Experts Raised Concerns over Including Coding in the NEP

Source- The Indian Express

The Government of India has inducted ‘coding’ as a subject in the National Education Policy (NEP) to promote scientific understanding among students. Students will get to learn ‘coding’ from class VI onwards. However, experts have expressed concern over the inclusion.

Anand Srinivas is the founder and CEO of StayQrious, an ed-tech platform teaching live coding classes. He said that coding is currently restricted to people with means- laptop, internet, resources, etc. Thus, this move will only widen the digital rift between urban and rural India. Srinivas stressed the need for proper curriculum and teacher training. He insisted that without these two ‘coding’ will become a burden on the young minds.

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As per Aspiring Minds’ National Employability Report (NER) 2019, among Indian engineering job applicants only 4.6% can write functionally correct codes.