Mumbai: New education policy to focus on individual

Soon, there will be ranking system for schools too, just like higher education institutions. Drafts of the new National Education Policy declared by the government plans to bring in many changes in the existing system, one of which is assessment and accreditation framework for schools. It will be applicable to all schools irrespective of type and nature of schools - board, government or private.

The committee, led by former ISRO chief Dr Kasturirangan, submitted the draft National Educational Policy (NEP) to HRD Minister on Friday. The much-elaborated policy also recognises sector of Early Childhood Education by terming it as foundation of learning stating that over 85 per cent of cumulative brain development occurs prior to the age of six.

"The SCERT will develop a School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Framework (SQAAF) for each State. SQAAF will set standards on a few basic parameters, which schools must fulfill/meet, in order to obtain regulatory approval to function as a school.

The basic parameters will only address: safety and security of all within the school, essential infrastructure required to run the school, explicit statement of a curriculum number of teachers and their distribution with respect to the number of students, subjects, and grades taught at the school, probity in all aspects of functioning, and processes of governance including public and transparent disclosure of all such regulatory information. On infrastructure, a 'one-size-fits-all' approach will not be adopted, it will be responsive to local reality, while ensuring adequacy from a perspective of safety and security," states the policy.

Following the assessments and accreditation, all the data will be made available on a public website for people at large to take an informed decision. While the same policy about accreditation will be extended for private schools, one important parameter there will include - private schools will not use the word 'public' in their names. 'Public' schools will only be those that are funded publicly, ie, government schools and government-aided schools. The NEP for the first time also elaborates on Early Childhood Education and not only emphasises on curriculand states plans to include ages of 3 to 6 years in the RTE.

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