New Delhi: National Institute of Open Schooling Chairman Chandra Bhushan Sharma has demanded a commission for school education in the New Education Policy (NEP).
NIOS Chairman rued the fact that there has been very little innovation and transformation of schooling in India.
"Our education system became elitist. There has been very little innovation and transformation of schooling in India. We need to analyze why a sector which should be more dynamic than any other sector, as it encompasses the most creative and the dynamic of the population, is so static and opposed to change," he said.
Mr. Sharma, in a statement, said, "A major portion of the budget was also spent on higher education, whereas there were too few schools available compared to the demand. The implication was that most children who should have been in school remained out of school. Most children who joined school were pushed out because of one reason or the other. School quality remained abysmally poor, and as a consequence the participation in higher education was low and the competition was negligible."
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"We desperately need a professional body for school education, which knows and understands schooling. We rarely find school principals and education faculty from the universities on planning for schools. Those who manage and understand schooling are nowhere in the decision-making process for schooling," Mr. Sharma claimed.
"It will be expected of the New Education Policy 2019 and the Modi Government that it establishes an autonomous body through an act of Parliament to plan and monitor the school sector," the statement said.
"The Central and the State Boards of Secondary and Senior Secondary education, the public and the private schools; the formal and the non-formal schooling; academic and creative areas and similar other activities which schools are expected to undertake for the overall development of a child is looked after.
"Teacher education as a natural consequence will also fall under the umbrella of this statutory body which may be named the School Education Commission (SEC). We, the academic community demand the provision of SEC be included in the NEP 2019 and it is established at the earliest," he demanded.
The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), formerly National Open School, is the board of education under the Central government. It was established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 1989 to provide education to all segments of society under the motive to increase literacy and aimed forward for flexible learning.
The NIOS is a national board that administers examinations for Secondary and Senior Secondary examinations similar to the CBSE and the Council For The Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). It also offers vocational courses after high school.