National Education Policy 2020: Schooling reform from 2022-23, 60-point action plan drawn up

NEW DELHI: The education ministry has drawn up a near 60-point action plan for reforming the schooling system in the country in line with recommendations made in the new National Education Policy, 2020 and plans to get it started in the 2022-23 academic session.

A twin examination format, exams in classes 3, 5 and 8, and a voluntary national-level entrance exam for all higher educational institutes are in the priority list, people familiar with the matter told ET.

The larger aim is to ‘demystify’ school education, reduce unnecessary burden, and yet ensure improvement in learning levels, they said. The National Testing Agency has been tasked with setting up a committee for review of all entrance exams for admissions to higher education institutions (HEIs), and design a standard entrance exam ‘as an option’. The idea is not to make it a mandatory exam but one that HEIs may undertake it voluntarily, sources said. As of now, getting admission in higher education institutes is a high stakes and high pressure system.In line with recommendations made in NEP, various steps will be taken by the 2022-23 academic session “to reduce the burden of exams at all levels”. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) have been tasked with the same.

Both CBSE and NIOS are to shift to a system of holding two kinds of exams – one objective type and one subjective type – by 2022-23 academic session. CBSE will prepare assessment patterns for both formative and summative assessments and evaluation procedures for elementary education for implementation in the 2022-23 academic session. For the examinations in grades 3, 5 and 8—which are to be introduced as recommended in NEP—a system of analysing anonymised samples shall be developed by CBSE and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan that runs the chain of central schools and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas.

NCERT has been asked to develop a three-months-long, play-based school preparation module for grade 1 students to make them school ready. With focus on arresting the decline in learning levels, NCERT will finetune learning outcomes for all grades, from pre-primary to grade 12, to meet the requirements of NEP 2020.

Item banks for classes 1to 5 related to the measurement or achievement of each learning outcomes (at least 500 items per grade) will be developed by NCERT. It will also develop infographics, posters, and bite-sized films separately on each learning outcome to ‘demystify’ them to stakeholders-.Work on this 2022-23 mission will start right away, insiders said.Within the next three months, the education ministry will launch the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FL&N) programme in all states and union territories with year-wise national targets to be achieved by 2025-26.