks and discussions. Tasks are both online and on-the-ground. The discussions would enable participants to share their thoughts and ideas.

The National Policy on Education was framed in 1986 and modified in 1992. Since then, several changes have taken place that have seen calls for a revision of the policy.

HRD Minister Smriti Irani had earlier said that the consultation process would be exhaustive in nature and, unlike previous years when only a few officials were involved, all stakeholders, starting from childen and parents from the village to the block level, would be involved in the exercise.

The process could take as long as a year.

The 33 themes identified for discussions are divided under the two heads of School Education (13 themes) and Higher Education (20 themes).

For school education, the themes are improving learning outcomes, extending outreach of secondary and senior secondary education, strengthening of vocational education, reforming school examination system, revamping teacher education, accelerating rural literacy, promotion of information and communication technology, new approaches to teaching science and mathematics, school standards, promotion of languages and comprehensive education.

For higher education, the themes are governance reforms, ranking of institutions and accreditation, quality of regulation, roles of central institutions, improving state public universities, integrating skill development in higher education, promoting online and technology-enabled learning, addressing regional, gender and social disparities, cultural integration, private sector partnership, internationalisation, industry engagement to link education to employability, research and innovation.