Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi addressed a webinar on implementation of Budget in education sector. He said, ‘To build Aatmanirbhar Bharat, the youth of the country need self-confidence which is directly connected to their education, knowledge and skill. The new National Education Policy has been developed with this key thought.’

The key announcements in the Union Budget related to Education Sector are as follows and we seek ideas and suggestions from the public and other stakeholders on the same:

• More than 15,000 schools will be qualitatively strengthened to include all components of the National Education Policy. They shall emerge as exemplar schools in their regions, handholding and mentoring other schools to achieve the ideals of the Policy.

• Standards will be developed for all school teachers in the form of National Professional Standards for Teachers – NPST. This will enhance the capabilities of teachers and will be followed by 92 lakh teachers of public and private school system in the country.

• Toys are both an expression of entertainment and learning. A unique indigenous toy-based learning – pedagogy for all levels of school education will be developed. This will transform classroom transactions from mundane and rote learning to an engaging and joyful experience.

• A National Digital Educational Architecture (NDEAR) will be set up within the context of a Digital First Mindset where the Digital Architecture will not only support teaching and learning activities but also educational planning, governance administrative activities of the Centre and the States/ Union Territories. It will provide a diverse education eco-system architecture for development of digital infrastructure, a federated but interoperable system that will ensure autonomy of all stakeholders, specially States and UTs.

• For children with hearing impairments, the Government will work on standardization of Indian Sign language across the country, and develop National and State Curriculum materials and digital contents for use by them.

• There are a number of senior and retired teachers. They will be used for individual mentoring of school teachers and educators through constant online/offline support on subjects, themes and pedagogy.

• Students have so far been evaluated on uni-dimensional parameters. There will be a complete shift from using assessments to not only judge the cognitive levels of the learner but also using it as an opportunity to identify the unique strengths and the potential of the child. To this effect, a holistic progress card is envisaged to provide students with valuable information on their strengths, areas of interest, needed areas of focus and thereby helping them in making optimal career choices.

• To enable increased access of resources, online modules covering the entire gamut of adult education will be introduced.

• During the year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we have trainedmore than 30 lakh elementary school teachers digitally, covering the whole gamut of education. Taking this further, in 2021-22, we will enable the training of 56 lakh school teachers through the National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers for Holistic Advancement (NISTHA).

• For the past few years our Prime Minister has been engaging with students every year before their Board Exams to help them overcome anxiety and stress. In this direction, we will introduce CBSE Board Exam reforms in a phased manner to be effective from the 2022-23 academic session. Exams will move away from rote-learning and students shall be tested on their conceptual clarity, analytical skills and application of knowledge to real life situations.

Last date of submission - 31st March 2021