NEP 2020 and MOE Guidelines : Two Extremes

The pandemic is going to last for some more time even though inoculation has started in some of the countries. Covid-19 affected all sectors, brought unemployment, and destroyed economies among other things. Education was not an exception. The universities in their wisdom and in order to save the academic year started taking online classes. This happened for the very first time in most of the universities in India and all teachers whether computer savvy or not delivered online lectures. From nursery to higher education, students attended their classes online. For the first time academia realised that physical presence was not required for teaching and learning, and online platform can also be used in certain circumstances.It is rightly said that challenges also bring opportunities. The same is true about pandemic Covid-19. The classes are still going online, and the academic year of students could be saved because of technology. On 29 July 2020, when the pandemic was on its peak, the Ministry of Education (hereinafter referred to as MOE) adopted National Education Policy 2020 (hereinafter referred to as NEP). NEP is a broad vision document of the Government to make drastic changes in the education system. The NEP also recommended extensive use of technology in the education system and suggested for the hybrid method of conducting online and physical classes. The NEP has been discussed later in the article