Draft National Education Policy, 2019 It was prepared by a committee chaired by Dr. K. Kasturirangan has been shared by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development for public comments. The policy aims at making India a knowledge superpower by equipping students with the necessary skills and knowledge. It also focuses on eliminating the shortage of manpower in Science and Technology, academics, and industry. The Draft Policy is built on foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability & Accountability. The policy tries to focus on certain foundational skills that children should have in the proposed new structure of 5+3+3+4. The first stage of five years: for children of 3-8 years of age i.e. foundational stage looks at discovery learning and learning by play. The foundational literacy and numeracy skills are a mission mode approach under it that includes National Tutors’ Program, remedial instructional aid programs, etc. It considers nutrition as very critical for strengthening the levels of 3-8 years of children. The Preparatory Stage: for the children in the age group of 8 to 11 years (grades 3 to 5) followed by the Middle Stage (grade s 6 to 8) for the students in the age group of 11-14 years and the Secondary Stage (Grades 9-12) for students in the age group of 14-18 years. The practice of setting up stand-alone universities for professional education will be discontinued. All institutions offering either professional or general education must organically evolve into institutions offering both seamlessly by 2030. Restructuring of the higher education system into Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3. All such institutions will gradually move towards full autonomy - academic, administrative, and financial. The idea is to spread the ‘research culture’ at the undergraduate level. Tier 1 includes research universities focusing equally on research and teaching, Tier 2 includes teaching universities focusing primarily on teaching; and Tier 3 includes colleges focusing only on teaching at undergraduate levels. It proposed a merger of Intermediate education with school education. ​Hence, the new proposals made in the new Education Policy-2019 draft are: Stand-alone colleges of education should vanish by 2030. Intermediate education is merged with school education.