NEP 2020 SEMINAR
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
W.B. Yeats
The Modern School, Ghaziabad organised a Seminar on the National Education Policy for the Parents and Teachers on 30th October, 2021 from 9:00 am to 12:45 pm. Eminent Educationists - our speakers for the seminar, Ms Neelima Sharma (Associate Vice President, English Language, Asia Trinity College, London), Ms Meera Balachandran ( Education Quality Foundation of India (former Principal Ramjas School RK Puram 1974 to 2008 ),Ms Charu Malhotra ( Co-founder & Managing Director, Social Development, Primus Partners), and Ms Renu Punhana (Academic Expert, Primus Partners) addressed and interacted with the Teachers and Parents.
The main objective of this Seminar was to create awareness about the newly launched National Education Policy-2020 amongst teachers, students and parents. This is the third Education Policy in India after independence (1968, 1986 and 2020).
The first slot of seminar began with the Introduction of Education Commission, a brief about the curriculum, pedagogy and syllabus was given by Ms Neelima Sharma.
Ms Neelima also emphasised on Competency-based learning, 21st Century skills, Information, Media and Technology literacy followed by the need to reduce curriculum content to enhance essential learning and critical thinking. This in turn would reflect upon the overall holistic development of learners. She also emphasised on Language Education, Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat Project wherein Sanskrit has been chosen as an important language in the 8th module of constitution. Furthermore, she also shed light on the Features of Foundation, Middle and Secondary Stage and major changes in school education.
An assessment framework is a description and discussion about what an assessment intends to measure.
Ms Meera Balachandran explained the 3 A's for Assessment, NEP Assessment, what all an assessment framework include followed by a web chart on Assessment and the Teaching learning process. Ms Meera emphasised on Assessment Literacy, components and the new terminology in assessment. Ms Meera also explained about NEP Boards which will test primarily core capacities/ competencies rather than memorisation which may over time also reduce pressure and coaching culture. She further explained about MCQs based pen-paper Examination where she mentioned about the types of MCQ's & Assessment Reporting. She concluded the session by elucidating the steps to providing a good feedback .
The second slot of seminar focused on Competency based framework of NEP. The session began with the importance of language and a glimpse about the background of literacy.
Ms Charu explained about the principles guiding the discourse on National Education Policy, how NEP promotes Curricular Integration of Subjects, Skills and Capacities. This was followed by a survey question about the skills required to thrive in 2020 where 'creativity' was among the top 3 skills. Ms Charu and Ms Renu highlighted how content creation is important for communication that transcends language barriers, how students need to gather information from various resources, synthesize and evaluate the content and how teachers have to find innovative ways to engage students in an online mode.
They also focused on the Learning Cycle, the four capacities that should be built up in a student (inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership), key changes in moving from traditional to Competency based framework, Math Skills, transforming the current curriculum into a frontline curriculum, Cross Curricular Linkages and ICT as a key lever of the Education Policy.
This policy envisions a complete overhaul and re-energizing of the higher education system to overcome these challenges and thereby deliver high-quality higher education, with equity and inclusion.
We really appreciate the wealth of knowledge shared today with all of us. It was truly a helpful, interactive and informative Seminar.