SOFT SKILLS INTERWOVEN IN NEP 2020 AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Abstract

NEP 2020 is the catchphrase nowadays among those academicians who are thinking about quality improvement of education as a whole in India. The policy aims at reconfiguration of education system to support and foster learning. This will not be possible by making quality change in existing Teacher Education practices. Keeping this in mind, an effort has been done in this paper for deriving what changes are expected on the part of the future teachers in terms of their soft skills to meet the goals of NEP 2020. Content analysis method has been employed to extract areas which demands sharpening of soft skills on the part of the teachers. Based on this, implications for teacher education institutions have been suggested so that the would be teachers, when enter as professionals in education system, they are geared up with such soft skills so that there are all set to meet the goal of NEP 2020 through their quality practices. The rationale behind this research based paper is that if there exists a gap between the teacher preparation practices and the practices expected on the part of teachers for implementing NEP 2020, the policy will be proved to be a mere ambitious agenda for bringing reform in education in India.