Aovious : Steps taken for Educational Reforms

Steps taken for Educational Reforms

The Government is committed to –

Improve the quality of education
Realize India’s human resource potential to its fullest in the education sector with equity and inclusion
To provide equitable access to quality education to all sections of the society

All reform initiatives are also through consensus evolved between the Centre and the States through the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), which is a composite body and is also the highest advisory body on education.

Elementary education

Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009: Free and compulsory education of children in the 6 to 14 age group in India became a fundamental right when, in 2002, Article 21-A was inserted in the 86th Amendment to the Constitution. The three provisions are:

Ensuring retention
Pupil-to-Teacher ratio
Decentralisation of academic schedules

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme: Aims for improvements in school infrastructure and in teaching and learning

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA):To enhance access to secondary education and to improve its quality

Additional physical facilities to be provided: (i) Additional class rooms, (ii) Laboratories, (iii) Libraries, (iv) Art and crafts room, (v) Toilet blocks, (vi) Drinking water provisions and (vii) Residential Hostels for Teachers in remote areas.
Important quality interventions provided: (i) appointment of additional teachers to reduce PTR to 30:1, (ii) focus on Science, Math and English education, (iii) In-service training of teachers, (iv) science laboratories, (v) ICT enabled education, (vi) curriculum reforms; and (vii) teaching learning reforms.

Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Teacher Education (CSSTE): To create a sound institutional infrastructure for pre-service and in-service training of elementary & secondary school teachers and for provision of academic resource support to elementary and secondary schools.

Shaala Siddhi: The National Programme on School Standards and Evaluation (NPSSE), known as Shaala Sidhdhi is a comprehensive instrument for school evaluation leading to school improvement.

Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan: To inculcate a spirit of inquiry, creativity and love for Science and Mathematics in school children.

Higher education

Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA):Aims at providing strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions

Improve the overall quality of state institutions by ensuring conformity to prescribed norms and standards and adopt accreditation as a mandatory quality assurance framework.
Usher transformative reforms in the state higher education system by creating a facilitating institutional structure for planning and monitoring at the state level, promoting autonomy in State Universities and improving governance in institutions.
Ensure reforms in the affiliation, academic and examination systems.
Ensure adequate availability of quality faculty in all higher educational institutions and ensure capacity building at all levels of employment.
Create an enabling atmosphere in the higher educational institutions to devote themselves to research and innovations.
Expand the institutional base by creating additional capacity in existing institutions and establishing new institutions, in order to achieve enrolment targets.
Correct regional imbalances in access to higher education by setting up institutions in unserved & underserved areas.
Improve equity in higher education by providing adequate opportunities of higher education to SC/STs and socially and educationally backward classes; promote inclusion of women, minorities, and differently abled persons.

Global Initiative for Academics Network (GIAN): Brings talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs, internationally must be engaged with the institutes of Higher Education in India so as to augment the country’s existing academic resources, accelerate the pace of quality reform, and elevate India’s scientific and technological capacity to global excellence.

Impacting Research, Innovation & Technology (IMPRINT): To address the major science and engineering challenges that India must address and champion to enable, empower and embolden the nation for inclusive growth and self-reliance. This novel initiative with twofold mandate is aimed at:

Developing new engineering education policy
Creating a road map to pursue engineering challenges

Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP): Aims to upscale and support ongoing efforts in improving quality of technical education and enhancing existing capacities of the institutions to become dynamic, demand-driven, quality conscious, efficient and forward looking, responsive to rapid economic and technological developments occurring both at national and international levels.

Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT): To address comprehensively all issues related to teachers, teaching, teacher preparation and professional development.

The Mission would address, on the one hand, current and urgent issues such as supply of qualified teachers, attracting talent into teaching profession and raising the quality of teaching in schools and colleges.
On the other, it is also envisaged that the Teacher Mission would pursue long term goal of building a strong professional cadre of teachers by setting performance standards and creating top class institutional facilities for innovative teaching and professional development of teachers

Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM): To achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality. The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged. SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.

National Digital Library: To integrate several national and international digital libraries in one single web-portal. The NDL provides free access to many books in English and the Indian languages.

Uchhatar Avishkar Abhiyan: For making the bridge between the academics and the practical working field – industrial exposure for skill building

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan: To connect institutions of higher education, including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs) etc. with local communities to address the development challenges through appropriate technologies. The objectives are broadly two-fold:

Building institutional capacity in Institutes of higher education in research & training relevant to the needs of rural India
Provide rural India with professional resource support from institutes of higher education, especially those which have acquired academic excellence in the field of Science, Engineering & Technology and Management

Policy Reforms

New Education Policy (NEP) (under the Chairmanship of Dr. K. Kasturirangan) is being framed for meeting the changing dynamics of the population’s requirement with regard to quality education, innovation and research, aiming 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, for which wide ranging consultations were undertaken at multiple levels of online, expert/thematic and grassroots from village to State, Zonal levels as well as at the National level.

Change in NCERT curriculum:

National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has been advised to undertake an exercise to review its syllabus with a view to reducing the curriculum load on the students.

Why: The purpose of education is to bring out a good human being out of the system. For real development along with knowledge, Life Skill education, value education, physical education, experiential learning is essential. Creative skills need to be nurtured. And because of heavy curriculum, there is no time left for all these aspects.

Plan of action for reducing the Curriculum burden:

Analysis of NCERT’s syllabi and textbooks across subject areas and classes focusing on the following: