The government looks forward to engage with ed-tech firms and startups focusing on school education as the NEP comes into play
The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL) is formulating a ‘common platform’ through which it can work with ed-tech companies and start-ups to identify areas of co-operation. It also includes “content development in partnership with NCERT.” This decision follows after a debate which heavily focuses on the need to regulate the education sector due to various trade malpractices involved in it and the criticism it invokes.
The interaction and engagement with the ed-tech companies is important, especially at the time when government is rolling out the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, and reformulating the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for school education. The Department secretary, Sanjay Kumar, met Divya Gokulnath, the co-founder of BYJU’S, last month regarding the matter.
There are many ed-tech companies and start ups which focuses on the field of school education and the government is mapping, interacting, and engaging with them as the operationalizing of the NEP takes place. According to this, the NCF will be framed for the foundational, preparatory, middle, and the secondary level.
The move to engage with the ed-tech firms by the government comes a year after the announcement in relation to working on a policy to regulate the ed-tech sector made by Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Many concerns followed this decision of which the prime one was these companies lure the customers by indulging in malpractices. The government, however, held themselves back when the companies formed a consortium and established a code of conduct to self regulate their businesses.
DoSEL issued the NCF for the foundational level (children aged 3-6 years) in October 2022, emphasizing on play-based learning at pre-school and the lower primary level. It released the teaching material prepared on the basis of NCF the previous week. The NCF for the higher classes, teacher, and adult education will be released by DoSEL in the coming month. Accordingly, the syllabus and the teaching material for the same will also be drawn up.
ECIL, which is a public sector enterprise under the Ministry of Education, has already been in the process of enumerating the ed-tech firms and start-ups. It mostly offers management and consultancy services to the Centre and states. The education ministry issued an advisory, cautioning the people to enroll in courses offered by the ed-tech companies with careful evaluation as the courses are couched as free in their advertisements, but appear to be paid when they join.
The ed-tech sector gained prominence during the pandemic and adopted large scale of digital modes of teaching. But, since last year, most of the companies are staggering under a crisis and due to this; several companies have laid off hundreds of employees citing the requirement of cost cutting. Most of the companies have shifted their focus to offline mode of teaching rather than the online mode.
