NEP apparently focuses on the five major concerns Indian education system — access, equity, quality, accountability, and affordability in addition to making education relevant to the changing needs and challenges of Indian society. The document found itself drawn into a high-profile controversy soon after the MHRD posted it online soliciting feedback from stakeholders across the nation.
DRVASUDHA MC
Making the Long Awaited Shifts in Education he New Education Policy 2020 includes some long-awaited shifts in the education sector like the inclusion of both early childhood education and secondary education of the Right to Education Act, doubling the budget allocation for education, strengthening decentralized mechanisms of teacher management and support, expansion of school nutrition program to include provision of school breakfast, and a possible return of the no-detention policy. It reiterates the lasting position of the Indian state of prohibiting ‘for- profit’ provision in education. The framers of NEP intended to change the structure of the school entirely: starting school from 3 years of age, merging 9-12 standards into an 8-semester framework, replacing current assessment with application-based assessment pattern, creating new School Complexes and Special Educational Zones for backward areas.
Till class Six they have given strong emphasis to reading, writing and numeric skills. With one in two students in India, still not able to read and write up to their standards this is again an essential move to improve the quality of education. They have also given spaces for Moral and Community level Problems for classes 6th to 8th in regards with health safety, socio-emotional learning, personal freedom and responsibilities, constitutional knowledge, sex education, the literature of India, ethical and moral reasoning as well as for Current Affairs in classes 9th to 12th. Apart from them, the importance of vocational studies has also been acknowledged, with guidelines for NCERT to create detailed curriculums for vocational courses such as carpentry, electric work, metal work, gardening and pottery making.
Another key feature of this policy is the introduction of Remedial Instructional Aides Programme (RIAP) and National Tutor Program (NTP) for capacity building purposes, especially for the dropout students who re-enroll in the classes.
Concerns with New Education Policy
There are some concerns and constrains in the recommendations of the draft NEP that need to be discussed and addressed before this policy is finalized and implemented.
To begin with, if implemented, the new draft will require an exponential increase in investment owing to creation of new school complexes and merging, establishment of new institutions like National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) in place of UGC, National Research Foundation for funding of research, expansion of mid-day meal program for breakfast, new set of curricula, extensive teacher trainings. This would be a difficult reversal of cutting down of allocation to education in the last 5 years by the government.
It may be noted that, if the government does not increase the budget in the education sector, it can lead to two outcomes:
1. The policy will be pushed to a Public- private partnership (PPP) model extensively, with a larger control of the Private sector, in terms of finances and administration. PPP has been initiated in Chandigarh, Rajasthan and 2500 schools of the Centre in the last 5 years, and have met with a lot of criticism in Rajasthan for increasing the cost of education considerably.
2. The Indian estimate of the education budget is at a much lower 2.7% of GDP. The State’s control over such schools has to be monitored, or else it can lead to disastrous consequences of increased inequality over the access of education.
The biggest issue with the Policy is that it is not able to identify the bottlenecks i.e. the real problems during implementation and framing policies in accordance with the recommendations. The Policy talks about ‘exits’ for children to drop out and re-enroll, and at the same time also emphasizes on enacting Right To Education till class 12. It is commonsense reasoning that free and compulsory education cannot happen with the provisions of exits from the school despite the government considering it ‘realistic’ and ‘progressive’ to approve child labour for children younger than 14 years in family businesses. Major reasons for dropping out of school include expensive education, migration, prevalence of child labour, menstruation, marriage and ‘lack of interest’ in children to study i.e. lack of motivation to study. The data indicate that twenty three million girls drop out every year when they attain puberty (10-13 years) and the main reason being they cannot travel with menstruation and another reason is, education for them is not considered as necessary as learning domestic work and marriage. It is more important to identify the problems and evolve proper target-based approaches than writing single line guidelines such as ‘adequate toilets and sanitary napkins will be provided’ in the gender section.
Around 58.6 million children indulge in child labour (from 5 years to 18 years of age; majorly from SC/ST population) due to various socio-economic constraints and hence are out of regular and formal schooling. To deal with this issue the policy needs to remove ‘exits’ as a normal way-out and making education compulsory for all the children below 18.
Guidelines such as digitalization of open schools for ‘migratory’ children, is frivolous as the majority of migratory children belong to informal laborers. Let alone affording digital aid, they do not have the access to provide basic education to their children. How are these children, without any aid, supposed to study from ‘digital open schools’ on computers?
Sexual abuse of students is another issue of concern that is not adequately focused upon. According to Delhi Police, around 60% of child abuse cases reported in Delhi are incidents from schools. The real number could be much higher. Children going through such horrifying crimes, may not be knowing what has happened and whom to talk to. Neither mechanisms of redressal/complaint are created for schools, nor children are taught what good touch or bad touch is. Although the policy has given space for sex education from 9th to 12th-grade level, it is still inadequate to deal with the issue of child abuse. Further, with this government’s ideological inclinations to do away with sex education entirely, it doesnot seem likely that they would allow a curriculum on understanding the ideas of consent, physical boundaries, and sexual abuse for younger children.
The policy further calls for a review of the 25% reservation for poor children under Right to Education Act (RTE) as it is “unduly restrictive”, and removes all provisions of state-led inspection and enforcement of regulatory provisions. This may dampen the very spirit with which the RTE was envisaged.
The spate of exclusionary incidents and the number of cases of denial of admission by private schools to poor children under the 25% quota make the proposed policy sound incredibly naïve when it says that they can be trusted and “given the autonomy to do the right thing” on their own. An argument made in the policy is that legally binding quality norms under RTE are somehow detrimental to innovation and quality. Any parent who has had children enrolled in private schools recognizes the sheer power asymmetry between parents and teachers. Poor and neo-literate parents, in particular, cannot be expected to hold the onus of ensuring that the powerful and resourced schools comply with quality, safety and equity norms.
Higher Education Institutions
For many of us located in institutions of higher education, Part II of the policy holds the prospects of quick and dramatic transformations. Among the transformations envisaged is an introduction of a Four Year Undergraduate Program, which has had a rather debatable experience in University of Delhi.
While HEIs are envisaged as autonomous, research will now be supported and funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF). Research concerns, expectedly, are laid down by the NRF. While there is a passing reference to the fact that research can have startling and unexpected consequences, the guiding principle is “relevance”. Researchers are expected “to connect such research across disciplines with societal needs and with governmental bodies and with industry”. Further, “It is also extremely important to note that only the government can have the perspective to drive the research that will result in innovations that will facilitate economic growth”.
Evidently, the autonomy promised to teachers and researchers in HEIs is to be exercised within sharply defined parameters. So, while the NRF will have an annual budget of Rs 20,000 crores, how it will be utilized will be regulated by the government.
There will be no elected members to any of the bodies or structures within the HEI, other than some bodies of students. Ironically, then, HEI, which are supposed to educate future citizens, will be reduced to institutions that are run in a completely top-down mode, with virtually no legitimate space left for the learning and practice of democratic ideals.
Further, while HEIs are visualized as multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary spaces and a long list of disciplines that are supposed to ensure this is provided, there are notable omissions like Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Dalit Studies, Studies of Discrimination and Exclusion, Environmental Studies and Development Studies, all of which have developed in promising ways over the last three or four decades, often through dialogue between activists and academicians.
Finally, it may not be out of context to state that the NEP serves the purpose of BJP Government, primarily on two grounds. One, this will be used as a shield to the criticism that the NDA government has faced during the first term for cutting down the budgets from the public schooling, removing scholarships of the marginalized communities for higher education, removing contractual school teachers, meddling with appointments of the Vice Chancellors, replacing University Grants Commission with Higher Education Financing Authority and worrisome drop of 31% in the functioning of SarvaShikshaAbhiyan and 71% in RashtriyaMadhyamikShikshaAbhiyan. As the voices were being raised against how BJP Government had destroyed the fabric of education, they can now claim how they have envisaged to transformed education through NEP. Secondly, this will lead to control on curriculum as an entirely new set of curriculum will be evolved by NCERTs and SCERTs under the direct control of the so called right wing or Hindutva, leading to the inculcation and inclusion of plenty of cultural and traditional knowledge, that has been the prime agenda of party in power.
As a concluding remark it may be stated that the policy is an important document outlining policies whose implementation will make an impact on future generations. Therefore, it deserves to be discussed widely in terms of the possible implications of the policy. The entire document needs to be subjected to careful analysis in terms of gender, caste, class, disability, minority rights, and rights of tribal populations. We can no longer afford a simplistic, mechanical approach towards inclusivity. To be meaningful, inclusivity must inform the entire policy, as well as the curricula, syllabi, and textbooks. It will also require a transformation of the attitudes of administrators, teachers, students, and staff within educational institutions. This is far more important than dismantling existing structures and replacing them with even more hierarchical ones as seems to be envisaged in the document.
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