How do you think the government can plug in the loopholes in the education system?

The draft of the new Education Policy of the Modi government has already sparked many debates in society. The good part of the whole document is that it has boldly accepted the �severe learning crisis�. The top-most priority as outlined by the document is that the government seeks to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary education. If the steps are not well implemented, the rest of the policy remains ineffective and more than 10 crore students of India will be lost to illiteracy. The main thrust of government should be thus on the childhood education and concrete measures should be taken to provide universal access to quality early education which goes beyond the ICDS network. In addition, the newly proposed measure of the 5+3+3+4 structure is a welcome step which seeks to divide the education system into foundational, preparatory, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary stage. This is seen as an effective measure if the RTE Act is extended to children between 3 and 18 years. Also, the community and volunteer participation are being encouraged in coordination with schools is a very effective measure. The RTE Act mandates the setting up of school management committees as it encourages volunteer action. Integration of vocational learning and cutting out some parts of the curriculum with the entire focus on core is also important.

Topics: GS-II: Social Sector Services Education Human Resources