[Answered] Examine the role of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in shaping the rationalisation of textbooks and the curriculum in Indian schools. How does the policy aim to improve the quality and flexibility of school education?

National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has provided curricular guidelines in the form of National Curriculum Framework (NCF), which guides the updation and rationalisation of the textbooks and curriculum in the Indian schools.

Until now, the NCF of 2005 was being followed. Under the NEP 2020, new NCF is being developed. The Guidelines provided under NCF to rationalise the textbooks and curriculum includes:

• Remove the overlapping of content amongst different subjects in the same class.
• Reduce similar content in the lower or higher class in the same subject.
• Ease the difficulty levels.
• Content that is easily accessible to children and does not require much intervention from the teachers — it can be learned through self-learning or peer learning be done away with.
• Rationalise the content that is not relevant in the present context.

The NCF aims to improve the quality and flexibility of school education by the following ways:

• Most of the redesigning of the curriculum is to keep ‘Indian Roots’ as focus in the minds of the students.
• Once the new books and curriculum are released, the syllabus will also be aligned to PARAKH, the new assessment platform that the government is in the process of launching to ensure better study outcomes.
• Ten volumes of instructions on various areas such as Arts, Language, Maths, Sciences, Sports, Vocational Education and School Culture will be released, so that the quality of education can be holistically improved across India.
• The present practice of 11^th and 12^th in one of three streams (namely science, arts and commerce) will be changed to a secondary stage 9^th to 12^th, which will enable students to choose discipline (e.g., History, Physics, Language), from at least three curricular areas. Thus, the flexibility at terminal stage of school will allow different students to pursue different combination of subjects.
• Vocational Education, which will be aligned to National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) will add to the flexibility in school education.
• It will also aim to introduce Sports/Yoga/ games etc. to ensure holistic development of the students in school.
• Gender Equality and compassion are essential things that have been added to the curriculum.

However, the wide range of choices available to students on paper, might not translate to reality, as the low-cost-private-institutions that are schools might not be able to offer all the choices to the students. As a result, the planning and flexibility of NEP and NCF might remain a dead letter, unless efforts are taken to shore up the capacity of the schools on the ground.