Effectiveness of Implementation of NEP 2020 in Karnataka

– Perspectives of the College Teachers of Karnataka

Prepared By:
Dr. B. SHEKHAR M.Com., MBA., M.Phil., Ph.D
Professor of Commerce,
Chairman and Dean,
Department of Studies & Research in Commerce
Tumkur University, Tumkur
Mobile: 9620230969, Mail id: drbstut@gmail.com

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 Effectiveness of Implementation of NEP 2020 in Karnataka –
Perspectives of the College Teachers of Karnataka
- Dr. B. Shekhar
ABSTRACT

The long-awaited NEP 2020 was implemented at the Higher Education level in the
state of Karnataka in August 2021, making the state, the first in the country in implementing
NEP 2020. Therefore, this paper intended to collect opinion from the college teachers about
its implementation. The paper focuses on the understanding of teachers on NEP and their
readiness to cater to the students’ need as well as in handling the new curriculum which is
multi-disciplinary. Opinion of teachers is collected in the light of students studying across
disciplines and how NEP 2020, helps the students in bettering themselves. Also, to know the
perception of teachers on the improvements in the employability skills of the students as is
claimed by the policy. The paper also contains the background of NEP 2020 and has
highlighted on few important aspects of NEP with reference to Higher education, thus
providing a background for the study.

Keywords: NEP 2020, Employability, Curriculum, Students, Higher Education

INTRODUCTION

Education plays a major role in the development of society. It acts as a medium

through which potential of the human being can be unearthed to the maximum in a right
way. It helps in the development of the society and upkeeping of social justice as well as
maintaining equality in the social surrounding through proper accommodation of scientific
and cultural perspective. To achieve this at the global level, education was placed as Goal 4
of the UN Sustainable Development Goal of the Agenda 2030. This was adopted by India in
2015 to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all” by 2030. With this as the agenda, the Government of India came up
with National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) to give a roadmap to revamp the existing
education structure and system on par with the Indian values.

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 EVOLUTION OF INDIAN EDUCATION POLICIES

 National Policy on Education, 1968 came up as a result of recommendation of the Kothari

Commission, which emphasised on equal opportunities in both rural and urban areas and to
promote national integration. This policy also emphasised on physical education to
encourage sports activities in the country.
 National Policy on Education, 1986 focused on promoting education in all the social and
economic strata of the economy. This policy concentrated on developing primary education
across the country especially at the rural areas through “Operation Blackboard”. The open
and distance education system also took it form in this policy with establishment of Indira
Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU 1985).
 Revision of National Policy on Education 1986 in 1992, which adopted Common
Entrance Examination for admission into All India vocational and technical training courses.

NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY 2020

The draft on NEP 2020 was released by the Ministry of Human Resource
Development in 2019, with the objective of holistic experiential, discussion-based and
analysis-based learning and to enhance critical thinking. The draft was approved by the
cabinet on July 29, 2020.
The NEP 2020 envisage the modification of present 10+2 structure of school
education into 5+3+3+4 structure, were
 The first five years covers three-years pre-school/Anganwadi and two-years of primary
school consisting of Grades 1-2
 The next three years of Preparatory stage consisting of Grades 3-5
 The next three years of middle stage consisting of Grade 6-8
 The next two years of secondary education consisting of Grade 9-12 in first phase and
Grade 11-12 in second phase.

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 NEP AND HIGHER EDUCATION

Higher education playing an important role in maintaining social well-being of the

society. Higher education mainly emphasises on specialized learning ensuring development
of ethical and moral values, scientific temper, creativity, critical thinking and inculcating
spirit of social service, thus contributing towards the development of knowledgeable society
with societal consciousness.
NEP 2020 at higher education emphasises on establishment of multidisciplinary
universities, colleges, and other higher education institutions (HEIs). The undergraduate
programmes will be either a 3- or 4-year duration with multiple entry and exit options. A
Certificate will be awarded to students exiting after completing 1 year with necessary
credits; a Diploma will be awarded to students exiting after completing 2 years with
necessary credits; a Bachelor’s degree will be awarded to students exiting after completing 3
years with necessary credits; and Honours degree will be awarded to students exiting on the
completion of 4-year duration with required number of credits, shall be awarded to the
students. The two-year postgraduate programme with full focus on research component in
the second year. The students who complete four-year Bachelor’s programme with Honours
will be admitted for one-year postgraduate programme. A student will be having only one
exit in the Postgraduate programme at the end of first year of the Postgraduate programme.
Entry to the Postgraduate programme will be based on the required entrance examination
and evaluation of academic records.
Karnataka became the first state in the country to implement NEP 2020 officially in
August 2021. The NEP 2020 was implemented in the higher education in the state. In this
context, this study is undertaken to know about the perspective of teachers towards NEP
2020.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

 Kalyani Pawan3 in their article “An Empirical Study on NEP 2020 [National Education
Policy] with Special Reference to the Future of Indian Education System and Its effects on
the Stakeholders” have opined that the NEP-2020 is learner centric, where the students
choose what they want to study rather than study what the education system provides them.
The learner-centric system will help the students a greater success as they choose subjects
based on their interests and skills they possess.

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 Venkateshwarlu7 in the article “A Critical Study of NEP 2020: Issues, Approaches,
Challenges, Opportunities and Criticism” have highlighted on the options available for
students to choose the subjects of their interest and also for the teachers to choose the
methodology and pedagogy within the given structure.
 Tholath Deepa Ittimani et.al8 in the research paper “Comparing and Contrasting India’s
NEP 2020 and UNESCo’s Educational Policy using Text Analytics” have highlighted the
presence of imparting holistic education along with values, leadership skills, problem
solving and critical thinking. It also highlights on inclusive education to all the sections of
the society.

SCOPE

The study is limited to state of Karnataka and the responses are collected from
college and University teachers affiliated to University of Mysore, Kuvempu University and
Bangalore City University.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this paper are:

1. To know about the readiness of college and University teachers in handling

curriculum of NEP 2020.
2. To know about the understanding of teachers about NEP 2020.
3. To fetch teachers’ opinion on students studying across disciplines.
4. To know about the teacher’s perception on NEP 2020 bettering the student’s
employability skills.

METHODOLOGY

Empirical research was adopted for the study. The primary data for the study is
collected through structured questionnaires and the secondary data is collected through
review of research articles, journals and publication from the government.
The sample data was collected from 70 respondents using simple random sampling.
The respondents are all based in the state of Karnataka.

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 ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION

The questionnaire for the study was sent to 95 respondents, of which only 70
respondents responded. Out of 70 respondents, 66 respondents were college teachers and the
remaining four respondents belonged to different professions. The reason for concentrating
the respondents from college teachers was because the NEP 2020 was implemented in the
state for the Undergraduate level and hence they would be impacted the much in this regard.

1. From the study, it was found that about all the respondents knew about NEP 2020 through
various sources. About 37.14% of the respondents got to know about NEP through
Government reports, followed by 14.28% through social media, 11% through Newspapers
and Peer groups. With this it can be interpreted that the people to some extent relay on
government reports to know about the policies, may be because they think to be a reliable
source.
2. About 37.14% of the respondents say that the policies brought out by the government
regarding improving the quality of education is excellent, especially with respect to NEP,
which shows that the teachers are happy with the structural changes in educational sector
hoping for better outcomes.
3. About 34.2% of the respondents think they have very good understanding of NEP, thus it
can be said that the government reports, social media and newspaper have acted as a reliable
source for providing information with minimum ambiguity.
4. 34.28% of the respondents express their readiness towards NEP as good followed by 20%
saying as average, 17.14% saying excellent and very good, and 11.44% saying as poor,
therefore efforts can be made by the Government in association with the Higher Education
Department and the Universities to organize workshops to train the teaching faculty and to
acquaint them with new education structure.
5. 94.28% of the respondents opine that the NEP is learner-centric, which shows that the
essence of NEP is clear to the teaching faculty ie teachers know that students are free to
choose their subject of interest.
6. 45.71% strongly agree and 40% agree to the point that open electives provide students to
achieve multifarious insights into subjects of their interest irrespective of the course they
choose.

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7. 71.43% agree that NEP contributes towards the enhancement of students’ creativity, 14.28%
disagree to the statement and 14.28% of respondents are neutral in this regard. This implies
that the combination of open elective, skill enhancement and ability enhancement courses as
prescribed in the NEP guidelines in proper proportion improves the creativity among
students.
8. 71.43% of the respondents feel that NEP helps in increasing industry-academia gap, this
implies that skill and vocational training in the NEP curriculum helps students fit for
employment after the completion of their course with required credits.
9. 65.71% of the respondents believe there is increased chances of employability among the
students with the NEP curriculum, thus amplifying the combination of open elective, skill
enhancement and ability enhancement courses.
10. 68.57% of the respondents believes NEP restores and enhances the quality of education,
11.43% disagree with the statement and 20% remain neutral for this statement. This implies
there is need for a workshop for the teachers regarding add-on skills for teachers if any
required for NEP curriculum.
11. 71.43% of the respondents feels students and teachers would get opportunity to visit foreign
universities on mutual exchange programme. This stand might put the HEIs under greater
responsibility of taking up such programmes.
12. From the descriptive part of the questionnaire, it was found that multidisciplinary helps the
students to learn the fundamentals of their interested subjects and a there is a need for proper
linkage between different subjects in order to reduce ambiguity.
13. Respondents opine that multiple entry and exit will provide an early job assurance to the
students and at the same time some of them may consider exiting even before their joining
the course, thus leading to higher drop-out at the higher education level.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Well-designed workshops are necessary for the teachers to give them a clear-cut pathway to
take the new curriculum to new heights.
2. There is a need for a workshop also for the parents and students to make them aware about
the NEP and its uses for their wards.
3. Some more clear guidelines are essential since, Karnataka is the first state to implement and
there is no back-up as such to assist in glitches in its implementation.

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4. There is a need for training to teachers to acquaint and deliver the new curriculum to the
students to ensure desired outcomes, otherwise there is every chance for the NEP to become
“old wine in a new bottle”.

CONCLUSION

From the data collected from primary sources evident that most of the respondents
think that NEP implementation is a very good move by the state but it still requires some
time frame to assure its said outcomes. Since Karnataka is the first state in the country to
implement NEP, there will be initial glitches in the implementation and many issues might
need clarifications from the Higher Education Department and the Universities as well. In
spite of these, it is good to see most of the teaching faculties have a positive attitude towards
the change in the curriculum and also it gives them an opportunity to bring out changes in
teaching pedagogy to complement with the vision of NEP 2020. The students are also happy
with the flexibility provided to them in NEP and the combination of open-elective, skill-
enhancement and ability-enhancement courses, which helps them in knowing their subject
better and to gain fundamental knowledge about the subject of their interest. The inter-
disciplinary approach in NEP provides for overall personal development of the students and
make them ready in every situation and circumstances based on whatever skills they have
acquired.

References

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