This a reprint from an Article published in New Democracy August 2021 Issue
Background and Road to NEP 2020
In May 2020, Prime Minister Mr.
Narendra Modi announced that a new National Education Policy (NEP 2020) should
be implemented even if there is no opportunity to discuss it in Parliament. He
also announced that online education shall be the core thrust of this policy,
as this is a technology driven world and to have world class education, digital
education is the future. He proposed that the cabinet should approve it and
policy be implemented. Following this, the government of India promulgated
National Education Policy on 29th July 2020.
This was the 6th document released by the Modi led
NDA government. In 2016, they appointed then Cabinet Secretary, Mr. T.S.R.
Subramanian to chair a committee to formulate an Education policy in 2016. The
report of that committee was never made public, for reasons still not known.
Mr. T.S.R. Subramanian himself made it public later, before his retirement.
Though it was not accepted, it paved the way for NEP 2020. This Committee
recommended dissolution of UGC, inviting 200 foreign universities, Centralized
control, revamping School education including early childhood care etc. In July
2016 a strange sounding document ‘Draft Input For Education Policy’ was
released by the government which was based on this. It only sought suggestions
from people. This document too was in line with WTO and saffronization. Many
organizations and individuals, including PDSU, have submitted needed critical
comments. However, nobody till date knows what happened to this document.
Sometime in 2018, then human resource development minister Mr. Prakash
Javadekar announced that we will have a new education policy by the end of
2018. That remained only an announcement. But as soon as the second innings of NDA
started, immediately the Prime Minister announced National Education Policy
2019. Obviously, this policy was not written in a week's time. This 484-page
document was prepared by a committee headed by Kasturi Ranjan, former ISRO
chief. This was released in Hindi and English and a month’s time was given for
suggestions. Again, many organizations and individuals put their suggestions
with the demand that the report be released in many Indian languages and time
to give comments be increased if any fruitful inputs are desired. While time
was increased by a few days, the document was not released in vernacular. This
limited the suggestions on very important aspects of education policy and
future of young ones to the elite few. PDSU was again among the organizations
who gave suggestions. It was thought that this was going to be a new education
policy. This policy sought to revamp the entire education system covering a
student of 3 years of age to students doing research. This revamp was proposed
to facilitate privatization, deregulation, saffronization, Central control, in
other words fulfilling the agenda of WTO and World Bank on one hand, and
pushing Hindutva agenda another. Although it was covered with flowery language,
showing concern for lack of reach of education, about education being a burden,
need for scientific temper etc.
But even this was not the final document. In
October 2019, a new 55-page document, which was essentially a summary of the
same was released. Then it appeared that this is the final document. However,
in December 2019 a similar 60-page document was released. All this was probably
not in focus due to the countrywide protests that spread all over following
CAA. On 29th of July this year, the Cabinet declared that it has adopted
National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020 or NEP). However, within 24 hours
another 66-page document appeared on the website of the Ministry of Human
Resource Development. Probably this sixth document in the last 4 years can be
considered as final. This document has two additions as compared to the earlier
one. One, it has a detailed section on OLE (On Line Education). Second, it has
introduced constitutional values and plurality of India in its Introduction, in
Schools section and added a para taking some part of preamble to the
Constitution in the Higher Education section too, albeit along with ‘Indianness
values’. While the first one was there earlier too, but detailed discussion has
been added, while the second one may be attributed to countrywide anti-CAA
protests.
These changes apart, this document is a conceptual
replica of the Kasturi Ranjan committee report. Many of the sugar coats have
been omitted, certain names have been changed, some details were altered and
removed which were obviously controversial or ridiculous, but in essence it is
just the same. It is a policy of privatization and commercialization,
saffronisation, undemocratization, anti-deprived sections, tight centralized
control, denial of diversity and dissent. This policy aims to produce unskilled,
skilled and highly skilled workers for MNCs without imparting any knowledge or
understanding of subjects. This is a policy to produce zombies in service of
MNCs and making education a tradable service to fetch profits.
Let us see the brief background of current
onslaughts on education and which led to current policy. As soon as WTO was
formed, its constituent, GATS, declared health, education etc. to be tradable
services. That means these services are no longer any responsibility of the
state or right of people but these are for making profit only. It has
discouraged states’ spending on these sectors and proposed to withdraw its
funding in a phased manner. It met with stiff opposition from different
sections of people, particularly university teachers and students.
GATS has four modes. One is Cross Border Delivery:
i.e., delivery of education services via the internet which covers Distance
education, tele-education, education testing services and open education. This
is the thrust of this Policy too. Second is Consumption Abroad which covers
Movement of students from one country to another for higher education and
foreign students in universities etc. This, too, is one of the strong proposals
of the current draft although this is garbed in other phrases. Third one is
Commercial Presence which means Establishment of local branch campuses or
subsidiaries by foreign universities in other countries, course offerings by
domestic private colleges leading to degrees at foreign universities, twinning
arrangements, franchising; presence of sponsors of campuses and courses. Fourth
is Movement of persons meaning Temporary movement of teachers, lecturers, and
education personnel to provide education services overseas. We shall see that
all the four modes are embedded in the new policy draft with some sugar-coating
and camouflage of good intentions to drastically change the current situation
with respect to the aspects identified.
There were movements all over the world against
making education a tradeable service. USA, UK and European countries were
facing anguish of people and educationists in their countries. To help enforce
WTO conditions, the World Bank crept in. It brought a vision document titled ‘Constructing
Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education’. It has noted
fierce opposition to GATS and proposed to formulate a long-term goal for
tertiary education. It proposed to mediate between private players, governments
and “The Bank can bring to the same table stakeholders who would not normally
converse and work together.” A Model Act was proposed for all universities with
a single regulatory environment. As state funding to be progressively reduced,
it proposed financial incentives, an open system of education, credit transfer,
tuition exchange, education loans, creation of virtual universities. Regulation
should be only on some minimum entry quality and no other trade barriers. Funds
should be generated from the assets of Institutions, students, or third
parties.
NDA-1 succumbed to it and justified the proposals.
It openly vouched for privatization. Notorious Birla-Ambani Report appeared and it
noted- “A Policy Framework ForReforms in Education” in 2000. This report sought
to make the entire higher education a profitable industry and recommended full
cost recovery from students, education should be controlled by corporate and
denial of any political activities including usual Trade Unions. There was a
wide opposition to this report and the government could not dare to implement
it openly. Towing the line of WB, NDA-I government asked University Grants
Commission (UGC) to bring a Concept Paper in October 2003 entitled “Towards
Formulation of Model Act for Universities of the 21st Century in India” with a
view “to prepare the Indian University system for the future.” “Universities
are becoming complex institutions”, an appropriate strategy needs to be adopted
“for their governance, organization and management. This government was
desperate to bring this act in 2003 but it was blocked in Parliament. And in
2004 UPA took over.
The UPA Govt was stopped by people’s movements from
signing the GATS Agreement under WTO as it included Education as a Trade. Still,
UPA-I committed in 2005 that it will fulfil its obligation as a WTO member and
will consider Education as a service as per norms of GATS. The Ministry of
Commerce (not HRD) issued a paper entitled “Higher Education in India and GATS:
An Opportunity”. It sought a balance between domestic regulation and free
trade. But GATS has identified barriers. Some of them are restrictions on free
movement and nationality requirements of students and teachers, immigration
regulations, types of courses, movement of teachers, modalities of payments or
repatriation of money, conditions concerning use of resources, direct
investment and equity ceilings, existence of public monopolies, subsidies to
local institutions, economic need tests, exchange controls, non-recognition of
equivalent qualifications, etc. The Ministry of Commerce wanted to remove
these. All can be seen in NEP 2020.
Model Act or direct submission to WTO dictates is
not possible as it will create an outburst, Kapil Sibal brought a series of
bills to achieve the same. There were massive funds cut in higher education in
the USA and UK and Europe following which there were many protests in these
countries. There was lots of pressure on India to ease out the pressure by
opening its doors. An Indo-US education Council was set up. Similarly, a little
later, in 2010, with UK it was also agreed that the UK-India Education and
Research Initiative (UKIERI) will facilitate collaboration between the two
nations to join hands to set up new institutes, increase skills development
programmes, hold leadership programmes and work on quality assurance of courses
offered to students.
Realizing that it was not possible to directly and
openly follow GATS, the Government now tried to push the WTO-WB agenda formally
but without announcing so. It brought 6 bills related to education 'reforms'.
The Notorious Four Years Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) was an attempt in this
direction. It was abolished by the BJP government only to bring its new avatar,
Choice Based Credit System (CBCS).
But these bills lapsed as opposition blocked the
proceedings in the parliament. Began the first innings of NDA-2. It inherited
these unfinished tasks of the UPA government. It was more than willing to
fulfil these to please imperialism. In fact, with an accelerated speed and
vigor. It has the ability to put a garb of nationalism to all these and RSS
swung into full action. It tried to change the debate to saffronization and
nationalism to push the agenda of corporatization of education.
The NEP 2020
As mentioned earlier, the NEP 2020 is a conceptual
replica of the Kasturirangan Committee report. We have reviewed it in
some detail earlier point by point (vide July 2019 Issue of New
Democracy). Here we try to present certain broad features of NEP 2020. It
refers to earlier policies, which have some appreciation but mentions that it
will fulfill the tasks not completed without mentioning either the tasks
fulfilled or tasks not completed.
Structural Changes in School Education
There is complete structural change in school
education. Earlier, school education started at the age of 5 or 6 years in
class 1. Early Childhood Care & Education (ECCE) remained outside its
purview. There were Anganwadis, limited government schools that offered nursery
class. Most of the ECCE was private. New structure is 5+3+3+4 instead of 10 + 2
or 8+2+2. Now in the name of better foundation it is engulfing ECCE
including Anganwadis. Thus, pre-schooling will be a must for admission in class
1. It will immensely help private pre-school schooling as the government has no
plan for infrastructure development for this. Rather they propose to use
substandard methods to achieve the same, like using plastic bottles to make
rattles. Even distance and DTH channels are proposed for training and teaching
at this level. Any pedagogical rationale of such structural change is not
discussed.
There is no pedagogical justification of this
structural change.
The idea here is it merely makes the children
literate and not educated. This is part of the imperialist agenda and worldwide
such programmes are on. The idea is to create students, who will serve as a
cheap basic labour force for MNCs. Emphasis is on “numeracy and literacy” and
preparing students for schools. The structure of preparatory classes, modules
and then external evaluation at 3, 5 , 8 ,10 and 12 level, semester system will
put immense pressure on students to perform and will not promote free learning
and understanding & application but a tendency to cramming. With lack
of infrastructure the gap will only increase in different layers of education.
The whole idea is to change the education system of
schools and put it in control of the Centre, fulfilling the agenda of WTO.
Also, having a busy curriculum which will not allow children to think beyond.
Vocational Courses
There is not just overemphasis, but there is an
emphatic shift towards vocational courses in NEP. Right from class 6th onwards
vocational courses will be pushed. That means a child has to make a choice of
stream at a tender age where he/she may not be able to appreciate the meaning
of it. It proposes that children will take a ‘fun course’ in carpentry,
electric work, metal work, pottery, gardening etc. and these courses will be
made available even during holiday periods. Students studding in schools
with poorer facilities will tend to go(pushed) towards it and will not be able
to go for good higher education. While these courses will help children to
acquire some skills, it will not help them to gain knowledge. It will help
children to learn how to fix electric wire, but not know how electricity is
generated.
It should also be noted that the Ministry of HRD
runs a program called National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF). This is
likely to be made compulsory for jobs in unorganized sectors as well in future.
The whole exercise is to facilitate the production of literate skilled workers.
This will also mean that in future persons with self-acquired skills like
motorcycle mechanic, tailors, etc. may find it difficult to get a job.
No Distinction Between Private & Government
Establishments
This is a very dangerous feature of this policy. It
puts Private and government educational establishments (schools, colleges,
universities etc.) at par. It means that in terms of receiving grants, favours,
distinction will vanish. meaning thereby that government aid can be or rather
has to be given to private establishments if certain criteria are fulfilled.
Not just this, a school teacher can be assigned to teach in a private school of
a proposed school complex. The teacher will draw a salary from the government
but will have an additional duty to teach in private schools.
At college level it will have similar implications.
And with removal of distinction between foreign and domestic players as per the
desires of WTO, dominance of foreign capital and its control over content and
jobs can be easily seen. As GATS says that there should not be any distinctions
between domestic and foreign players.
Social Justice/Reservation
This policy does not even mention any kind of
reservations. It talks of Socio Economically Disadvantaged Group (SEDG)
covering SC, ST, OBC, girls. Minorities, geographical areas, especially abled.
While recognizing the fact that they are at disadvantage to receive education,
and have a high dropout rate, it proposes ineffective ways with high sounding
words. It says they can be facilitated to go to schools by making walking
groups to reach schools, making a fund, alternative form of schools, peer
teaching, sensitizing teachers and students to create a new culture. It will
practically amount to substandard teaching to SEDG. And then scholarship to
meritorious students among this section. Not acknowledging the fact that
‘Merit’ itself is decided by socio-economic backwardness. There will be a
single agency for all the categories of SEDG. This itself is sociologically
illogical.
This is a clever ploy to do away with reservation,
and deepening the gap in the name of social justice.
Reduced Number of Institutions
There is a proposal to reduce the number of
educational institutions, both at schools’ level as well as college level. At
school level there is a proposal of making school complexes. Lamenting over
poor conditions of village schools, with poor infrastructure and poor PTR, it
proposes not to improve them but virtually shut them and merge them with
‘Schools Complexes. It says “...school complex, consisting of one secondary
school together with all other schools offering lower grades in its neighborhood
including Anganwadis, in a radius of five to ten kilometers….”. It means that
without building infrastructure like building, labs, play grounds, libraries
and appointing teachers and other staff, policymakers propose to solve the
problem of enrollment. How will ECCE be encouraged when Anganwadi center will
be far off (Anganwadis are anyway due to face existential threat)? How will
students be transported to various component schools of this complex? Even
teachers will be shared and will face transportation and over burdening
problems. This is another way of showing the solution without either having it or
spending a penny extra.
School complexes will use online resources and
volunteer support, which means forced open education even in regular school. It
also says that education officers will give sufficient autonomy to complex
management to “innovate” how to educate in the complexes. It implies that they
will not be provided any extra resources either in kind or in training but will
be left to themselves to “innovate”. Volunteer support will mean intrusion of
external forces like corporate, RSS, NGOs at the school level.
Niti Ayog had already proposed closure and merger of
schools two years back, and many state governments have already started
implementing the same.
At college level matter will not be any different.
With so called graded financial autonomy, only colleges able to generate funds
from sources other than government will be able to survive. Colleges will be
delinked from universities and will be able to grant their own degrees. That
means central funds too will automatically be denied to colleges. It will
encourage closure of colleges and in the long run a lesser number of regular
colleges shall survive.
Mother Tongue
There is talk of mother tongue and concerns over
students not being able to study in their mother tongue. While it is true that
a child will comprehend and express best in its mother tongue, there is little
emphasis on it in practice in our education system. This policy advocates
education in the mother tongue. But it says “Wherever possible, the medium of
instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond,
will be the home language/mother tongue/local language/regional language.
Thereafter, the home/local language shall continue to be taught as a language
wherever possible.” This “wherever possible” phrase is explanatory. It is an
excuse given to avoid this particularly in private schools.
Secondly, when higher education and professional
educational courses are not available in mother tongue, its value will remain
second grade and children studying in their mother tongue will stand at a
disadvantage.
It also proposes a three-language formula which has
faced stiff resistance in Tamilnadu. It also mentions that children should be
exposed to all languages and must learn how Indian languages are similar. It
says …’Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’ initiative. In this project/activity,
students will learn about the remarkable unity of most of the major Indian
languages...”. And later it not only talks of reviving Sanskrit, but also
digging out knowledge written in this language through ‘Sanskrit Knowledge
Systems’. While it may be fine to study the language and its literature for
historians, imposing this dead language and in the name of ‘Sanskrit Knowledge
Systems’ creating a narrative of “false greatness of past” will be fortified. A
long-cherished agenda of RSS. it also tries to create a basis for linguistic
hegemony. It says there is a commonality in all Indian languages and that
should be studied. It forgets that there is a set of languages originating from
ancient Dravidian languages. Moreover, it ignores languages spoken by common
people both presently and in the past. Past languages like Prakrit, Pali and
many dialects spoken today do not figure in the concept of languages being
talked about in this policy, which are the real mother tongue of the people.
These issues are not addressed and while talking of mother tongue, regional
languages, linguistic chauvinism is promoted.
Open/Distance/Non-Formal Education
While the policy talks about poor GER (General
Enrolment Ratio), expresses concern of dropout rate, the solutions it proposes
are in contradiction with concerns. This aspect is very consistent in this
policy document. It expresses concerns about drop rate, without either
addressing its cause or attempts to provide any solution. Solution it proposes
is ODL (Open Distance Learning) and online education, particularly in higher
education presently. However, it warns National School of Open Learning to be
prepared for more strong courses for ODL as it envisages that in future this
will prevail in schools too.
It fails to recognize that what they call dropout
rate is actually throw out rate. Students are thrown out of regular education
due to a flawed system and not because of fault of theirs. It is the economic
condition, accessibility of schools, gender, social backwardness, as well as
various pedagogical issues which forces children to opt out which is a systemic
failure and most students are actually thrown out of the system. As per data
from the government, 85% of students enrolled in class I do not cross Class
XII, and if we see a combination of ST, SC, OBC, Minorities it amounts to 90%
of total. The courses are not designed keeping their background or the
comprehensibility of the material in mind apart from the factors enumerated
above.
Pushing them to ODL will only further their
backwardness in reality, while the government can shrug off its responsibility.
This is a way to facilitate privatization as gradually private education will
flourish and ODL will give a semblance of education to the vast majority.
Online Education
This is one of the central ideas of this policy. It
advocates emphatically that a large part of education should be online. The PM
has already justified and glorified it in the name of using technology and
digital India. Idea is taken from GATS which specifically recommended Cross
border delivery i.e., delivery of education services via the internet.
immediately after its inception, WTO pressurized for online education,
even though the internet was not so developed. This was done in the name of
structural adjustment and cutting costs. In 1995 itself 19 US governors founded
Governors University to maximize resources in open distance education. By 1999
many new educational tools began to appear like e-Blackboard e-College etc. by
2003 81% of US universities had at least one online course. 2007 saw the first
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).
Although initial justification included free or
cheap education for those not able to afford regular education, business sharks
saw it as an opportunity and they jumped in. The low cost of investments and
regular profit was seen as a high surplus generating avenue. They started
lobbying. Interestingly not the educationists but 83% of CEOs and small
entrepreneurs rated MOOC as credible as a regular course. By 2014 98% of public
funded colleges started offering online programmes.
In India too this market is growing. Many online
companies have flourished. Google had a big agreement with Jio and Jio too is
launching a platform. It has been estimated that the Online education market in
India was worth $ 247 million in 2016, which is expected to grow about $ 1.96
billion by 2021. That is a compound annual growth rate of 52%. The number of
users enrolled for various online learning courses is estimated to be 1.6
million in 2016, which is expected to grow about 9.6 million by the end of
2021. Their policies are just to cater to corporate’s needs.
Online education has not been very successful
everywhere in the world. A study conducted by MIT and Harvard showed that about
95% of students enrolled for MOOC dropped out. Most common reason given by the
students is that there is no live teacher engagement. Even in universities
offering free online courses, only 10% completed the course. And this is in the
USA where internet connectivity and availability of devices is far better than
India.
In our country OLE has and will only increase the
gap in the multilayered education system. People having good access to the
internet and equipment like laptops, good big houses will be better off.
Classes can be best taken on laptops and in a secluded environment. Large
number of people in our society don't even have smartphones for their children.
Small single room house is very unsuitable for taking classes. That apart, good
and sufficient internet data is needed. All these have pushed students in lower
strata of society out of meaningful education.
It has also enhanced gender discrimination. When a
girl or woman is at home, many times household work becomes a priority over
taking classes. It is true for teachers as well. If less equipment is
available, boys get priority.
It has also raised mental health issues. It puts
mental Stress on children of young age groups (5-10 years old) as their period
for concentrating is small and they need physical activities. Even older
students have these problems. Not interacting with friends and teachers also
puts lots of mental stress. Excessive screen time has long been identified by
psychologists as a cause of stress.
Courses requiring practicals like science,
technology, arts, music etc. cannot be taught effectively online. The so-called
virtual labs are more of a formality and money-making business rather than of
any actual use.
Central Control
The policy is heavily in favour of tight
centralization. Although it criticizes the current system as “heavy handed” or
“Heavy concentration of powers” etc., what solution it offers is just the
opposite. This attitude is there everywhere in policy document. While talking
of diversity, local and regional variations, the policy actually proposes a
very centralized control over the education system. Many mechanisms at various
levels are proposed.
It proposes a Higher Education Commission of India
(HECI) and 4 verticals viz. National Higher Education Regulatory Council
(NHERC), National Accreditation Council (NAC), Higher education Grants Council
(HEGC) and General Education Council (GEC).
NHERC proposes a ‘light but tight;’ control. It
will control financial probity, infrastructure, staff etc. tightly and the
light aspect will be that all information will be available online. It even
proposes to ‘relook and repeal’ some of the relevant acts. This document,
unlike earlier one, postpones binary accreditation by NAC for about 15 years
and till then a robust graded accreditation will be done. This is also a time
may be taken by education business houses to establish or acquire HEIs (Higher
Education Institutions),following which a large number will shut down.
The concept of GEC will eventually result in
universities and institutions losing their autonomy. Universities will not be
able to decide their syllabi, pedagogy, etc. as GEC will set up a National
Higher Qualification Education Framework (NHECF) which will be in ‘sync’ with
National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF). This will be binding to all
HEIs.
NAC will prescribe Institutional Development Plans
(IDP) and this will be a criterion for funding by HEGC.
The tightness of control can be easily seen. But
for financial matters, private institutions just have to be transparent. They
can earn profits and invest elsewhere in educational Institutions.
Teachers
While lamenting about the conditions of teachers,
it does not provide any measures to improve them, rather its direction is only
to worsen it. As it is, with a reduced number of institutions, privatizations,
teachers’ jobs will be hit. It proposes a ‘tenure track system’ instead of the
current probation and regularization system. The current system allows a
teacher under probation to be automatically regularized after completion of
probation period if no negative report is there against the teacher. Now the
tenure track system means that after every fixed tenure, the teacher will be
evaluated and can be asked to leave. This would mean absolute non security and
virtually teachers will be reduced to bonded labourers and sycophancy, nepotism
and towing the line of ruling regime will prevail. It doesn't address at all
the current problem of guest/ad hoc appointments rather proposes to convert all
appointments as ad hoc.
With deregulations of salaries in institutions, the
exploitation of teachers is not difficult to see. It proposes no regulation on
salary structure on institutions provided the institutions have a transparent
online self-disclosure.
While talking of lack of quality teachers, it has
no clear-cut ideas as to how to train them. Teachers will be trained in
multidisciplinary HEIs by 2035, replacing current B.Ed.! Contradicting
itself, it even proposes to replace current teachers with volunteers, social
workers, local eminent persons, passionate people etc., without specifying
either their roles or qualifications.
Volunteers
Expressing concern over poor PTR (Parent Teacher
Ratio), it suggests a very novel method to overcome this. Not by recruiting
more teachers but as it says “Efforts will be made to involve community and
alumni in volunteer efforts for enhancing learning by providing at schools:
one-on-one tutoring; the teaching of literacy and holding of extra help
sessions; teaching support and guidance for educators; career guidance and
mentoring to students; etc. In this regard, the support of active and healthy
senior citizens, school alumni and local community members will be suitably
garnered. Databases of literate volunteers, retired scientists/government/semi
government employees, alumni, and educators will be created for this
purpose.” While this means that the government is again shrugging off its
responsibility, it will allow RSS cadres to enter into teaching from the back
door on one hand and secondly, will also allow Education to be controlled by
corporate through CSR. All the talk of improving teachers’ quality, starting a
new B.Ed. course, continuous training of teachers, to produce quality
educators, looks only an imitation ornament.
FYUP, MultipleEntry/Exit and
Multidisciplinary/Credit Bank
FYUP (Four Year Undergraduate Programme) which was
brought by the Congress government and opposed by BJP (though they brought its
new avatar CBCS, i.e. Choice Based Credit System) is now back. Making under
graduation a four years programme is to make it suitable to US education
systems, to facilitate foreign players.
Four years will have many entry and exit points.
One can get a diploma or different degrees as per time of exit. Courses will
also have credits consisting of course hours. One has to finish different
minimum number of credits to reach the different exit points. This will have
many problems. People from poor economic backgrounds will tend to exit early
and thus will be pushed into substandard education. Proposed credit bank is
also deluding. It says one can accumulate credit and can leave the course.
Later, in future or in different institutions, these credits can be ‘cashed’
from the credit bank and continue from that point. This will again be used
mostly by people from higher economic strata as poorer ones will get busy in
economic activities and be unable to return later. Only hope will continue to
keep faith in the system.
NTA (National Testing Agency)
NEP 2020 also proposes to institute a National
Testing Agency (NTA) akin to the pattern in USA. A single agency is to conduct
examinations for professional and university admissions. It will mean
disregarding diversity of background, be it cultural, economic, social or any
another. NEET Suicide case of Tamil Nadu is a glaring example to look into.
That apart, NTA will be closely linked with The Program for International
Student Assessment (PISA). (PISA is an international assessment
that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy
every three years.) In last year’s round of PISA, where students from Himachal
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu sat for the test, India ranked 72nd out of 73 countries,
outranking only Kyrgyzstan.
This will further marginalize students from
deprived, oppressed sections. It will disregard their abilities and learning
and will promote students from only elite institutions.
Institutionalization of Privatization and
Corruption
While this is true that there is rampant corruption
in this sector, it is not unique to the education sector. This is also true
that there is commercialization and private institutes exploit parents to
extract money. Even schools made on philanthropic basis are no exceptions. This
document expresses concern over this and as everywhere in this policy, proposes
just to increase and validate this loot. PPP is renamed as public philanthropic
partnership. They will be encouraged to start self-financing courses to
rationalize profits! They will be encouraged to replace scholarships with
loans. Meaning thereby that financing companies too will reap ‘philanthropic’
profits. As discussed elsewhere, only form of regulation is transparent online
declarations and investment of profits in the education sector elsewhere. This
‘elsewhere’ in the GATS regime also means cross border investments- a foreign
company reaping profit here will legally invest in other countries. This will
also give a handle to siphon off capital and use it anywhere as only books have
to maintained.
De-democratization
As such education system is very undemocratic. But NEP 2020 tends to do
away with any semblance of democratic process in decision making. Particularly
in higher education, the attacks are sharp. HEIs will be governed by Board of
Governors (BOG) which will be nominated and will be outsiders. Current
provision of elected members of Academic Councils and Executive Councils will
vanish and teachers or academicians will not have any say in deciding academic
activities.
Similarly pressure to get more credits, scoring more to get better
placement to pay off loans will dissuade students from any other activities
including political. Pressure of tenure assessment will do same for
teachers.
Saffronization
Continuous mentioning of ‘Indianness’, our culture, in education is a garb
for saffronization. While in name of ‘our’ culture, only Brahmanical culture is
promoted, it does not even mention traditions of Charvak or Buddha or Kanad
etc. Similarly, the rich literature available in Pali, Prakrit, Urdu,
Apbhransh, Tamil, Kannada etc., does not even find a mention. It clearly indicates
the direction of education. History will be saffronized and the task of
rewriting history has already been given to UGC.
Conclusions
Here, we can see that NEP 2020 is a policy that will brazenly support
handing over of Education to corporate sector, excluding of a large mass of
society from quality education, a strong central control, blatant saffronization,
de-democratization, strengthening of increasing gaps, no to whatever measures
were there for social justice including reservation, strengthening caste
hierarchy, not recognizing diversity and dissent, not developing scientific
temper and full kneeling to imperialist diktats.
The government has already started implementing the same. Many state
governments have announced they will work hard to implement this, UGC has
already brought out a notice to implement blended education which proposes 40%
education should be online, job of rewriting history has started, merger and
closure of schools has started, an education board set up by Lala Ramdev has
been approved.
There has been opposition in different sections but none are significant
enough to be noticed by this shameless fascist regime. There is need to build
stronger movements against this and other attacks on Education.
