12 Steps To Education In 2021

From the government and policymakers to teachers and students– everyone must adapt to the new system of education

- Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury

The year gone by saw a microbe running riots on the entire human race, changing even the way we lived and worked. Like any other sector, education, too, went into a complete overhaul. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to shut down campuses and move to the digital format of learning.

While on one hand, 52 per cent of 283 million students in India beyond the primary education are in zero-education domain, the rest is at varying levels of digitally delivered education. The discussion we often do in a public domain is mostly in English, through which we can touch only the luckier 48 per cent of the pie or even a smaller part of them.

Education now calls for higher and more proactive involvement of policymakers in governance, entrepreneurs in private sectors, administrators in both public and private institutions, faculty members or mentors and learners or students. A twelve-point blueprint under five categories can help chart a roadmap for education in 2021.

Policymakers In Governance

First, the government must give a clear list of things to be done by educational institutes before April to implement the new education policy. While the government put up a great vision in the 64-page policy document last year, it is yet to spell out the implementation roadmap for it. From vision to on-ground execution is a long, arduous journey.

Second, the government has to spell out the specific measures to be executed over the next 12 months, at which level of education, what will be the regional and linguistic variations, and how shall we account for the infrastructure needed to implement the policy, at least in state-run institutions.