Mapping the Provisions for Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education in the Indian Education Policy Documents: NEP 1968 to NEP 202

Abstract

Among 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, the fourth goal focuses on quality and inclusive education for all. The focus of the current study is on the keyword "all." According to research and studies, the meaning of inclusive education is not limited to including learners with special needs into the mainstream, but it has a wider scope of making education and the environment inside a classroom more culturally appropriate so that "all" learners can find themselves included. Inside a classroom, learners and instructors do not interact in a vacuum; they interact via their demographic characteristics such as culture, language, religion, caste, language, and so on. Education would be considered as inclusive when learners despite of their caste, status, religion, and gender would feel included. Previous research indicates that caste plays an important role in the existing economic divide and maintaining the status quo. The focus of the study is to investigate how many initiatives are taken by the government to provide quality education to the learners from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes. According to the Indian Constitution, Article 45, every child aged up to 14 years has the right to get free and compulsory education. Similarly, the national education policies prepare a roadmap for what these children would receive under "the free and compulsory education." Research suggests that policies are always context-specific; hence, it must be prepared in accordance with the needs of the citizens with a maximum coverage. The current study has analyzed the national education policies, National Curriculum Framework 2005, and national-level campaigns to locate the initiatives taken to include all learners, making education accessible to everyone. Since NEP 2020 has been drafted after the SDGs were announced by the UN, the focus is more upon locating the changes made in NEP 2020 by keeping the fourth goal in focus, i.e., equitable and inclusive education for all.