Andhra Pradesh revamps education system to align with NEP

NEW DELHI: As the southern states spar with the Centre over the imposition of Hindi, Andhra Pradesh has decided to completely overhaul its school education system aligning it with the National Education Policy ( NEP) with a major thrust on play-based learning for foundational classes, guaranteed age and grade appropriate foundational education in primary classes and tech-driven personalised assessment to fill learning gaps.

With the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 showing major learning gaps among students in Andhra Pradesh schools, the government has decided to introduce Learning Excellence in Andhra Pradesh. The most immediate step in the new academic session starting in June will be remedial classes for all students starting Grade 6 in Andhra's government schools. The first two months will be spent in teaching basic maths, science and languages to ensure all students are at the same age-appropriate level.

The ASER 2024 report had found that about 81.1% of Grade 2 students in Andhra Pradesh schools could not perform subtraction. It also found that only 56% of Grade 8 students could read a Class 2-level Telugu text. Andhra Pradesh is in the process of defining Foundational Literacy and Numeracy for each grade - the basic pillar of NEP which refers to the ability to read and write and perform mathematical calculations. "ASER has shown that our education cannot just provide transactional understanding of concepts. There has to be active learning. The government will have a two-fold assessment in its schools - after every topic and at the end of each term," said a senior official, who did not wish to be identified. The state government has decided to leverage its digital classrooms. "Andhra has the advantage of having digital devices in all schools. We have now decided to test the students after teaching every module to gauge how much of the concept has been grasped," said a senior official. The government schools will introduce lab-based Personalised Adaptive Learning, which will keep track of every student's level and frame tests accordingly.

The tricky question of mother tongue as medium of instruction in NEP has been left to the parents. As of now, the government has given the parents the choice to choose between Telugu and English.

"A majority of parents have been choosing English as the medium of instruction. We are not changing this," said the official. The government, however, will offer Telugu as a subject. NEP prescribes a three-language policy with two Indian languages and English. Andhra will continue to offer English, Telugu and Hindi in schools. In sync with NEP 2020, the medium of instruction in schools in tribal areas is Koya (the tribal language) and the script is Telugu.