National Education Policy OPINION
RADICAL SUGGESTIONS
FOR CURRICULAR AND
PEDAGOGICAL STRUCTURE
Ashok Ganguly, former Chairman of Central Board of Secondary Education, shares
his views on the proposed 5+3+3+4 model of school education in the draft NEP...
ASHOK GANGULY,
Former Chairman,
Central Board of
Secondary EducationBoost for commercialisation?
There is a lot of commercialisation of
school education in India and there is
no exaggeration if I say that school edu-
cation in India is perhaps the costliest
in the world because of huge numbers of
private players entering into it and there
are no takers for government schools.
Now with this proposed new frame-
work, commercialisation will be further
boosted as private players are going to
make the best use of it with govern-
ment schools lagging behind because
of paucity of space, infrastructure and
inadequate manpower.Safety factor
If we look into the historical perspec-
tive, secondary schools in India usually
started from class 6 and a secondary
school was from class 6 to 10 or 12 as
the case may be. It has a rationale so
that students of equivalent age groups
are in a bigger school and not very low
age group kids are mixed with grown
up children. It is only in the mission-
ary schools and later on in Kendriya
Vidyalayas that the secondary school
began from class 1 onwards. Later on, as
commercialisation in school education
started flowing, the missionary schools
and some private schools started open-
ing pre-primary classes and admitted
kids of age group 4+/5+ in big school
environment. Earlier they restricted
the children to only one year or two
years of pre-primary schooling. Now
with draft policy including three yearsT
he draft for new education
policy is out and on expected
lines. It generated huge inter-
est and curiosity amongst all
sections of people. The first New Edu-
cation Policy (NEP) came into being
in 1968 just after the Kothari Commis-
sion report and it carefully examined
all the issues across the entire spectrum
of education prevalent at that time. It
proposed 10+2 structure in school edu-
cation, which was further substantiated
in NEP 1986 with the rider that there
would be compulsory core curriculum
approach in the first ten years of school-
ing. It worked very well – with only
exception that there was no flexibil-
ity inbuilt into the system in the first
ten years of school education. Every-
one had to study the same curriculum
which resulted in same teaching pace
and same evaluation for all types of
children. It was a classic example of ‘one
size fits all system’.
School curriculum
The present Kasturirangan Commit-
tee appears to have examined several
complex issues as well as other inad-
equacies in our education system very
thoroughly. It touches some burning
issues in school education like the
curriculum and pedagogical struc-
ture along with flexibility, integration
of non-cognitive skills at all levels of
school education and more rigorous
outcome-based school regulation.
The draft policy suggested restruc-
turing of school curriculum and peda-
gogy in a new 5+3+3+4 design. It means
three years of pre-primary school and
Grades 1, 2 grouped as Foundational
Stage, Grades 3, 4, 5 as Latter Primary
or Preparatory Stage, Grades 6, 7, 8
as Middle Stage and Grades 9, 10, 11,
12 as four years of Secondary Stage.
This is altogether different from earlier
5+3+2+2 framework. This means that
instead of having 12 years of schooling,
we will now have 15 years of schooling
from age 3 to 18.
Globally, there are 13 years of school-
ing in many countries and our stu-
dents in the past did face some prob-
lems because of having one year of less
schooling. But as far as to my knowl-
edge, nowhere in the world there are 15
years of schooling. Thus, a three-year
kid will now enter the school environ-
ment and will study alongside 18-year-
old adult on the same campus. In many
countries in the world, a 6 + or even 7
+ child enters the school environment
and he/she has the best of education
system as far as learning outcome is
concerned.