National education policy 2020 announced

The Union Cabinet has given approval to National Education Policy 2020. The new policy has imbibed major changes in higher education promoting an added focus on non-academic skills and added inclusion through offering language diversity and course flexibility.

Key points of NEP 2020:

1	10+2 board structure is dropped and replaced by a new school structure of 5+3+3+4. This curricular structure corresponds to ages 3-8, 8-11, 11-14, and 14-18 years respectively. This new structure will include a foundational stage from 3 to 8, three years of pre-primary education from 8 to 11, a preparatory stage from 11 to 14, while the second stage would comprise 14 to 18 years.
2	Foundational – Preschool 3 years, Grade 1-2Preparatory – Grade 3-5 Middle School – Grade 6-8 High School – Grade 9-12
3	Any Degree will be 4 years
4	6th std onwards vocational courses available. Students will also be taught coding in schools as a part of 21st-century skills.
5	From 8th to 11th, students can choose subjects.
6	All graduation courses will have major and minor. For Example – science students can have Physics as Major and Music as minor also. Any combination can be chosen.
7	Only one authority will govern all the higher education.
8	UGC and AICTE will be merged.
9	All University government, private, Open, Deemed, Vocational etc will have the same grading and other rules.
10	New Teacher Training board will be set up for all kinds of teachers in the country, no state can change.
11	The same level of Accreditation to any college, based on its rating the college will get autonomous rights and funds.
12	The new Basic learning program will be created by the government for parents to teach children up to 3 years at home and for preschool 3 to 6
13	Multiple entries and exit from any course.
14	Credit system for graduation for each year student will get some credits which he can utilize if he takes a break in the course and comes back again to a complete course.
15	All schools exams will be semester wise twice a year in order to reduce the importance and stress of board exam.
16	The syllabus will be reduced to the core essentials of any subject only. An inquiry-based, discovery-based, discussion-based, and analysis-based learning will be encouraged.
17	Bagless days will be encouraged throughout the year for various types of enrichment activities involving arts, quizzes, sports, and vocational crafts.
18	More focus will be given on a student’s practical and application knowledge.
19	For any graduation course if a student completes only one year he will get a basic certificate, if he completes two years then he will get a Diploma certificate and if he completes the full course then he will get a degree certificate. So no year of any student will be wasted if he breaks the course in between.
20	All the graduation course feed of all Universities will be governed by the single authority with capping on each course.
21	The mother tongue or local or regional language is to be the medium of instruction in all schools up to Class 5. One can learn Sanskrit at all levels while foreign languages will be offered at the secondary school level. However, there are no strict regulations on imposing language compulsion on any student”.