NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY 2009

What is a policy?
A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve
rational outcomes. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done,
this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol. Policies are generally
adopted by the Board of or senior governance body within an organization whereas
procedures or protocols would be developed and adopted by senior executive
officers. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making.
Policies to assist in subjective decision making would usually assist senior
management with decisions that must consider the relative merits of a number of
factors before making decisions and as a result are often hard to objectively test
e.g. work-life balance policy.

INTRODUCTION

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2009 (the “Policy”) comes in a series of
Education policies dating back to the very inception of the country in 1947. The
review process for the National Education Policy 1998-2010 was initiated in 2005
and
the first document, the White Paper was finalised in March 2007. The White Paper
became the basis for development of the Policy document.

. The Policy is based on a lengthy process of consultation initiated in 2005, in line

with the roadmap endorsed by the Inter-provincial Education Ministers’ (IPEM)
Conference. The review exercise was conducted in close co-operation with all
stakeholders, particularly the Provincial, Area and District governments.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2009 prepared by the federal government
seeks transformation of society along the lines of Islamic teachings and revitalise
existing education system to cater to social, political and spiritual needs of
individuals and society.

According to the NEP, Islamiyat will be taught as a compulsory subject from

Grade-I to Grade-XII, extending up to graduation level in all general and

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professional institutions, and advanced Islamic Studies will be offered as an
elective subject at grades IX-X and XI-XII.

The policy recommends teaching Ethics and Moral Education instead of Islamiyat
to non-Muslim children, and appointment of subject specific teachers for the
purpose.

Objectives of the policy .

Main objectives of the education policy 2009 include following

1. Revival of the existing system

Existing education system don’t address to social, political & spiritual needs
of individuals & society. To revitalize the existing education system with a
view to cater the needs of the new education policy was framed.
 Creation of unity and nationhood
New policy aimed to create a sense of unity and nationhood, and promote
the desire to create welfare state for the people of Pakistan.
 Promotion of national cohesion
To promote national cohesion by respecting each other ‘ faith, religion, and
cultural and ethnic diversity was also the objectives of this new policy.
 Promotion of social and cultural harmony
To promote social cultural harmony through the conscious use of the
educational process.
 Equal educational opportunities
To provide and ensure equal educational opportunities to all the citizens of
Pakistan and to provide minorities with adequate facilities for their cultural
and religious development, enabling them to participate effectively in the
overall national effort.
 Personality development
To aim at nurturing the total personality of the individual, dynamic, creative
and capable of facing the truth as it emerges from the objective study of
reality.

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 Personal ethics
To raise individuals committed to democratic and moral values, aware of
fundamental human rights, open to new ideas, having a sense of personal
responsibility and participation in the productive activities in the society for
the common good.
 Quality enhancement of public sector
To revive confidence in public sector education system by raising the quality
of education provided in government owned institutions through setting
standards for educational inputs, processes and outputs and institutionalizing
the process of monitoring and evaluation from the lowest to the highest
levels.
 Better education management
To improve service delivery through political commitment and
strengthening education governance and management.
 Wide access of education
To widen access to education for all and to improve the quality of education,
particularly in its dimension of being relevant to the needs of the economy.
 Equal opportunities for girls and boys
To equalize access to education through provision of special facilities for
girls and boys alike, under-privileged and marginalized groups and
handicapped children and adults.
 Financial stability
To enable an individual to earn honestly his/her livelihood through skills,
which contribute to athe national economy and enables them to make
informed choices in life.

 Encouragement of research
To encourage research in higher education institutions that will contribute to
accelerated economic growth of the country.
 National process for educational development educational
To organize a national process for development that will reduce disparities
across provinces and areas and support coordination and sharing of
experiences.

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Salient Features of NEP 2009:
Apart from due emphasis on governance issues and implementation
framework,some distinct features of the policy are mentioned as under:

Policy Actions to Improve Access and Equity in Education

i. Introduction of Early Childhood Education (3-5 years) and
encouraging inclusive and child-friendly education.

ii. Primary education official age shall be 6 to 10 years.

iii. Universal and Free Primary Education including all education related
costs

iv. Equity in Education (gender, geographical Urban-Rural areas) shall

be promoted.

v. All Primary schools shall be upgraded to Middle level, where feasible.

vi. Well- developed plans for expanding school basic facilities shall be
prepared.

vii. Grades 11 and 12 shall not be part of the college education and
merged into the school education

viii. Governments shall establish “Apna Ghar” residential schools in each

province to provide free high quality education facilities to poor
students.

ix. Every child, on admission in Grade I, shall be allotted a unique ID that

will continue throughout his or her academic career.

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 x. The definition of “free education” shall include all education related
costs.

xi. Access will be extended by ensuring availability of TVE at district and

tehsil levels. Relevance to Labor Market shall be ensured.

xii. Enrolment in higher education sector shall be raised from existing 4.7
percent to 10 percent by 2015 and 15 percent by 2020.

Policy Actions to Improve Governance and Management in Education

i. Planning, Management and Implementation Capacity in education

sector at all levels shall be enhanced.

ii. Sector Planning in Education shall be promoted and each Provincial/

Area Education Department shall develop its sector/ sub-sector plan,
with facilitation and coordination at federal level.

iii. A common curriculum framework shall be applicable to both public &

private educational institutions.

iv. Deeni Madaris shall be mainstreamed by introducing contemporary

studies alongside the curricula of Deeni Madaris, to enhance
prospects of their students to pursue higher studies, research and
excellence and to ensure employment, recognition and equivalence
of their degrees. ix. Minimum National Standards for educational inputs,
processes and outcomes shall be established.

v. Minimum National Standards for educational inputs, processes and

outcomes shall be established.

vi. The Governments shall commit to allocating 7% of GDP to education

by 2015 and necessary enactment shall be made for this purpose.

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Policy Actions to Improve Quality and Relevance of Education

i. A Bachelor’s degree, with a B.Ed. shall be the requirement for

teaching at the elementary level. PTC and CT shall be phased out
through encouraging the present set of teachers to improve their
qualifications, while new hiring shall be based on the advanced
criteria.

ii. Teacher training arrangements, accreditation and certification

procedures shall be standardized and institutionalized.

iii. Curriculum development shall be objective driven and outcome based.

The curriculum development and review process shall be
standardized and institutionalized.

iv. Professional Councils like Pakistan Medical and Dental Council

(PM&DC) and Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) shall be involved
for relevant curriculum development.

v. Use of Information Communication Technologies in Education shall

be promoted.

vi. Environmental education shall be made an integral part of education.

vii. Emerging trends and concepts such as School Health & School
Safety, Prevention Education against HIV/AIDS and other infectious
diseases, Life Skills Based Education, Population and Development
Education, Human Rights Education including gender equality,
School Safety and Disaster and Risk Management, Peace Education
and inter-faith harmony, detection and prevention of child abuse, etc
shall be infused in the curricula

viii. Examinations systems shall be standardised to reduce differentials

across students appearing in different boards of examinations.

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ix. Basic standards for school facilities including playground shall be
established by 2012 to improve school environment.

x. Basic standards for school facilities including playground shall be

established by 2012 to improve school environment.

xi. To create an order for excellence in the country, a “National Merit

Programme” shall be introduced to award bright students.

xii. Sports activities shall be organized at the Secondary, Higher

Secondary, College and University levels and a system for monitoring
of sports and co-curricular/ extra-curricular activities shall be
established by all provincial and area governments.

xiii. A special Cell shall be established in the Ministry of Education for this
purpose. Higher Education Commission will look after all such
activities at the Universities’ level.

xiv. NEP 2009 puts special emphasis on skill development and provision
of quality Technical Vocational Education (TVE).

xv. TVE Curriculum will be revised to meet new challenges. Private

sector will be encouraged to participate in promotion of skill
development.

xvi. Investment on higher education shall be gradually increased to 20

percent of the education budget, on the assumption that the total
education budget grows to 7 percent of GDP by 2015

Problems in Education System

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a) Medium of Instruction
b) Unhygienic School Environment
c) Unskilled Teachers
d) Phantom Schools
e) High Dropout rate
f) Low Enrollment rate
g) Inadequate Physical and other facilities
h) Flaws in Examination System
i) Politics in Education
i) Student Organizations
ii) Teachers' selection and posting
iii) Curriculum
iv) Examination
j) Female illiteracy
k) Lack of diversification in Education
l) Stratification of Education
m) Unemployment

Suggestions to Meet the Challenges

a) Quality Education for all

b) Public-Private partnership
c) More allocation of funds
d) Destratification of education
e) Decentralization of education with strong monitoring system
f) Improved Teachers' selection criteria and skilled teachers
g) Examination system - to check learning not cramming

Two fundamental causes for the weak performance of the education

sector:

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(i) A lack of commitment to education - a commitment gap - and

(ii) An implementation gap that has thwarted the application of policies".

Commitment gap
The Planning Commission's Vision 2030 document says that "We cannot spend
only 2.7 per cent of GDP on education and expect to become a vibrant knowledge
economy." The commitment to educating the whole country for a viable economic
base is reflected totally in the kind of budgetary allocation the education sector has
received over the last three decades. The result has been a low literacy rate and a
poorly educated service and tertiary sector that have made Pakistan lag behind
India in its bid for markets abroad and at home. The elitist education managed to
produce top doctors, engineers, pilots, Chartered Accountants, initial bureaucrats
and military personnel but failed to provide an exemplary secondary support group
of nurses, technicians, cabin staff, district officers who were mostly educated in the
public schools.

The public sector schools were of a good standard up to '70s but then the neglect
started to eat away at a valuable resource of the country. Lack of commitment to
education may also be attributed to two other reasons. Pakistan's colonial past
played a major role in the way education was managed in the initial years of
independence. Although a break with the colonial past was tried but as the policy
comments: "The tradition of British education, which Pakistan inherited,
emphasised academic skills (to serve the colonial administration) rather than skills
and competencies for use in the production sector."

Furthermore, Pakistan's economy was mostly agrarian and the skill based needs of
the economy did not influence the structure of educational provision. The change
to an industrial base in the '60s did not bring the expected change to a more
relevant educational structure. The nationalisation policy of the '70s caused further
fall in standards in colleges and schools across the country. For the present, the
Economist Intelligence Unit in its latest review of Pakistani education says:

"Pakistan's Education System is among the most deficient and backward in Asia,
reflecting the traditional determination of the feudal ruling elite to preserve its
hegemony."

Thus, the commitment gap is all too visible in the successive governments' neglect
of the public sector schools which serviced the middle and lower income groups.

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These groups were eventually denied the justice to acquire a meaningful education
for social and economic mobility up the ladder of success.

Implementation gap
The policy document looks at a number of reasons that impact on the way
previous policies have failed to deliver. Some of these include:

• Almost all aspects of governance in the education sector.

• Mismanagement of allocation and use of resources leading to

• Amounts of allocated development funds remaining unutilized.

• Lack of planning (other countries plan years in advance of a reform intervention.

• Capacity building ahead of introduction of reforms.

• Lack of accountability.

• Constant monitoring of reform efforts.

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REFERENCES:

 www\\http. Ministry of education.mns 105 edu.org

 http://www.businessdictionary.com/
definition.html#ixzz291gsuD7e
 http://www.salientdigest.com/html.html
 http://www.shsu.edu/~mgt_ves/mgt481/lesson1/
lesson1.html
 www.moe,gov.pk/nepr/new.pdf

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Content:
 What is a policy? 1
 Introduction 1,2
 Objectives of the policy 2,3
 Salient features of NEP 2009 4
i- Policy Actions to Improve Access and Equity in Education 4,5
ii- Policy Actions to Improve Governance and Management in
Education 5
iii- Policy Actions to Improve Quality and Relevance of Education
6,7
 Problems in Education System 8
 Suggestions to Meet the Challenges 8
 Fundamental causes for the weak performance of the education
sector 9
i-Commitment gap 9,10
ii-Implementation gap 10

 References 11

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 ASSIGNMENT OF COMPARATIVE
EDUCATION
TOPIC:

National Education Policy 2009

SUBMITTED TO:
SIR TARIQ SALEEM
SUBMITTED BY:
ROBEENA NOREEN 115
SADIA JAMIL 118
AQSA SULTAN 127
FARWA SAGHIR 139

M.A EDUCATION 4RTH SEMESTER ®

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SARGODHA

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