Welcome to our primer on the National Education Policy 2023 (NEP 2023). With this article, we hope to simplify this crucial and important education framework for students and parents.

विद्या सर्वस्य भूषणम् – Knowledge is everyone’s ornament

In India, the pursuit of knowledge (vidya) through education is a national passion. A high-quality education is considered a pathway to a life rich with opportunities, possibilities, and ultimately, wealth and success. India’s policy-makers have always known this. They have also always known that an educated population is the key to a developed, prosperous, and globally influential India. To satisfy both needs, the central government’s Ministry of Education formulates a National Education Policy (NEP). 

India’s first NEP was announced in 1968. It was then modified a few times over the following decades. The latest NEP was established in 2020 under the aegis of the Modi government. It is scheduled to go into effect during the 2023-24 academic year, which is why it is interchangeably known as the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) or National Education Policy 2023 (NEP 2023).

Impact of NEP 2023

It is widely believed that NEP 2023 will transform the Indian education system over the coming years, so it’s not surprising that it has captured the attention of the entire country. However, there are two particular sets of (very important) stakeholders who are unsure about what the NEP 2023 actually means or how it will affect them. And these are the Indian students and their parents.

If you are an Indian student or parent facing this challenge, this article will help you to understand the key points of the NEP 2023 and its main implications. Keep reading to learn.

What is the National Education Policy 2023?

The Union Cabinet approved and released the latest National Education Policy on 29th July 2020. It replaces the outdated and inadequate National Education Policy 1986, which lacked in teaching/learning methods, school structures, textbook content quality, teacher abilities, learning outcomes, and board governance. The NEP 2023 aims to address these gaps through comprehensive reforms and guidelines. It envisions a modern education system in India, closely aligned with the new learning and work demands of the 21st century, capable of transforming India into a vibrant and global knowledge superpower.

The aims and principles of the NEP 2023

The chief aim of the NEP 2023 is to revolutionize India’s outdated (and dare we say, ineffective?) education system through a slew of changes. It emphasises conceptual learning rather than rote learning and learning-for-exams. It also promotes teaching that will improve students’ creativity and “life skills”, and inculcate in them ethical and human values like courtesy, respect for public property, justice, and spirit of service.

The NEP 2023 also aims to do away with summative assessments that have given rise to today’s hyper-competitive coaching culture. Instead, it instead promotes regular formative assessments to test learners’ higher-order skills, such as analysis, critical thinking, and conceptual clarity to encourage true learning and all-round development.

Some of the important focus areas and underlying principles of NEP 2023 are:

• Education should be available to all Indian students in a fair and equitable manner.
• Students from marginalised, disadvantaged, and underrepresented groups must be provided targeted opportunities to excel at their studies. 
• Teachers and parents must be sensitised to promote students’ “holistic” development and analysis-based learning; and help teachers to do so by giving them access to appropriate training, tools, and service environments.
• All students should attain foundational literacy and numeracy (basic reading/writing/arithmetic skills) by Grade 3.
• All learners should have the flexibility to choose their own learning paths and programmes according to their interests and talents.
• Institutions should use technology to improve students’ learning outcomes, including educational software, simulations, learning games, virtual games, online assessments, educational platforms like DIKSHA, and disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and virtual reality
• Schools should start providing students with vocational exposure in middle and secondary school to give them a head-start on a vocational career (if they wish to have one).

Overall, the NEP 2023 envisions a more modern education system that democratises learning and encourages holistic learning and development. It aims to bring Indian education on part with international standards. At the same time, it encourages learners to take pride in India’s rich values and culture, perform their fundamental duties, and respect its constitutional values.

NEP 2023 and primary/secondary education: Key changes proposed and implications for students and parents

The NEP 2023 proposes many substantial changes to the existing educational system. These are explained below:

1. Schools to ensure foundational literacy and numeracy by Grade 3

The NEP 2023 requires all state and UT governments to prepare their own implementation plans for attaining universal foundational literacy and numeracy in all primary schools by 2025. To attain this goal, schools should focus more on teaching reading, writing, speaking, counting, arithmetic, and mathematical thinking. To help them achieve this goal, the government will create a national repository of resources (including teaching-learning e-content) called Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) which teachers should access as needed to teach and support students.

2. Reduced curriculum content

The NEP 2023 proposes major changes to curriculum content for each subject. The content will only include the core essentials (concepts, ideas, applications, problems) of that subject. The goal is to improve students’ critical thinking ability and encourage holistic, inquiry-based, discovery-based, discussion-based, and analysis-based learning.

Also, teaching and learning will be more interactive and classroom sessions will contain more fun, creative, and exploratory activities to promote deeper and more experiential learning. Students will also be encouraged to collaborate with each other to learn better and retain more of what they learn inside and outside class. 

3. Focus on experiential learning

One of the chief goals of the NEP 2023 is to move the educational culture away from rote learning and towards real understanding of subject matter. To do this, it promotes holistic development of learners through experiential learning. This type of learning will include hands-on learning, arts-integrated education, sports-integrated education, and story-telling-based pedagogy. In other words, experimentation, arts, sports, and story-telling will be used to teach students and help them develop the skills that are critical for survival (and success!) in the 21st century.

4. Stronger language education

The new NEP 2023 proposes teaching languages in a fun and interactive style. Students will be required to learn 3 languages in school. They will be able to choose the languages they want to learn, as long as two of the languages are native to India. They can also change their languages in Grade 6 or 7 after demonstrating basic proficiency in three languages by the end of secondary school.

Students in Grades 6-12 can learn classical Indian languages interactively via experiential/gamification approaches with the help of technology. Between Grades 6-8, they will participate in a fun project/activity on ‘The Languages of India. The project’s sole aim is to improve their awareness of India’s cultural heritage and will therefore not include assessments.

5. Fewer exams to reduce the stress on students

One great news for students is that the NEP 2023 aims to reduce their exam burden. Exams will not be conducted every year but only in Grades 3, 5, and 8. Board exams will continue in Grades 10 and 12, albeit with significant changes (see below). 

6. Board exams for Grades 10 and 12: retained but reformed

The NEP 2023 retains the current board exam system for Grades 10 and 12. However, the exams will be redesigned to encourage holistic development. Students will be able to choose many of the subjects depending on their individual interests.

Also, the exams will mainly test students’ core capacities and competencies, so they don’t have to waste time on memorisation or money on coaching classes. Finally, all students will be allowed to take board exams up to two times in a school year to further reduce the pressure on them and to give them the chance to improve their assessment results (best-of-two).

7. School structure to be changed from 10+2 to 5+3+3+4

NEP 2023 proposes significant changes to the 10+2 school structure. The existing structure will be removed and replaced with a new 5+3+3+4 structure that will cover students from ages 3-18 across 4 stages.

To know more about these changes, see the next section.

NEP 2023 and the proposed 4-stage primary/secondary academic structure

In the pre NEP-2023 era, the academic structure was of type 10+2 where:

• Grades 1-10 covered students from ages 6-16
• Grades 11 and 12 covered students from ages 16-18

Research suggests that to ensure the brain’s healthy development, it’s essential to stimulate it in the child’s early years. However, with the current structure, a child’s formal education only starts at the age of 6 years. Since it doesn’t cover children in the age group of 3-6, it leaves too many worrying gaps for their early learning and development.

Another problem with the conventional structure is that it encourages rote learning and memorisation. It doesn’t encourage students to understand the subject matter, which is why their focus is always short-term (“pass exams”) rather than long-term (“attain vidya”).

The NEP 2023 aims to fill in these gaps with a completely new educational structure. In this structure, students at different ages will be classified into one of four distinct stages. Each stage has its own unique pedagogical structure and curriculum (albeit always rooted in the Indian and local context and ethos). Together, these phases will help to optimise the learning and development of every Indian student, and prepare them for the challenges and opportunities of the modern world.

1. Foundational stage

Covers: Students aged 3-8 years

Grades:

• Part 1:: 3 years of Anganwadi / Pre-Primary / Balvatika,
• Part 2: 1 year each in Grade 1 and Grade 2

During the foundational stage, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) form a robust base with five years of diverse, interactive, and inquiry-driven learning methods. These include play-based and activity-oriented approaches aimed at enhancing a child’s overall learning and development, including foundational literacy and numeracy skills, right from an early age.

Students will be taught mathematics and computational thinking starting with the foundational stage. The focus on these areas will increase over the next three stages. There will be no internal exams in the foundational stage.

To help educational institutions provide such early education, the NCERT will develop a curricular and pedagogical framework. The framework will also act as a guide for parents of young children so they can see exactly what their wards are being taught. The framework will also exhibit the positive impact of these teachings on their young minds.

2. Preparatory stage

• Covers: Students aged 8-11 years
• Grades: 3, 4, 5

The preparatory stage will build on the play, discovery, and activity-based learning of the foundational stage. It will also include some light textbooks and interactive classroom learning to lay a solid groundwork for reading, writing, speaking, physical education, art, languages, science, and mathematics. Students will take school exams in Grades 3 and 5 to help the institution track their learning progress and implement measures to bring lagging students up-to-speed with their peers. The Grade 3 exam will test students’ basic literacy, numeracy, and other foundational skills.

3. Middle stage

• Covers: Students aged 11-14 years
• Grades: 6, 7, 8

This stage will build on the pedagogy and curriculum of the preparatory stage by introducing subject teachers across the subjects in sciences, mathematics, arts, social sciences, and humanities.

Subject teachers will encourage experiential learning. They will also help students to understand more abstract concepts in each subject and explore the relationships between different subjects (e.g., Physics and Maths).

In this stage, educators will introduce activities involving coding. They will also expose students to vocational crafts such as electric work, metalwork, gardening, etc., through hands-on experiences and internships with local vocational experts. They will also be introduced to skills like financial literacy in schools. This early introduction to vocational learning will enable them to make better career choices in the secondary and post-secondary stages.

Students will take school exams in Grade 8 to help the institution track their learning progress and implement measures to bring lagging students up-to-speed with their peers.

4. Secondary stage

• Covers: Students aged 14-18 years
• Grades: 9, 10, 11, 12

The secondary stage will comprise 4 years of “multi-disciplinary” study. It will build on the subject-oriented teaching style of the middle stage but with greater depth into every subject. In addition, it will help students to improve their critical thinking skills and develop useful life skills like resilience, cooperation, and communication.

Teachers will pay more attention to students’ life aspirations and the latter will have the flexibility to choose their own subjects for further study. Also, students can choose to pursue vocational or some kind of specialised studies after Grade 10 (i.e., in Grades 11-12) as per their individual study and life plans.

NEP 2023: College and Higher education reforms – implications for students and parents

Although a majority of the NEP 2023 focuses on reforming primary and secondary education in India, it also proposes several changes to the higher education sector.

Multi-disciplinary Bachelor’s Degrees

One, it introduces multidisciplinary Bachelor’s degrees, a flexible 3- or 4-year undergraduate programme to help students gain proficiency in a particular, desired skillset. They can choose to exit the programme after gaining a diploma (after studying for 2 years) or certificate (after studying for 1 year). Or they could go on to complete the entire 3- or 4-year course to earn a formal Bachelor’s degree. In addition, students can earn a degree “with Research” by completing a research project during the 4th year of study. 

Students will also be able to choose different types of Master’s programmes, depending on their Bachelor’s degree and the amount of time they want to devote to higher studies (and to conducting research). The existing M.Phil degree will be discontinued.

For all kinds of programmes and degrees, higher education institutions will adopt a criterion-based grading system that assesses student achievements based on learning goals. The aim is to make the assessment system fairer and more equitable. Institutes will also implement continuous evaluation and move away from high-stakes examinations.

Financial Assistance Opportunities

Once NEP 2023 is in full force, Indian students will have the option to learn from an international university at a campus in India. They will also be able to access more opportunities for financial assistance via the National Scholarship Portal.

Improve Professional Education

The NEP 2023 also proposes numerous changes to revive and improve professional education in India and bring it on par with international education. It includes courses related to:

• Agriculture
• Healthcare
• Legal
• Engineering
• Architecture
• Management
• Hotel management
• Town planning
• Pharmacy

In addition, the NEP 2023 aims to develop a comprehensive framework for adult education that will help to improve Indian adults’ literacy, numeracy, basic education, and vocational skills.

Conclusion

The National Education Policy 2023 proposes sweeping changes to India’s education system. With these changes, it promotes inclusivity, skill-based education, and experiential learning. It encourages the adoption of new technologies to enhance learning outcomes. It also includes suggestions to improve both teachers’ skills and the country’s overall learning infrastructure. All in all, NEP 2023 aims to transform India’s educational sector and revolutionise the way we Indians learn, develop, work, and succeed in life.

That said, the comprehensive nature of the NEP 2023 makes it hard to understand – a common complaint by Indian parents and students! This article highlights its main points as well as its implications for these individuals.

PARENTS! If you need further information about the NEP 2023 or more customised advice about how it affects you or your child, please contact us at finkeyz. Our career experts will be happy to help and guide your child to identify the best-suited careers based on their strengths, interests, and aptitudes. By doing so, they will have the best chance of thriving in the demanding 21st century world. And isn’t that your fondest wish as a doting parent?