Education is a dynamic process. It is interpreted by different persons from their backgrounds and ideals. Its psychological, philosophical, or pragmatic connotations also vary from one another. Taking the overall view, the goals and aspirations of any nation or group are directly or indirectly connected to this process. Therefore, we can’t put this process in a stagnated mode. It needs introspection, revision, and reformation. Like the other States, the government of India formulated various reports and set up several commissions from time to time to reform this education sector to attain the global standard in the entire education system.
This new policy of education titled “New National Education Policy 2020” is a step towards the same. Let us talk about one of the recommendations of this new education policy which deliberates upon the multidisciplinary approach in terms of flexibility of subject choices at the higher secondary level. According to this, a student is given a chance to opt for any subject of his/her choice. The policy further states that there will be no hard compartmentalization between arts, humanities, sciences, vocational, and academics. A student of a science background can opt for one of the subjects from any other stream, like arts, commerce stream, and vice versa. A student can also opt for any skill-based course. This flexibility certainly gives relief to the student community because the world is moving towards skill-based requirements but the idea that haunts a student right now is the non-availability of certain subjects or vocational courses in most educational institutions.
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There are cases where a student covered miles to get admission to a particular institution just to opt for the subjects of his/her own choice. There are Higher Secondary Institutions where Courses like Sociology, Economics, philosophy, IT, and Functional English are not available. The non-availability of such courses directly impacts the career of a student. I had an interaction with a group of students recently regarding their choice of subject and their aim in life. During the interaction, one of the students said, “My ambition is to sit in the IAS examination in the future, I have decided to opt for sociology as one of the subjects at a higher secondary level besides science subjects. The familiarity with sociology can help me to achieve this future goal ”.
Another student sitting in the back expressed a similar kind of wish and showed his interest in economics. But, unfortunately, these two subjects are not available in that particular higher secondary. In this process of a multi-disciplinary approach, students are the prime beneficiaries therefore, there is a need to make all subjects available in every Higher Secondary, so that students can opt for the subject as per their choice and need. Otherwise, the existence of such recommendations will remain restricted only to documents. No doubt, it will have a financial implication to make a maximum number of subjects available in all institutions. It requires infrastructure and manpower. But policymakers have a foresighted vision, they put forward their recommendations only when they realize that such recommendations can be implemented.
Now, it is the role of the Government to set the targets for the implementation of NEP- 2020 and facilitate students in building their academic and professional careers.
Haroon Rashid Bhat is a teacher. He can be mailed at minamharoon123@gmail.com
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