PM’s Address On School Education – Key Highlights

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday talked about the changes the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 will bring. While addressing students at the School Education Conclave, he termed it as "starting of a new era".

As part of the 'Shiksha Parv' education festival, the Ministry of Education organised a two-day conclave, which started on Thursday.

Key Highlights of PM Modi's address :–

• Every region of the world has changed in the last three decades. Every system has changed. There is hardly any aspect of our life in these three decades which is the same as before. But the path on which society moves towards the future, our education system, it was still running on the old pattern.

• The new National Education Policy is also a mean of fulfilling new India, new expectations, new requirements. Behind it is the hard work of the last four-five years, people of every field, every genre, every language have worked on it day and night. But this work is not completed yet.

• I am glad that our principals and teachers are enthusiastically participating in this campaign to implement the National Education Policy.

• A few days ago, the Ministry of Education had asked teachers across the country for their suggestions on MyGov about implementing the National Education Policy. More than 1.5 million suggestions were received within a week. These suggestions will help implement the National Education Policy in a more effective way.

• Mathematical Thinking and Scientific Temperament should develop in children, it is very necessary. And Mathematical Thinking does not only mean that children solve Mathematics problems, it's rather a way of thinking.

• We have to increase easy and innovative methods. Our experiment should be the core of New Age Learning- Engage, Explore, Experience, Express and Excel. The NEP has been designed in a way to reduce syllabus and focus on fundamental things. A National Curriculum Framework will be developed to make learning integrated and Inter-Disciplinary, Fun Based and Complete Experience.

• We have to advance our students with 21st Century Skills. These will be: Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, Curiosity, Communication.

• Our earlier education policy has also tied our students very much. The student who takes Science could not study Arts or Commerce. For those with Arts-Commerce, it is assumed that they are reading History, Geography, Accounts because they cannot read the signs. But in the real world, is it possible in our lives that all the work can be done with the knowledge of only one field? In reality, all subjects are related to each other. Every learning is inter-related.

• Can a test, a marksheet, be a parameter for children's learning, their mental development? Today the truth is that marksheet has become a mental pressure sheet. 

• We need to understand one scientific thing that language is the medium of education, language is not all education. Whichever language the child can easily learn, learn things, the same language should be the language of learning.

The Shiksha Parv is being celebrated from September 8-25 to felicitate teachers and take the new education policy forward.