The National Democratic Alliance government will announce a new education policy before it finishes its two years in office on May 26, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani said on Monday. "Under the new education policy, National Council of Education Research and Training will address all those challenges facing the education system," Irani said. The NCERT needs to fix a lot of things in the education sector, as even students say they know more about Renaissance than about Maharana Pratap, she added.

Speaking about the newly launched web portal called Swayam (acronym for Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds), Irani said that the endeavour will help educate the poor. "It will provide quality education online through a portal and mobile app in ten Indian languages for classes 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th, including Board exams. It will start in the next two months and Indian students enrolled through it can get free education online and only money will be paid for giving exams," she said.

The Union minister also spoke about other government initiatives in the sector, including MOUs signed with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University to improve syllabi in the National Institutes of Technology in the country and the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, under which IITs, NITs and other leading educational institutes adopt villages, promote education and technical training.