Topic covered:
Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Draft National Education Policy (NEP)
What to study?
For prelims and mains: key features and significance of the policy.
Context: the draft National Education Policy (NEP) has been released.
Highlights of the draft:
- It proposes expansion of the RTE Act. It aims to cover the three years of preschool before Class 1.
- It wants early childhood education to be overseen and regulated by the Ministry of HRD as part of the school system.
- This will be in addition to the private pre-schools and anganwadis that currently cater to the 3-to-6 years age group.
- It suggests a new integrated curricular framework for 3 to 8-year olds with a flexible system based on play, activity and discovery, and beginning exposure to three languages from age 3 onwards.
- The NEP could result in an upheaval in the anganwadi system which has been overseen by the Ministry of WCD for more than four decades.
Sources: the Hindu.
