NEP 2020: EMPOWERING TEACHER IN 21st CENTURY EDUCATION

Abstract

The world is full of competition and achieving life goals requires capable, efficient and skilled teachers to help our future generations to achieve their long and short term life goals. Rather than blaming teachers for poor classroom learning outcomes in India, NEP 2020 attributes the dire state of teacher education, recruitment, turnover and working conditions to a lack of quality and motivation among teachers. Recognizing the `power of teachers`, NEP 2020 introduced institutional reforms to help `teaching` become an attractive profession for bright and talented youth. The report proposes several reforms to empower teachers and "restore dignity and prestige" to the profession, ultimately attracting the best minds and talent to teaching as a profession. NEP 2020 will focus on active pedagogy, development of core competencies and life skills including 21st century skills, experiential learning at all levels, low-cost board exams, comprehensive scorecards, and critical and advanced students. This paper emphasizes the fact that the ambitious goals of 21st century education can be achieved by empowering teachers in all aspects of quality education, career development, independence, performance and role expectations.