In course of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, major challenges have been categorized under three broad themes – School, Teacher and Child. Subsequently, during the Chief Secretary conference, 35 priority areas have been identified for major actions to be taken care of by the states.
Parent awareness drives will be conducted so that they can contribute to the quality of their child’s education. Twining of private and government schools should be done and private schools should adopt a remote school as part of their social obligation. Activities such as teacher exposure visits between private and government schools, hosting of government school students by private school students and joint sports competitions between private & government schools should be explored to increase exposure for both sets of students. Optimal utilization of resources should be systematically planned by the States/UTs on the concept of “Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA). There should be greater integration between Schools and Anganwadi centres and students from Anganwadis should be taken to nearby primary schools, where they should be given a platform to perform a song and creating confidence to prepare them for school. Also, the school teachers should orient the Anganwadi workers on teaching and learning for pre-school children. Adoption of Anganwadis by nearby schools should be properly planned. Hackathons should be organized, where students should provide innovative solutions to a variety of real-life problem statements created by different departments. Many of these solutions could be adopted to solve long-standing problems. Micro-improvements should be Continuously undertaken. Also activation of Tithi Bhojan concept must be activated as “Sabka Prayaas” to ensure supplementary nutrition for the school-going children.
Parents should confirm the teacher’s performance on the large photograph of the concerned teachers displayed in the classroom. The Campus-based recruitment drive, as done in technical colleges, for Teacher Education Institutions should be explored. Regular e-training should be promoted for capacity building of teachers to excel. Retired outstanding teachers should be invited for mentoring a cluster of schools and motivating its teachers. Efforts will be made to do away with single-teacher schools and adequate amenities should also be provided in the school. To make teaching and learning more engaging for TV-driven education, teachers should be encouraged to provide high quality content in various forms like animation, mono-acting, drama, dialogues etc.
To give a boost to access to high-quality content for each grade in the country, setting up of 200 TV channels has been planned. The content of these channels will be sourced by the teachers of the States/UTs. There should be peer-to-peer learning in the classrooms. To improve the learning trajectory of the students, classroom interactions through academic quiz is necessary.
SCERTs have a pivotal role to play in the implementation of NEP 2020 and hence all SCERTs in the country would need to be strengthened. All Teacher Education Institutions across the country have to adhere to certain norms and standards of the NCTE and gradually move towards a multidisciplinary environment. Under National Mentoring Mission (NMM), a unified learning interface in the form of a portal has been established where all the mentors will remain connected. National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) will focus on the preparation, practice and performance improvement of all teachers. Performance Grading Index (PGI) for the Districts, released by the Ministry of Education (MoE), assesses the performance of the school education system across 83 indicators and the report would be used by the States to accelerate the work in a particular district which is lagging behind. The progress with respect to these priority areas will be monitored by the NITI Aayog.
(The author is a technocrat & academician.)
