Articles

An Appeal to Ministry of Education on NEP 2020

Date: 7th July 2023

Concern

With all due respect to the intentions of framers of the National Education Policy… It was long overdue and the people welcomed its introduction. However, any reasonable concerns in the spirit of the times we live in, need to be also considered.

Concern is the minimum age limit, in light of the Screen Addiction Crisis of our Young Minds. Strict restriction to be 6+ years to be admitted into Grade-1 highlights a rather serious contemporary issue - With the inflow of Phones, outflow of Grandparents and both working Parents - kids are being left with screens unattended, resulting in unintended consequences for the children, their families and the Indian Society at Large.

Points

1. A bigger majority of Children are growing up in a nuclear family & a city setup - where typically both the parents are working with no in-house grandparents to care for them.

2. The overwhelming exposure of children to all sorts of digital content via easily affordable mobiles, tablets & TVs combined with unlimited Internet - is resulting in a deadly combination causing children to become completely disconnected from their parents/families while being induced into a toxic addiction of screens.

3. Between ages 2 and 3 is when the brains are developing fast, owing mainly to all the online video content they consume, it appears unwise to keep these brains glued to screens.

4. It serves the interests of no one to limit the child’s access to education on an arbitrary age limit. The 3 years of preschool criterion may be met by allowing early addition admissions into Nursery or assessment guided admissions into LKG.

Appeal

Some Families/Parents may be successfully keeping Children away from Screens, but those are exceptions and not the Norm. Let's not create yet another class disparity where those who are fortunate to maintain a large family at home are inadvertently creating an insurmountable challenge to the rest of the nuclear families in the country. When every single parent is expressing concern about their child losing a year, there must be something to their collective wisdom. Also, let’s not forget that Policies must help not hurt.


In the interest of proper growth and development of our country's youngest minds, I sincerely appeal to you to Relax the Age Limit Restriction, so the children can attend school as per the Parents choice, and be saved from the Technological curse that awaits them if nothing changes.

Pesarikayala Pareekshith Reddy

B.Tech, MS (USA), LLB

Advocate

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