The National Council of Education and Research has introduced National Education Policy 2023 which will be implemented in the year 2024. There are various changes brought by the Government for the educational curriculum for school students, the old 10+2 system of education will be replaced by 5+3+3+4 in which three additional years of Anganwadi (pre-schooling) is introduced and expected to be implemented. However, the change that has students baffled is the decision regarding board examinations held for 11th and 12th graders.
According to the NEP’23, the annual board exams for 11th and 12th graders will now be taken twice. Students will be able to select a few subjects for the first exam and some for the second half of the examination. The policy also announced that the process of selection of a stream after the 10th will be eliminated and students will now be able to select a variety of subjects as a part of their syllabus, i.e. A student can take up a mix of subjects such as history along with chemistry and economics, this has been introduced as an effort to not bind the student with a limited career choice.
On the 23rd of August, the central government announced these changes but though the government’s intention regarding the new policy is to reduce the burden on teenagers, it stirred quite some tension among the students. Students feel that conducting the board examinations twice would result in overburdening and in turn cause extra fatigue. The Indian Board Examinations are known to be extremely competitive and appearing for them twice in a year can cause some serious effects on the mental health of the students. An average student appearing for the board examination spends the last two months before the exam in utter distress, if the boards are to be taken twice then the period of stress would also be twice. This stress will peak even more as after these examinations students would still have to appear for competitive exams to pursue a certain profession, NEET, JEE, CLAT, and CAT to name a few are exams that are organised around the year for students to appear. In order for them to get into a reputed institution for further studies students are required to perform well in both the board examinations and the competitive exams. A better approach by the government would be to change the system in which college and university admissions work in the country because as per student anticipation taking the board examinations twice would become an added issue to the already difficult student life.
Another question that is hovering above the heads of parents of these young adults is how would bachelor’s degrees work. With the old stream selection system, a student after choosing the commerce stream was eligible to study bachelor of commerce further but now with subject selection, what degree can be opted for remains a big question. Parents have also started to turn towards schools to gather more information but it seems that government circulars have not yet reached them and hence they do not have any answers as well.
Keeping all the unanswered questions aside, this policy truly is a revolutionary development in the prevailing status quo of the Indian Education system, one that was also long called for. Whatever may come next it is a relief to know that the Ministry of Education is making an effort to make education as less of a burden as it can.
