Mindsets Of Building A Proper Education Policy By Das Sir 8961556195

What needs to be done for these youth? Better schools? Trained teachers?
Smarter textbooks? Online lessons? Low-stakes assessments? Skilling? All of
that surely, but more needs to be done. The solution to Indias opportunities
lies in shifting from a constrained resource mindset to feeding unconstrained
ambitions. The big leap in education needs different thinking. Though not
necessarily radical yet. For example, we are not completely ready to shift all
learning out of the classrooms. The new thinking needs to be a step ahead in
goal setting for education itself. We need a mindshift to design the new
education policy and here are five suggestions for the same.
1) Education as investment sounds obvious, but it is not really as
straightforward as the most important things that education provides cannot
be measured easily. How does one measure the confidence a good school gives
or the friends one makes for life? But most things can-the enhanced earnings
for each additional year of education, the value of networks, the returns to
investors for professional courses directed towards employability, etc. Even
the return on investment to a simple government school can be calculated via
proxies-and must- so that we start focusing on the gains to students and
society. The shift from expenditure as an input into a dark hole to an
investment changes the attitudes and expectations from education completely.
This is essential if we want to see results and accountability.
2) Education as an essential infrastructure is the next mindshift required. It is
not of much use if one gets bullet trains and information superhighways when
there arent enough good people to create value out of these. Education is soft
infrastructure and must receive priority investments and concessions like the
rest of the infrastructure sector. Just as one identifies and supports priorities
in infrastructure, one needs to identify priorities in education and implement
them through a medium-term national education strategy. If the nation needs
more, say, civil engineers, or more accountants, then plan ahead, create the
education highways for these to ensure that progress is achieved-the education
policy must create institutions and mechanisms for delivery along national
priorities.

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3) Education as influence: Not just as part of the national narrative for

national pride but also as a means to increase the nations circle of influence
across the globe. Education has been used by many countries as soft powerthe fact that you are reading this in English is evidence of such power.
Countries extend this soft power by encouraging foreign students to study in
their countries and go back with respect and deep friendships in addition to a
valuable degree. Others do that by funding departments of study across
universities, some of it is done via cultural centres (India does too) with varied
impact. Much of this influence is fostered via systematic people-to-people
contact and diaspora. This is a subtle, but powerful tool for Indias national
goals and must be provisioned for in the national education policy.
4) Education as an industry may not be as controversial a perspective as it is
made out to be. While education may be a not-for-profit sector by regulation,
it has all the other characteristics of a standard industry. The only, and
significant, difference here is that it deals with people and their change
process. It is easy to mistakenly say that in education, people are the product,
but this is not so-the value addition to people is the task of this industry. Like
every other industry, it has supply chain issues, challenges in logistics and
constraints in resources. It has similar problems in vendor management, in
funding, regulatory compliance and more. While educators have resisted
solutions that come from the industrial or corporate world, there is a case for
acknowledging that the business of education can learn much from successful
toolkits in industry. Even pedagogies are being transformed by the results
from evidence and big data analytics-governance tools that have not been used
in schools before. The education ecosystem must allow itself the benefits of
maturing as an industry. This means allowing consolidation, diversity in the
provision of education, a range of positioning and price points, product
innovation, operational efficiencies among other things. The sector cannot
continue to operate as an agglomeration of local mom-and-pop stores, nor
should it be completely a public sector monopolistic behemoth. For education
policy design, this means allowing more establishments to start and grow by
fostering entrepreneurial energy and then challenging them to continuously
improve their service delivery and standards.
5) Education as inspiration. The purpose of education is to raise us to be better
human beings who build sustainable societies and civilisations that are
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respected over a period of time. Education must elevate us in ways we would

not even have been able to see before. We need it to create aspirations for us at
the very least, and grow us as individuals and people. The word inspiration
literally means an intake of breath, the life force. Education is just that, an
intake of that life force, prana, that will drive us to be better and create more
value. To merely seek employment as a goal of education is not enough; it is
only the first step. If education policy is designed to only meet this basic
requirement in schools and colleges, then it must add components of lifelong
learning for meeting greater aspirations and ensuring progress for its people
throughout their lives. To change institutes of higher learning only with
grassroots innovation is not enough-education policy must support and
demand inspirational research so that generations of learners want to move
up the value chain. School learning must allow students to be inspired to
explore and learn; teachers must be inspired to lead classes, not just lecture
them. Education policy has to be designed to move the sector from banal
liturgy to the engine of growth.
These five mindshifts are essential to building an education policy befitting the
largest democracy in the world. To do any less would be to disrespect the
hopes and ambitions of the demographic dividend- the next generation. And
this is the challenge set for the new education policy.

For Study Material Of RBI Gr B Phase I & II and Other Banking Exams Call or Whatsapp Das Sir
@ 8961556195 or mail your enquiry to tamal253@yahoo.com