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School Education in NEP 2020
Released 34 years after the previous policy on education, the National Education Policy, 2020 is framed in a context that is unrecognisable from that of the past policies. This article examines the discursive framework underlying the current policymaking process.
The National Education Policy, 2020 (henceforth NEP 2020) is framed in a policy parlance, qualitatively different from that characterising the previous two national policies of 1968 and 1986. The possibilities for educational thinking it unveils (as also conceals) and the policy concerns it includes or excludes, reveal a value laden state policymaking exercise. Its ideological–philosophical moorings were readied by preceding draft policy documents released by the Government of India since 2016. These draft texts include: Ministry of Human Resource Development’s (MHRD) Subramanian Committee’s National Policy on Education 2016 report, its companion document “Some Inputs for a draft National Education Policy 2016,” NITI Aayog’s “Three Year Action Agenda” released in 2017, MHRD’s Kasturirangan Committee’s Draft NEP 2019 report and subsequent NITI Aayog’s “The Success of Schools: School Education Quality Index.” The salient features of these five drafts are evident in the NEP 2020’s underlying economistic framework. The 66 pages of NEP 2020 policy text read as if education is a benign process disconnected from its wider sociopolitical context. This article looks at three core underpinnings of the discursive framework underlying the current policy development process with reference to school education.
Overlooking Structural Inequality
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