Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Interim Budget 2024-2025 today on 1 February. The budget outlined the government’s agenda for the remaining term. During her budget session speech in Parliament, FM Sitharaman emphasized the growth of higher educational institutions. The rise in women enrolling in STEM courses over the past decade and the national education policy (2020) are driving a significant transformative change.

About National Education Policy(NEP) 2020 

The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) outlines a massive transformation in education as “an education system rooted in Indian ethos that contributes directly to transforming India, that is Bharat, sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high-quality education to all, thereby making India a global knowledge superpower.”

NEP 2020 is built upon the five guiding pillars of accessibility, equity, affordability, quality, and accountability. It will prepare our youth for the twenty-first century’s numerous domestic and global challenges. 

NEP 2020 ushering transformational change says FM Sitharaman

School Educational insights  

In school education, the National Education Policy 2020 stresses the core values and principle that education must develop not only the cognitive skills, that is, – both ‘foundational skills’ of literacy and numeracy, as well as “higher-order” abilities like problem-solving and critical thinking, but also social and emotional abilities, sometimes known as “soft skills,” such as empathy and cultural awareness, tenacity and grit, cooperation, leadership, and communication, among others.

The Policy aims to provide universal pre-primary education to all children by 2025, ensuring that all children acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills for primary school and beyond.

It makes numerous recommendations for changes to the educational system at all levels to guarantee the quality of education. These include strengthening teacher preparation programs, changing the current exam and assessment system, changing the curriculum to include pedagogy with a 5+3+3+4 design for students in the age range of 3 to 18 years, and restructuring the education regulatory framework. 

Insights on Higher education

Moving toward multidisciplinary and holistic education, institutional autonomy, promoting high-quality research through the creation of the National Research Foundation, ongoing professional development for teachers, technology integration, internationalization of higher education, reorganizing governance and regulatory architecture, multidisciplinary curricula, engaging blended pedagogy, valid, reliable, and blended assessment, and content availability in Indian languages are just a few of the topics covered in Higher Education, NEP, 2020. 

More medical colleges to be set up soon, the Finance Minister says. “Our government plans to set up more medical colleges by utilizing the existing hospital infrastructure.” she further stated that a committee would be established for this specific purpose to look into the problems and offer pertinent recommendations.

The National Education Policy 2020 brings revolutionary educational changes for India on the rise. It is delivering quality teaching and nurturing, holistic and well-rounded individuals scaling their mission to one point,’ Sitharaman said in the Parliament.