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Prime Minister Narendra Modi: eventful decade for Indian education

the BJP’s big promise was that it would frame a new Na- NEP 2020 promises a National Research Foundation and a
tional Education Policy to usher in sweeping reforms from green light for top-ranked foreign universities to establish
early childhood to higher education. owned campuses in India.
After it won General Election 2014 with a huge margin, The Covid-19 pandemic which shuttered all education
the BJP government immediately set to work to deliver institutions for over 80 weeks, slowed the implementa-
this promise and constituted a National Education Policy tion of NEP 2020. But since 2021, the BJP government
(NEP) drafting committee under the chairmanship of for- at the Centre has actioned several initiatives including the
mer Union cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian. However National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for Foundational
the Subramaniam Committee report, submitted in 2016, Stage 2022 and NCF for School Education 2023 — two of
was rejected for mysterious reasons. Another NEP Draft the four curriculum frameworks recommended by the Kas-
Committee was constituted under the leadership of space turirangan Committee and incorporated into NEP 2020.
scientist Dr. K. Kasturirangan (KR) which submitted a de- The other two — NCF for Teacher Education and NCF for
tailed 484-page report on May 31, 2019 to the BJP govern- Adult Education — are expected to be announced soon.
ment, after it began its second term in office at the Centre. “The biggest positive of the past decade is that education
A year later, NEP 2020, based on the KR report, was pre- received high national visibility, whether it’s through roll-
sented to the nation. The 66-page NEP 2020, formulated af- ing out of a new National Education Policy after 34 years,
ter an interregnum of 34 years, has been widely welcomed. or initiatives such as the Pariksha Pe Charcha programme
It accords high priority to early childhood education; man- chaired by PM Modi himself. I give the government full
dates holistic school education with compulsory vocational marks for keeping education in the news and limelight,”
learning; exam reforms to test children’s conceptual com- says Prof. Rishikesh B.S, head of the Hub for Educa-
prehension and critical thinking capabilities rather than tion, Law and Policy at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.
memory; certified multiple exit and re-entry options and According to Rishikesh, major achievements of the BJP
a transferable credits system in higher education; phasing government are NEP 2020 and subsequent National Cur-
out the currently obligatory affiliation system for under- riculum Frameworks for the Foundational Stage (NCF-FS)
grad colleges and graded autonomy for undergrad colleges and School Education (NCF-SE). “NEP 2020 was drafted
under a ‘light but tight’ regulatory framework. Moreover, after an extraordinarily participative and collaborative pro-

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