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FOR IT ISN’T ENOUGH TO TALK ABOUT CHANGE, BUT TO PRACTICE
AND GIVE EFFECT TO IT: NEW EDUCATION POLICY

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” Many would agree to this

famous quote by John Dewey whereas many won’t. Especially if one lives in India, it
won’t be an exaggerated claim that the education system here prioritizes rote learning.
Hence, the former education system was the cause for dissatisfaction among all. If you
are an Indian student and you don’t perform well in class 12 board exams, you are
technically and morally doomed. However, the motive of education was never to stress
out the learners, but to make it riveting for all. Just as Steven Wright shared his
encounter with the dictionary to be amusing, “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it

was a poem about everything.”

Plato believed that education was the means to achieve justice- both individual and
social justice. Justice here implies excellence. Even though their speech was separated
in time, what is common in both of their ideals is for learning to be a meaningful
activity, because the students indulge in this process for more than two decades; which

means one’s entire childhood plus teenage years. However, this doesn’t mean that our
education policy has been inane and futile all along. But that what we required was a
revolution.

The big change here is the NEW EDUCATION POLICY 2020. NEP is a great step
towards a revolution, a long-awaited one. It has offered the beginning of learning with
a purpose, rejecting rote learning and laying the main emphasis on one’s language along

with vocational subjects to cater to the growing mind. Its basic attributes include the
change of schooling pattern from 10+2 to 5+3+3+4, meaning that the education
ministry has planned to modify and add to the pre-school learning. The new policy
offers many more new initiatives and interesting courses for all ages like coding and
carpentry, to name a few. Not only this, the severe importance of board exams is to be
reduced, thus, pleasantly relieving the students.

The policy aims to increase the GDP of the education sector by a large number. Thus,
it benefits the students and the economy. India, being a diverse nation has given its
students well versed education throughout the years. The education policy has been
inspired by the success of other nations, proving our tolerance towards them.

However, what we still need is hard core implementation, which would be difficult

according to the statistics of poverty and the inhibitions to adapt. Being a large and
diverse nation, this new step would be hard, but not impossible. Optimism is what
keeps the Indians going and will help to conquer any obstacles that come through.

Parinistha Narula

XII C
Illustration by- Nahaavi Bhanot, IX B