The Bengaluru Collective, a citizen’s group, organized a one- day Public Consultation on the draft NEP on Sunday, 23 June 2019 at the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru. The Public Consultation saw participation from researchers and academics from higher education institutions in Bengaluru and activists and groups working on Right to Education and Early Childhood Care and Education,  including activists from the People’s Science Movement and the Free Software Movement- Karnataka. Prior to this meeting, the group created an abridged version of the draft NEP (also accessible here) for better dissemination of the Policy among the public. The group also compiled the views of the various stakeholders into a set of comments and recommendations on the draft NEP, which was then submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Bengaluru Collective highly appreciate the tireless commitment and efforts of all the participants and volunteers, especially

• Abha Jeurkar (Research Scholar, TISS Hyderabad),
• Abhishodh Prakash (Post Doctoral Fellow,  International Centre for Theoretical Sciences),
• Dr. Anil Kumar Avulappa,
• Arun Bahuleyan (Research Scholar, Raman Research Institute),
• Deepak Johnson (Research Scholar,  ISI Bangalore),
• Neenu Suresh (Research  Scholar,  NLSIU),
• Hariprasad S,  Joshy Ravindran,
• Lohith B Dev (Student, ACS College of Engineering),
• Rohith Bisht (Researcher,  Azim Premji University),
• Rimsha Hamza (Public Policy student,  NLSIU),
• Ram Seshan (Free Software Movement of Karnataka),
• Dr. Shan S,
• Prof. Sadiq Rangwala (Raman Research  Institute),
• Prof. Sabyasachi Chatterjee (retd. Indian Institute of Astrophysics),
• Shreyas Dinesh (Research Scholar, Raman Research Institute) and
• Dr. Sidhharth

in compiling the abridged version, organizing the Public Consultation and also compiling the feedback from the Consultation for official submission.

A pdf version of the recommendations below can also be found here and here.

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Feedback and Suggestions on the Draft National Education Policy 2019

Part I- School Education

Chapter 1

Early Childhood Care and Education: The Foundation of Learning

1. The chapter on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) places undue importance on Early Childhood Education (ECE) for children of age 3-6 years, shifting the focus away from a comprehensive, multi-sectoral, integrated ECCE system prescribed in the National ECCE Policy 2013. This dilutes the comprehensive understanding of ICDS programme, where the components of care, nutrition, healthcare and early education are provided in a holistic manner to young children from the age of 0-6 years.
2. Bringing ECE under the purview of Ministry of Human Resource Development (P1.3.) will lead to splitting of the administration of ECCE to two departments, from the current system of comprehensive administration of ECCE through the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Given the existing issues in ensuring inter-departmental convergence, early childhood will no longer be looked in a comprehensive manner, thereby affecting the holistic provision of services to young children.
3. The draft Policy recommends co-location of Anganwadis alongside the opening of pre-schools in schools and stand alone pre-schools (P1.2.). Such a recommendation will aggravate the drain of children of 3+ years from Anaganwadis to schools. It is not understood why the draft NEP recommends opening of pre-schools when Anganwadis are already catering to children of this age group.
4. Locating pre-schools in the school premises is feared to lead to penetration of methods of schools to pre-schools. While the recommendation for extending RTE Act to include ECE is commendable, this should not lead to a downward extension of primary school education. The provision on curricular and pedagogical framework lacks clarity on this (P1.1.).

Chapter 2

Foundational Literacy and Numeracy

1. The idea of foundational and core curriculum is not new. The NPE 1986 talked about ‘minimal levels of learning’ as well. This Draft rightly quotes ASER reports for the lack of learning levels. However, it does not refer to relevant studies from language and literacy pedagogy to understand why children are not able to learn basic literacy. It merely mentions the lack of school preparedness and rote learning as the prime pedagogic reasons for low levels of literacy. This is ill-informed.
2. The Draft Policy mentions generic pedagogic factors such as ‘multi-level, play-based, student-centered’ approaches. Language pedagogy is more nuanced than that. Recent research reveals non-sequential and emergent teaching-learning of speaking, listening, reading and writing; balancing of lower-order and higher-order skills; meaning-centered reading instruction and so on. These need to be included appropriately. Ideas like ‘language weeks’ and ‘fun puzzles’ are merely supplementary to the core principles of language and mathematics instruction. Expert advice is to be taken into consideration for more robust teaching-learning principles.
3. The suggestion that children can learn three languages (speaking, comprehension and fair level of reading) under the age of 8 does not take into consideration factors such as lack of natural exposure to languages, flawed language pedagogy and lack of trained teachers. Without correcting these parameters, the burden of learning languages is likely to increase significantly.
4. The decision of which languages need to be taught to children and when, could better be taken at the state level, in proper consultation with educationists and language pedagogy experts.
5. National Tutors Programme (NTP) and Remedial Instruction Aides Programme (RIAP) (P2.5. P2.6., P2.7.) demonstrate an attitude of de-professionalization in the teaching of foundational numeracy and literacy. Foundational language and numeracy teaching and especially remedial instruction are specialized areas that need to be addressed by well-trained teachers only. Instructional aides, as per the suggestions in draft NEP, would end up working as para-teachers. The Policy suggestion to utilize the “best performers” in each school for NTP is equally lamentable for its idea of grading the children and also leading to de-professionalization of teaching foundational numeracy and literacy. The responsibility of managing volunteers, tutors and instructional aides falls on the teacher, and this is likely to distract the teachers from their core responsibilities. The answer to lack of learning levels is more systemic, and cannot be fixed by the same shoddy quick-fixes that have proven to be ineffective in the past.

Chapter 3

Reintegrating Dropouts and Ensuring Universal Access to Education

1. Despite acknowledging the lack of secondary schools and school infrastructure as the key reason for drop-outs after the primary stage, the draft Policy suggests a consolidation of schools into school complexes (P3.1.). Its recommendation for consolidating existing stand-alone schools- especially those having low attendance of children- into composite schools/school complexes will in effect lead to closure of government schools and adversely affect the accessibility of education for children from the marginalized sections of the population.
2. Recommendation for loosening the RTE input restrictions (P3.12.), which are itself bare-minimum, is not substantiated by any research. School inputs and student outputs being intricately linked, it is not understood how a suggestion for less emphasis on inputs and more focus on outputs will improve the quality of education. It is feared that reducing the norms for inputs will encourage the proliferation of sub-standard private schools. With its suggestions for school complexes and loosening of RTE inputs, the push for privatization of education is writ-large in the draft Policy.
3. Commitment towards education by the government has its roots in the Karachi Congress, right from the Indian freedom struggle. The draft Policy completely drops its commitment towards the Common Schooling System (as introduced in the 1968 and reiterated in 1986/92 National Education Policy) and instead recommends school complexes, which is nothing short of shying away from the fundamental state responsibility of providing access to equitable and quality education to children in the country.

Chapter 4

Curriculum and Pedagogy in Schools

1. The rationale behind the shift to the 5+3+3+4 system (P4.1.1.) is unclear. Its implications to school infrastructure, teacher training, teacher appointments and nature of assessments need to be spelt out clearly.
2. While the draft Policy places much impetus on the need for moving away from rote-memorization, it states “…if and when rote learning is used, it will always be pre-accompanied by context and motivation, and post-accompanied by analysis, discussion and application” (P4.2.1). This is in complete contradiction with its call for developing high order skills of critical thinking and creativity.
3. Multilingualism is a desirable outcome in children. However, the planning for achieving proficiency in multiple languages needs to be done a lot more thoroughly and not by introducing ad-hoc courses like “languages of India” (P4.5.12.). The draft Policy’s suggestion for exposure to three or more languages to all students from pre-schools (P4.5.3) lacks credible research support. The Policy also falters in its commitment to home language/mother tongue as the medium of instruction. While RTE Act mandates that medium of instruction, shall, as far as practicable, be in child’s mother tongue, which in itself is a dilution in commitment to learning in mother tongue/home language, the draft Policy further weakens this commitment by stating that “When possible the medium of instruction- at least until Grade 5 but preferably till at least Grade 8– will be home language/mother tongue/local language” (Emphasis supplied) (P4.5.1.). In fact, there is much more emphasis on classical languages than that for one’s home language/mother tongue/local language in the document.
4. By suggesting that the choice of vocational courses will depend on the needs of local community and, schools may choose a subset of livelihoods and related skills that are of value to the local community (P4.6.6.1.), differentiation of schooling is feared to get exacerbated. For instance, children in villages are likely to have access to low-paying, caste-based and traditional occupations. On the other hand, children in urban schools are likely to have access to more lucrative and modern vocational skills such as artificial intelligence, computational courses, and creative use of ICT. Early vocationalization is likely to create a two-tier schooling system, wherein the “poor or poorly performing” children will be trained to become cheap labour, while well-performing elite children get access to forward-looking and modern vocational skills that can bolster their chances in the white-collar job market. The flexibility in choosing the available vocational courses is a pseudo-choice when it is restricted to vocations available near the school.
5. Constitutional values (P4.6.8.3.) are mentioned only as a sub-section of ethical and moral values. Constitutional commitments go way beyond teaching ethics to children. Constitutional commitment to free education to all need to inform the Policy in its entirety. Exclusion of secularism, which is a constitutional goal, from the section on Constitutional values is deplorable, especially given the erosion of secular values in Indian society today.
6. Digital Literacy section (P4.6.7.1.) does not define the nature of digital literacy that the draft Policy envisions. It is highly inappropriate to understand digital literacy as computational thinking, which the document defines as “the thought process involved in formulating problems and solutions in ways that computers can effectively execute” and “programming and other computer-based activities”. There is no adequate reference to the 2012 National Policy on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in School Education. Use of technology for enhancement of educational processes is not conceived; it is referred to as a stand-alone skill. The mode in which the IT @School programme in Kerala allowed the teachers to integrate ICT in classrooms to enhance the experience of teaching through is proven to be very effective. The draft Policy lacks caution on the danger of digital programmes leading to substitution of teachers in classrooms, instead of enhancing their teaching methods.
7. There is a marked difference in the educational outlook of the National Curriculum Framework 2005 and the draft Policy. NCF 2005 was a far more enriching document, based on theories of learning which respected the “child as a natural learner” and “knowledge as the outcome of a child’s own activity”. The draft Policy falls short of imbibing this crucial aspect of education and instead speaks the language of developing skills for 21st century, employability and return of investments (as also seen in its focus on learning outcomes and census examinations). The revision proposed of NCF 2005 (P4.7.1.) to incorporate the Policy points will only dilute the vision of NCF.
8. The introduction of census examinations at grade 3, 5 and 8 (P4.9.4.) will increase the stress on children as already seen with the ‘board examination’. Commitment towards continuous comprehensive evaluation promised in the RTE Act will be substantially weakened by conducting multiple state-level census examinations in this way. Coupled with the focus on learning outcomes in the draft Policy, such examinations will divest the education system from being “process-oriented” and “child-centric”. Introduction of Modular and Additional board examinations (P4.9.5.) is likely to increase and not decrease the stress on students. Even as the document states that tests should not be used to evaluate teachers or school complexes, it commits to regulating the schools largely based on student outcomes. A weakened input system to the schools and strengthened output-based system of regulation is a recipe for systematically killing the government schooling system.
9. Introduction of National Testing Agency-administered tests (P4.9.6.) is likely to, (a) cause a boom in the private tuitions and (b) increase subjectivity in admission criteria. Both are proven to be hazardous for equity consideration in education. Instead, existing board exams should be made more flexible and modular in nature.
10. Sex education needs to be an integral part of education, especially at the middle and secondary school level. Further, environmental education also needs to be included in the curriculum.

Chapter 5

Teachers

1. Merit-based scholarships to encourage outstanding students to enter teaching profession (P5.1.1.) should explicitly mention the affirmative action that the Constitution guarantees to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. It hides behind words like ‘underprivileged’ and ‘rural/tribal’.
2. Deployment of teachers to school complexes (P5.1.5), instead of schools is likely to have disastrous effects on smaller primary schools. In spite of the stress on breaking the hard separation of arts and science, vocational and academic streams and contents into curricular, extracurricular and co-curricular areas, the draft Policy proposes to share teachers within a complex for certain subjects such as art, music, physical education, languages, and vocational crafts. This suggestion will affect both teachers and children. Firstly, with reduced number of available posts, existing teachers will lose employment opportunities. Secondly, students in the school complexes will suffer without a specialized teacher in these subjects. Moreover, they will be discouraged from choosing a professional career in these areas of specialization. The Policy’s suggestion to hire local experts as “specialized instructors” to teach local traditional art, music, vocational crafts, language, poetry, literature or business after a short (10 day) orientation programme provided by the school complex questions its commitment to these specialized areas (emphasis supplied) (P5.5.3). Defining and identifying the local expert are prone to subjective considerations and also not all local experts will make good teachers. Consequently, these suggestions will lead to de-professionalization of education in these crucial subjects.
3. The draft Policy remains completely oblivious of the need to ensure adequate facilities in every school. This becomes clear in its recommendation that “All schools will be provided with adequate physical infrastructure, facilities and learning resources, either individually or within their school complex” (emphasis supplied) (P5.2.1).
4. The nature of remedial instruction (P5.2.4.) must be specific and different from the usual classroom instruction. Several remedial programs in schools conducted so far have failed owing to their failure to comprehend the specifics of a good remedial program. Volunteer-driven remedial instruction is not the solution to the severe learning crisis faced by students in our country.
5. Tenure track system of hiring teachers (P5.4.1.) must be discouraged completely. It is highly stressful and extremely complicated, destabilizes teaching profession and consequently affects the imparting of quality education in schools. Such suggestion also implicitly places the blame of deteriorating quality of education on teachers, while recent research evidence shows it is mainly the lack of infrastructure and amenities that have adversely impacted the motivation of teaching staff and the quality of education system.
6. The draft Policy suggests sub-standard B.Ed. colleges to be shut down with priority (P5.5.4). Building of high-quality, university-based government teacher training colleges must be made the topmost priority. Appropriate teacher education faculty must be hired in adequate numbers. The Policy fails to give any significance to this aspect. Existing documents on the regulation of B.Ed. colleges such as NCTE Regulations of 2014 are not mentioned in the draft Policy. Online, self-directed teacher training courses should not be prioritized, and this can never replace quality full-time teacher training.

Chapter 6

 Equitable and Inclusive Education

1. The terminologies used for constitutionally recognized disadvantaged groups such as the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and socially and educationally backward classes of citizens, have been largely avoided and replaced with a term underrepresented groups. This is likely to affect the rights and entitlements of these groups.
2. Zoning of schools (P6.1.2) has had negative consequences in the past and needs to be studied thoroughly before recommending it as a policy solution.
3. The suggestion of hiring local teachers who are well-versed in children’s languages is a welcome one and needs to be implemented properly.
4. Issues of minority language speaking and migrant population need to be studied thoroughly to include them and their languages in mainstream schooling.

Chapter 7

Efficient Resourcing and Effective Governance through School Complexes

1. The concept of public school complexes (P7.1.1.), in the name of economic efficiency, goes against the basic commitment of the state to provide equitable education to all children. This negates the concept of the common school system. Closure of individual schools that are not “viable in size” looks at education from the point of view of financial viability for state and not as a right of children. Accessibility of the poorest and marginalized sections to quality education is bound to get affected by this suggestion. Closure of government schools is already undertaken in full swing in many states and this has only worked for the benefit of private schools.
2. The draft Policy exhibits complete apathy to the basic right of children to quality education when it recommends that the secondary school may have a good laboratory, library, musical instrument and playgrounds with sports equipment and students from other schools in the complex may be given access to them (P7.2.1.). This will prevent children in certain schools from obtaining holistic education and puts them at the mercy of other schools within the complex. Children going to public schools come from the poorest sections of the society. Their educational needs are totally neglected, to make space for the privatization of education. Building of new school infrastructure will receive less priority as compared to shutting down of small and ‘unsustainable’ schools. Ironically, during elections every measure is taken to reach even the remotest locations to obtain one vote; but for closing schools, it is the numbers that count and not the basic rights of people.
3. Recommendation to share teachers in the school complex (P7.2.2.) will aggravate the issues facing the public education system today. It is unfortunate that the draft Policy assumes certain areas such as language, sports, and arts and music do not require a teacher for every school by nature of the curriculum. Despite research evidence that Pupil-Teacher Ratio for English language teachers is extremely poor in many parts of the country, the draft Policy suggests sharing of language teachers in the school complexes. These recommendations will add to the burden of the existing teachers and affect the quality of teaching in these subjects. Such stances in the Policy also question its commitment to holistic quality education for all.
4. The draft Policy’s commitment towards providing counselors to school complexes is similarly dubious. The document fails to recognize the importance of professional counselors when it relaxes the qualification required for counselors in schools and says that some teachers or social workers will be trained to give counseling considering the practical realities (P7.2.4.).
5. There already exists a hierarchy between the primary and secondary schools in terms of focus given to teaching-learning at these stages, the number of teachers allocated for these grades, and the status of teaching at these levels. By allocating resources to the secondary schools and making the secondary school headmaster the head of the school complex (P7.1.3.), this divide is likely to grow further.
6. The solution of providing safe transport facilities (P7.5.1.) after organizing schools into school complexes is likely to cause more drop outs, especially of girls even at the primary stage.
7. A significant power differential exists between parents and teachers of the school. Wide powers are given to School Management Committees (SMCs), including performance management of teachers and head teachers and endorsement of their evaluation and assessment (P7.7.3.). Considering the hierarchical relations characterizing the Indian society, SMCs in school complexes may not be adequately constituted and informed to perform these extensive functions.

Chapter 8

Regulation and Accreditation of School Education

1. Delineating responsibilities of accreditation, regulation, standard-setting and funding to different bodies is a welcome move to avoid conflicts of interests. However, the fact that all these bodies need to report to a centralized body of Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (RSA) is extremely worrisome for the resulting concentration of power. Government should have adequate mechanisms and legislations to minimize conflicts between the bodies. Responsibilities must be clearly chalked out and redistribution of human resources within these organizations must be made carefully.
2. The draft Policy denounces the current inspectorial approach while making recommendation for the State School Regulatory Authority. It also hopes that putting all relevant information of the school in public domain will help parents make informed choices and make them de facto regulators (P8.1.1.). However, it misses the crucial point that mere availability of such information will not be sufficient to make informed choices, given the lack of understanding of holistic quality education among parents. Often, future aspiration of gaining successful employment is the key factor driving parents’ choices and they remain ignorant of scientific approaches to education. Moreover, not all parents are in a position to access such information owing to their socio- economic vulnerabilities.
3. Rajya Shiksha Ayog is mentioned in the draft extremely briefly (just once) (P8.1.3.) and therefore, the state-level structure of coordination is extremely unclear. State-level bodies must be strengthened in order to maintain the essential federal structure of governance of the country and the constitutional commitment to education as a concurrent subject.
4. Cancelling the RTE Section 12(1) (c) mandate and leaving it to the school’s volition to ensure diversity on private schools is reflective of the Policy’s lack of comprehension of on-ground realities. Draft NEP trusts the private institutions to “do the right thing” and places undue emphasis on the autonomy of education; however, this comes at the cost of ensuring quality education for all. It blames Section 12(1) (c) for increased corruption in the education system, though there is evidence that it has been implemented to a fair amount of success in states like Delhi. Without doubt, the issues in implementation of this provision need to be studied sincerely, and appropriate measures need to be taken for integration, scientific remedial instruction as well as sensitization of school staff. Scrapping the provision in haste will instead adversely impact the need for ensuring equity in education.
5. The recommendation to allow flexibility to schools in making decisions on inputs-physical and infrastructural- based on their local needs and constraints (P8.4.2.), is feared to allow mushrooming of sub-standard private schools, especially given the fact that most of them already run in violation of the prescribed mandatory norms.
6. The recommendation for adding educational outcomes in RTE Act will shift the focus away from providing contextualized experiences to children to that of setting pre-defined competencies which are to be achieved by them at each year of age. Such constrained understanding of education can also be found in its recommendation for Census examinations to assess schools.

Part II – Higher Education

Chapter 9

Quality Universities and Colleges: a New and Forward Looking Vision for India’s Higher Education System

1. The draft Policy aims to phase out all single-stream HEIs and build a higher education system consisting of large, multidisciplinary universities and colleges on the lines of Nalanda and Takshila (P9.1.). Though the idea of multidisciplinary HEIs is commendable, the Policy’s prescription for operationalizing this is deficient. The vast number of single-stream HEIs spread across the country has to an extent provided access to higher education. Given the fact that existing premier HEIs are already facing drastic fund and resource cuts, it is not clear how world-class HEIs (the Policy prescribes at least one such large high-quality multidisciplinary HEI in each district) catering to a large population of prospective students can be built. With its thrust for encouraging and empowering private HEIs, the draft Policy prescriptions will lead to increased privatization of HEIs, commodification of higher education and denial of higher education to a large section of students, especially those from socially and economically weaker backgrounds.
2. Autonomy to faculty in terms of pedagogy and curriculum development (P9.3.) is indeed an excellent thought. However, faculty and institutional autonomy only flourish and meet the desired objectives provided the faculty comes with a matured understanding of critical pedagogy. If not, it can instead lead to a very regressive system of affairs. A critical evaluation of these aspects needs to be taken into account before proposing autonomy. Rather than granting immediate autonomy, steps should be taken to improve the quality and critical pedagogical skills of the faculty. Autonomy to private HEIs to ‘strive for excellence’ may lead to commodification of education and violation of the basic right to education.
3. While it is laudable that the draft Policy recommends improving the quality of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) programmes, its stress on ODL to expand the reach of higher education and improve accessibility (P9.4.) should not come at the cost of physical, economic and social access to quality HEIs for students. This should be clearly mentioned in the Policy.
4. There is no mention of constitutionally guaranteed reservations in the provisions on faculty recruitment (P9.5.). Recruitment and promotion solely on the basis of merit will lead to dilution of the existing constitutional guarantees and reservation policies.
5. The draft Policy recommends creating competitive funding from National Research Foundation (NRF) based on the social relevance and usefulness of the research proposal (P9.6). The idea of social relevance and usefulness is extremely subjective and consequently, the decision of funding can become skewed depending on the interests of the funding agency. When funds are sought from private players, the funding would entirely depend on the stake that the private player has on the research proposals. In a market-driven economy, the stake of the private player on a particular proposal would be determined by its market demand. In short, the draft Policy aims to open up market-driven research which will effectively lead to prioritization of certain research areas, thereby adversely impacting research aimed at the benefit of society at large, in particular the weaker sections.
6. Reservation policies are completely ignored in the appointments of Board of Governors, Vice-Chancellor/Director/Chief Executive of HEIs, when the Policy prescribes “clear merit-based procedures” for these appointments (P9.7.).
7. The draft document says that regulations would be “light, but tight” (P9.8). This is feared to further deteriorate the quality of higher education, which is already populated by unregulated and under-regulated multiple players with varied motives in higher education.

Chapter 10

Institutional Restructuring and Consolidation

1. The Policy recommendation to create a new institutional architecture for higher education by 2030 (P10.3.) is feared to destabilize the entire higher education system. While building multi-disciplinary HEIs is a requirement, the categorization and operational mechanism fall short of appreciating the on-ground realities. The categorization between research universities, teaching universities and colleges furthers the existing fragmentation of research and teaching. At present, many premier HEIs concentrating on undergraduate education suffer from lack of faculties who have solid research experience. The Policy’s suggestion that faculties of Type 3 HEIs- Colleges, which are thought as exclusively high-quality teaching institutions, “…will be encouraged to apply for research funding and conduct, and be able to give senior undergraduate students a flavour of research” is grossly inadequate to capture the essentiality of good research for improving the quality of teaching.
2. Public HEIs in the country have proven to be far superior in quality and accessibility than their private counterparts. Still, a pervasive trend in the draft Policy is its thrust for privatization of education. Draft NEP places equal emphasis towards encouragement and empowerment of private HEIs by the government, as explicitly found in its statement, “…government will treat them on par with public institutions, and empower them equally”) (P10.10.). This undoubtedly reflects a waning commitment to the vision of education as a public good. Treating both the institutions at par for empowerment is a key recipe for commodification and commercialization of education.
3. The draft Policy’s emphasis on ODL programmes should not in any way lead to a mechanism for compensating the lack of accessibility to HEIs (P10.11). ODLs can never replace the significance of on-campus learning. This needs to be clearly specified in the Policy.
4. While on the one hand, the draft Policy aims at building high-quality multi-disciplinary universities, on the other it allows autonomous colleges to grant degrees (P10.13.). At present, there exists at least some amount of quality check mechanism with universities alone having the degree-granting powers. The new recommendation will lead to the degeneration of higher education and the exploitation of the most vulnerable sections, especially in light of the information asymmetry characterizing higher education system in the country.

Chapter 11

Towards a More Liberal Education

1. While the draft Policy’s emphasis for liberal arts education is commendable, its operationalization is ridden with difficulties. It envisages providing a transformed liberal undergraduate education programme of four-year duration or redesigning the current three-year undergraduate programmes with the same objectives and principles. While the reading of the document indicates that the liberal arts education is aimed at an overhaul of the current education system and this is actually a philosophy that should inform higher education, at certain places it relegates liberal education to just another degree for undergraduate education. For instance, the Policy says “There shall be at least one high quality HEI offering the four-year undergraduate BLS programme in or near every district in the country” (P11.1.3).
2. Though it is essential to glean insights from good practices of other countries, the Policy should primarily respond to the situations, exigencies and issues facing the system in the country. In its rush to adopt foreign models of education, the draft Policy, many a time, adopts a simplistic approach and remains completely aloof of the problems facing higher education system in the country today. The suggestion to call masters and doctoral programmes as graduate programmes (11.2) is one such instance. Further, the Policy prescriptions on revamping the institutional structure of HEIs may actually lead to destabilizing the entire current public higher education system and work for the benefit of the private institutions that have the resources to swiftly adopt the Policy recommendations.

Chapter 12

Optimal Learning Environments and Support for Students

1. The draft Policy recommends leveraging ODL for enhancing access to higher education. It envisages a significant role for ODL in increasing GER to 50%, prescribes looping in the best faculty for ODL and also conducting certain programmes exclusively in the ODL mode (12.3). It also recommends allowing students to take part of their total requirement in a particular semester through ODL, especially the subjects that are not yet represented at HEIs. While ODL can enable continuous professional development and enhancing of skills, the Policy recommendations imbibe an ongoing trend of replacing in-class learning with ODL. Knowledge construction is not confined to the interaction between teacher and student. In-class learning provides an ecosystem where teachers and students collectively participate in the construction of knowledge. Moreover, maintaining quality of education through ODL is a daunting task and this may actually lead to aggravating the inequities in the higher education system. The Policy should have clear prescription against replacing in-class teaching with ODL.
2. Giving complete autonomy to institutions and faculty (P12.1.1) on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, even before them becoming capable of effectively putting into use such autonomy, might aggravate the disparities in the quality of higher education system. As suggested above, it is essential to improve the quality of faculty and institutional mechanisms in HEIs before granting them autonomy. Moreover, there should be strict prescriptions against autonomy leading to commercialization of education and education becoming a commodity accessible to the privileged few.

Chapter 13

Energised, Engaged and Capable Faculty

1. Higher Education Institutions are given complete autonomy in recruiting the faculty of their choice (P13.1.4), deciding their confirmation and the compensation and promotional avenues (P13.1.6) available to them, and the number of faculty (P13.1.11). A tenure track system is proposed for the faculty. Deciding on the confirmation, including the process of confirmation, the probationary period, career progression, promotions and salary conditions (P13.1.10) is the responsibility of institutions. Leaving these crucial aspects to the discretion of the institution will affect the quality of faculty recruitment and also the stability of academic careers. Putting the criteria and process of selection in the public domain is not sufficient, especially as the draft Policy leaves recruitment to the “choice” of the institutions. This will affect faculty autonomy and may even lead to them becoming subservient to the institutions. Giving the institutions the choice to decide the number of faculty and also leaving the decisions on faculty recruitment and service conditions to their discretion will allow institutions to limit their faculty recruitments and force the existing faculty to work extra hours, even at no compensation for such extra work. All these will have ramifications on the quality of higher education. A liberal arts education is impossible when the faculty loses motivation to work.
2. The draft Policy gives a total miss to the constitutional guarantee of affirmative action in recruitments and promotions and merely says the recruitment criteria should include diversity among other aspects.

Chapter 14

National Research Foundation

1. The draft Policy recognizes that the lack of research culture, research capability and funding has contributed to the present crisis facing research and innovation in the country. The recommendation to set up a National Research Foundation (NRF) to catalyze and expand research and innovation is welcome. However, the composition and funding aspects of NRF need to be revised if they are to actually be of use in developing scholarship.
2. There is a danger of certain areas of study getting prioritized, especially as one-third of the fund for the NRF budget is to come from public and private enterprises and private organizations (P14.4.5). Potential for national benefit, funding offered and NRF’s expertise and previous engagement are the deciding factors for the Governing Bodies and Divisional Councils while choosing research requests from private and public enterprises. According to the draft Policy, such provision “will help enterprises and organizations identify academic groups in the country with the expertise they are looking for. They will also benefit from the peer-review process of NRF for allocation of projects to specific research groups, and be able to ensure that their research projects receive adequate oversight”. It is feared that such prominence accorded to accepting research funding from private organizations by the National Research Foundation will effectively lead to using the skills of the academia for the benefit of private interests.
3. Making RSA the appointing authority for Governing Body of NRF is problematic. RSA is the newly proposed apex body on education in the Policy. With Prime Minister and Union Minister for Education as the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson of this body and 50% of the membership coming from Chief Ministers and bureaucrats, research and scholarship will skew in favour of “national interest”.
4. Draft NEP totally ignores the research support required for scholars from the depressed communities and emphasizes merit as the sole criteria for selecting research proposals.

Chapter 15

Teacher Education

1. The draft Policy makes a strong recommendation to close down substandard and dysfunctional teacher education institutions (P15.1.1.), which is laudable. The recommendation to move teacher preparation programmes into multidisciplinary higher education institutions (P15.2.1.) is also welcome. As the Policy itself recognizes, this would require creation of substantial new teacher preparation capacity (P15.2.3). This thrust is however not followed strongly in the recommendations for strengthening the departments of education in Universities. It leaves the setting up of departments of education to “interested universities” depending on requirement of teachers and availability of faculty (P15.3.1.). As the shift in teacher education will require substantial building of capacity, leaving such decisions entirely to the discretion of universities is untenable.
2. The draft Policy advocates school teacher preparation to be multi-disciplinary and encourages entry of PhDs in education and related disciplines such as science education, mathematics education, child development, psychology, sociology, and so on to contribute as faculty of teacher education programmes. While the Policy recognizes that some of them may have expertise to teach, but would lack the experience of the practices of teacher preparation, it leaves it to the discretion of individual departments of education to design the induction programmes for these faculty (P15.4.1). Given the need for ensuring uniform quality in teacher education across the country and the disciplinary requirements of teacher education, it is suggested that there should be a curricular framework prepared by an apex body, perhaps National Council for Teacher Education, for all the departments of education to follow and such framework should also include details on duration and mode of such induction programmes.
3. While the draft Policy calls for substantial reform in the teacher education in the country, the suggested faculty profile in departments of education is inadequate to achieve this objective. It relaxes the requirements for faculty, by openly stating that “Not everyone would be required to have a PhD, but teaching experience and field research experience will be highly valued”. This in fact undermines the significance of strong research capacities in the faculty of teacher education. Another lapse in the Policy recommendation is that only 50% of faculty needs to have experience of research/working with children and teachers (P15.4.2.). Teacher education involves developing basic skill sets in teachers for equipping them to impart the subject knowledge to children in the most effective manner. For instance, teaching psychology or linguistics to future psychologists and linguists will be different from the way it is taught to future teachers. Such a relaxation in the faculty requirement will effectively reduce the rigour needed for developing quality teachers.

Chapter 16

Professional Education

1. The idea of vocational education adopted in the draft Policy needs a relook. The Policy recommendations on vocational education mirror the existing hierarchical relationship between professional and vocational education (P16.1.3. and P16.1.4.), and hence paves way for creating a cheap labour force in accordance with the market interests. According to the draft NEP, the vocational educational curriculum and prospective vocations are to be decided by various stake holders including the employers. It is feared that this will inevitably result in vocational education being tailored in such a way that it only imparts the minimum skills for a particular job as required by the employer.
2. The recommendation for a mandatory qualification of Master’s Degree in Teaching and Research (P16.4.1.) in addition to a mandatory degree in subject specialization for all aspiring teachers lacks clarity on purpose. A teacher is expected to have a deep understanding of the subject and the various possibilities that the subject offers in terms of meeting the societal needs. A Master’s degree essentially calls for developing research skills in that particular subject. Higher educational degrees further advance one’s research skill capabilities. This being the basic understanding of a Master’s degree, requirement of a separate Master’s degree in Research and Teaching is infructuous. Instead, what is required is the strengthening of research and teaching components in the Master’s level education. The current structure and curricular framework of the master’s degree in many courses do not have such a focus. For instance, the current 1-year LL.M. degree fails to provide a solid foundation for research and teaching in Law with, its short course duration and inadequate curricular framework.
3. Measures recommended for mitigating faculty shortage, such as sharing faculty, inviting rolling faculty from superannuated scientists/professors/ experts, provisioning teaching assistantships for doctoral students, inviting overseas researchers and making use of talent from private sector (P16.4.2), will only aggravate the current crisis of quality faculty. Such adhoc measures are widely undertaken by many higher education institutions today, resulting in a culture of adhocism in professional education. This can be stopped only if students are attracted to enter research and teaching in professional education, a culture for research and teaching is developed in professional education, students are properly trained and, there are proper recruitment policies in place to provide faculty fair and transparent entry to higher education institutions and also an assurance of fair pay, decent working conditions and opportunities for professional growth.
4. The Policy prescription that research will not be mandatory for all teachers in professional education (P16.4.3.) fails to recognize the importance of research in teaching. This failure is also reflected in its recommendation to divide higher education institutions to research universities, teaching universities and colleges.
5. Leaving the responsibilities of preparing curriculum and the improvement of academic performance through reforms in curriculum, teaching and preparation of teachers completely to HEIs, in the name of ‘autonomy’ (16.5), will lead to uneven quality in higher education. Higher education in country already suffers from the issues of quality and accessibility. Leaving such vital decisions to the HEIs will aggravate the disparities in education, with HEIs that are able to attract quality faculty providing exemplary higher education and becoming islands of excellence, while the majority of them continue to remain inferior in quality.
6. The draft Policy subverts the understanding of education as a public good, when it gives full liberty to educational institutions to impose fees for professional education in line with the “spirit of providing autonomy”. The Policy displays a lack of commitment towards ensuring quality higher education for all. Instead, it treats education as a charity, as seen from the prescription that “some degree of scholarship” should be provided for 50 percent qualifying for admission to HEI and a 20 percent should receive full scholarship. It is not clear how these ‘magical figures’ are arrived at. Quality higher education is already a distant dream for most of the young students in the country and with such recommendations inclusive and equitable education will become ever more elusive.
7. Agricultural Universities in the country have not been effective in providing the much required support for small and marginal farmers in the country. Despite this, the draft Policy provides lip-service to this aspect, including it as an extension/community service (P16.6.1. and P16.6.3.).
8. Legal research in the country remains highly inadequate. Very few students in the legal profession pursue careers in legal research. Much of the legal research is limited to the doctrinal work done by scholars for the sake of gaining requisite grades for promotion in their teaching careers. Even the pursuance of doctoral degrees in law is largely influenced by the formal requirements for teaching career. For the organic growth of law, evidence- based law-making needs to be encouraged. Empirical legal research needs to be supported. The Policy needs to recognize this and make recommendation for developing legal research in the country.
9. Legal profession is yet to recognize the indispensability of multi-disciplinarity in the study of law. Despite law being rooted in the socio-economic and political setting of the society, law is taught in a black-letter form devoid of the context in which law is made and operates. P16.7.1. while calling for the law curriculum to reflect socio-cultural contexts, fails to capture the essence that law in totality should be taught in context and not as a mere text. It is not sufficient to incorporate some element of history of legal thinking or principles of justice into legal study. Further, this provision roots for a study of legal systems even from mythology and curiously, the relevance of constitutional values is missing from this provision. This needs to be amended.
10. The draft Policy recommends a centralized exit examination for MBBS education (P16.8.3.). It is not understood why such an examination is proposed when there is no such common examination for other professional education degrees.
11. Making nurses compensate for non-availability of doctors (P16.8.4.) is not acceptable. It allows for continuation of status quo in the health system which is plagued by shortage of doctors. Allowing lateral entry of graduates from other medical disciplines to MBBS course should be supported by clear regulations. In the name of promoting pluralistic healthcare education and delivery, the quality standards of healthcare should not be downgraded in any manner. Given the information asymmetry characterizing health system in the country, such moves will impact the poorest sections of the society the most.

Chapter 17

Empowered Governance and Effective Leadership for Higher Education Institutions

1. The responsibilities of Board of Governors should state social justice as one of its responsibilities (P17.1. and P17.1.7.). At present, there is no mention of social justice and this will lead to non-compliance and dilution of public commitment of HEIs.
2. Composition of the Court (or Senate) as a mechanism for public accountability of HEIs do not account for student participation (P17.1.3.). Many universities and institutions have elected student representatives as members of the Court (Senate) and this system should be continued and extended to all HEIs.
3. Students and research scholars should be included in the composition of Academic Councils (AC) as they are the impacted by the decisions taken by ACs. The draft Policy has omitted students and research scholars in elaborating on the membership of ACs (P17.1.16.).
4. Autonomy of HEIs is not discussed with regard to compliance with Constitutional values. HEIs are given freedom to “decide the criteria and number for student admission” (P17.1.20.a.) and “Private HEIs will be free to set the fees for their programmes subject to discharge of social responsibility in the form of scholarships for 50% of students in all their programmes” (P17.1.20.c.). However, there is no mention of the responsibilities to be followed by HEIs while exercising autonomy. The Policy should spell out on how autonomy will be exercised in relation to Constitutional values.

Chapter 18

Transforming the Regulatory System

1. The regulatory system, termed as “light but tight,” does not account for a systematic review/regulatory process. It also states that only in relation to education outcomes will the regulatory framework conduct continuous assessments. Instead of this, there should be effective monitoring of HEIs in relation to good governance, financial probity and stability, and educational outcomes. Technology can be harnessed for this purpose. This is required to assess whether HEIs comply with the overall regulatory framework in a timely manner.
2. The draft Policy does not specify the path for accreditation of all HEIs by 2030 (P18.2.1.). Affiliating colleges and independent institutions are treated on par unfairly. There may be appropriate relaxations provided by extending the timeline for accreditation process for affiliating colleges (P18.5.2.).
3. Private accreditation institutions (AIs) will lead to a dilution of accreditation process. There will be serious conflict of interest issues if HEIs are allowed to set-up AIs and if licenses are provided to them (P18.2.4.). Therefore, the policy recommendation of setting up a network of AIs should be reviewed again and private HEIs should not be empowered to set up AIs.
4. The presentation of ‘graduate attributes’ under the functions of General Education Council (GEC) is not substantiated. The desired outcomes of good education are not completely in consonance with constitutional values (P18.3.2.). There should be a wider consultation on this before the ‘attributes’ are decided.
5. The existing mandate of UGC to ensure parity between staff among HEIs and to recommend a range of salaries is repealed with the introduction of Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) (P18.4.1.). This mandate is also not transferred to the regulatory body. Without any regulatory mechanism, there will be disparity between employees in HEIs. This has to be brought under the regulatory body NHERA.
6. The design and architecture of the regulatory system (18.1.) do not give importance to regional specificities within a large country like India. States of India should be taken into confidence before a centralised regulatory mechanism is formed as the policy states that “the State Department of Education and SHEC will not have any regulatory role or administrative control over the HEIs.” (P18.4.2.).
7. The Policy should be more specific on how many ombudspersons will be set up to handle grievances (P18.4.2.). There should be ombudspersons in each State and their appointments shall be made in concurrence with States.
8. Private HEIs should be mandated to adhere to reservation guidelines in the interest of public spiritedness and inclusive policy (P18.6.1.). The extension of reservation to private HEIs does not subvert the guidelines for scholarships proposed in the policy.
9. The principles for good governance (P18.6.4.) should specify provisions against discrimination. At present, the independent decisions of board in setting cultural tone for the HEI can affect the marginalized and minority community (principle 6). The policy should also specify that the minutes and all the discussions regarding HEIs taken by Boards to be made public (principle 9).

Part III- Additional Key Focus Areas

Chapter 19

Technology in Education

1. The draft Policy recommends setting up an autonomous body, the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF), to provide a platform for free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to improve learning, assessment, planning, administration, and so on (P19.1.1.). NETF is presented in a very generic manner and the Policy displays a lack of clarity in defining its role and the scope of its functions for aiding education. Roles and responsibilities of NETF need to be clearly outlined.
2. NETF is envisioned to facilitate a regular inflow of authentic data from multiple sources (P19.1.2.). It is not clear as to what the data that is to be collected is and the mode of data collection. This can lead to the collection of private data by private players and infringement of right to privacy.
3. The Policy prescribes NETF to be supported initially with public funding; it can also receive funding from other sources such as memberships, and other neutral technology industry bodies such as NASSCOM among others (P19.1.3.). However, it remains silent on the composition of NETF and the power of its members. It is not clear if these private organizations can also become part of NETF. Without clarity on these crucial aspects, NETF can essentially lead to an autonomous organization represented by private stakeholders furthering their interests in technology, with full support of state and its resources.
4. Though the draft Policy requires teachers to be empowered through adequate training and support to lead the activities and initiatives related to the use of appropriate technologies in classrooms, and for all other uses of technology in educational institutions (P19.2.1.), there is no clear indication of the structure and content of the training that would be imparted to the teachers. Teachers should be involved in the planning stages of training rather than be mere consumers of the training. At the same time, the document should clearly indicate who should provide the training. This is important as encouraging private entities to be trainers will lead to furtherance of their interests.
5. As per P19.2.4, the first component forming an integral part of technology based interventions is hardware and the draft Policy recommends commodity hardware solutions such as cloud-based commercial infrastructure and personal computing devices for end users to be preferred. Owning hardware equipment involves a lot of cost and this will affect the economically marginalized sections. Unavailability of internet amongst 50% of the population makes the usage of cloud a distant dream. More practical methods need to be thought of to make technology accessible to all.
6. On the question of acquiring the rights to distribute the technology, the draft Policy prescribes that the government will pay for professionally developing and maintaining the software, and will also acquire the rights to distribute it to learners, teachers and institutions for free-and-unlimited offline usage. The Policy should rather be reframed in such a way that the government has the ownership of the technology. Distribution rights are an inherent feature of ownership and we would need an explicit clause when the government owns the software. The government should enforce releasing the software under a FOSS license so that many contributors across the country can also be a part and contribute to the technology developed by the country.
7. While the draft Policy calls for teacher preparation and continuous professional development using educational technology, it is not clear as to who the master trainers will be. The qualification and experience of master trainers and their trainers should be clearly provided.
8. There is an overemphasis on internet based learning and learning of computer languages. The thrust for pedagogical development using computer-aided technologies is missing. The document needs a rethinking on how technology can effectively aid in improving the quality of education. With the way technology is presently envisioned in the Policy, it would in effect lead to replacement of in-class mode of teaching by tutorial videos etc. and creating more disparities in education.
9. Policy assumes that availability of adequate number of access devices (rapidly becoming smart phones or iPads and equivalents) and controlled access (for safety purposes) to the Internet can empower teachers as well as students to make use of these resources and even contribute to creating more (19.4). At P19.4.1, it says “Given the diffusion of devices and their affordability, all students are likely to have access to connected personal computing devices by 2025”. It also recommends the school curriculum to promote digital literacy using personal devices and available digital infrastructure. Such assumptions are totally divorced from any understanding of ground realities. According to TRAI, the total numbers of internet subscribers in India is 571.95 million, which is less than 50% of the population.
10. Towards integrating educational technology in school curriculum, the draft Policy recommends that from age 6 onwards, computational thinking-“the thought processes involved in formulating problems and solutions in ways that computers can effectively execute” will be integrated into the school curriculum (P19.4.1.). Such an idea of computational thinking from age 6 onwards is completely unscientific and limiting the exploration capabilities of the child.
11. The recommendation for creating “IT Ambassador Fellowships” for students completing their senior secondary courses to provide support for maintaining and using the hardware and software of educational institutions (P19.4.5.) is yet another instance where prospective jobs are being clothed as a service. It is not understood why the educational institutions should not actually be employing people for these professional jobs, instead of extracting services in the nature of “rural service” and “military service” (as the Policy itself describes it).
12. The draft Policy requires all learners to have access to high quality educational content, copyright-free educational resources, teaching materials etc. and such materials are to be created, curated and available in online digital repository, such as National Digital Library or NROER. But then, the draft assumes maximum dissemination can happen with the charging of a nominal fee. This questions the Policy’s commitment to accessible and inclusive education. Ironically, this recommendation occurs in the very section on enhancing educational access.
13. The draft Policy requires validating employment records of teachers and credits earned by learners through an identification based on Aadhaar numbers. This should be omitted.
14. Draft NEP requires the National Repository of Educational Data to maintain all records related to institutions, teachers and students in digital form. P19.2.4 (c) mentioned that the ownership of the data remains with the individual, and P19.6.1 (d) required privacy has to be ensured. But, then the document mentions all this records are to be maintained in digital form. This undermines the significance of consent and violates privacy. The draft Policy also prescribes using such data for assessing learning outcomes and even predicting failures to meet outcomes. Such stress on educational outcomes is again divesting the education from being a ‘process oriented’ one and makes it a mechanical pursuit of goals. A further infringement of privacy lies in giving all stakeholders access to official institutional communication channels.
15. Considering AI as a disruptive technology (19.7.) should be withdrawn. The socio economic impact of AI should be well researched and measures should be taken to understand and develop AI technologies in a self-reliant manner which can help in overcoming the employment loss issues. Skilling and deskilling (P.19.7.3.) based on technology advancements in the global market is not a scientific approach. This would only result in production of cheap labour force for the growing AI market. Rather steps and policy directions should point towards developing indigenous research and technologies.

Part IV- Transforming Education

Chapter 23

Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog

1. The draft policy says RSA will have “a few Chief Ministers (CMs) of States, in rotation, as its members” (P23.5.). There is no reason provided for why all CMs cannot be members of such an apex body which is required to meet at least once a year (P23.3). Since this is an important body that oversees implementation of the new policy, membership of RSA should include all the CMs (including Union Territories).
2. The new structure proposed to assist RSA has many committees with overlapping functions. The Executive Council, RSA Advisory Council, and the Secretariat have mandates to function with different levels of education system to collect and analyse data related to education and to monitor the implementation of the new policy. The proposed new committees may be simplified to reduce overlapping functions.
3. The Joint Review and Monitoring Board (JRMB) will be tasked with reviewing “performance of the various schemes of both the Central and State governments” (P23.14). However, the composition of JRMB and what is meant by review of schemes of State Governments are not explicitly stated. This can lead to incursions into the federal rights of States. Therefore, the provision of reviewing State Government schemes should be avoided from the policy.
4. The role of States in the framework is not considered separately in the policy. The Rajya Siksha Aayog (RjSA or SEC) to be formed at the State level are to be set up to “facilitate better coordination with the Centre” (P23.19). The policy has not paid specific attention to States’ right. It should emphasise States’ autonomy and federal rights in having independent policies within the framework of Constitution.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest” – Benjamin Franklin

Recently I happened to visit Bose Institute in Kolkata after a gap of almost three decades. Standing in this temple of science, in front of the replicas and prototypes of the remarkable, ahead of time, inventions by one of the most innovative physicists – turned – plant physiologist of India, Acharya J.C. Bose, several thoughts crossed my mind. I was once again awestruck at the ingenuity and dedication of a brilliant scientist who contributed so significantly in spite of meagre research facilities or funds to support. What must have inspired Bose, Sir C.V. Raman, Srinivasa Ramanujam, Meghnad Saha, S.N. Bose and many others who grew up in British India to pursue higher education in science and excel in their respective fields? Irrespective of having studied in a modest vernacular village or city school or in a English medium missionary school, they exhibited outstanding scientific brilliance, which is recognised by the whole world. Then, as well as now.

It is now well accepted that from the era of East India Company, the education system introduced in India by the western rulers favoured their interest and supported their philosophy, often downgrading the Indian traditions, education system and ancient knowledge. Prevalence of caste-based discriminations and dominance of certain sections in the higher education institutions at that time helped the quick acceptance and popularity of the modern, English-medium schools, established by the European missionaries and educationists. Though the primary objective of such education might have been the creation of an English-speaking and west-leaning workforce to manage the various offices of the empire in the Indian sub-continent, it also opened several new windows of knowledge to a generation of eager youth wanting to explore the new avenues in numerous branches of science, technology, social studies and languages. Sometimes supported and encouraged by their families, or inspired by a mentor, or self-motivated like Ramanujam, who was simply consumed by that intense desire to work with numbers, such people pursued science for the love of it. Whatever employment they took, were only the means to pursue their scientific goals. Many of them were fiercely nationalist and sacrificed personal gains to build institutions of higher learning. They inspired many young minds and mentored them selflessly.

Compare that with the situation today. Soon after independence, efforts were made and steps taken to establish world class centres of higher scientific and technological education and research institutions. After seven decades, with nearly 800 degree granting universities, including Central, State, Private and Deemed-to-be universities; about 140 Institutions of National Importance (INI), which include 23 IITs, 7 AIIMSs, 31 NITs, 20 IIMs, 7 NIPERs, 7 IISERs and 20 IIITs, and more than 41,000 colleges, the present system of higher education in India annually enrols nearly 115 lakh graduates and post-graduates in science, engineering and technology. The picture looks impressive both in numbers and quality. But look deeper, and what emerges is rather disappointing. Something is wide amiss. Numbers do not add up! Where are we in educational competence, scientific excellence and technological innovations? In the QS Global Ranking of 1,000 universities from 82 countries, there are only 23 Indian institutions, with IIT Mumbai at 152, followed by IIT Delhi at 182 and IISc Bengaluru at 184 ranks.

However, our concern is not about the ranking, but the state of science education in general and its relevance in the present context. The Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) seeks to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030. Five of its seven targets focus on quality education and learning outcomes. So, how do we measure quality? The UGC has provided guidelines for evaluating the quality of education imparted by the Universities and the colleges affiliated to these. Similar methodologies are expected to be included in the NEP.

But how do the people in India perceive the merit of an educational institution? If it is a school, the quality of science education is judged more by the rates of IIT and AIIMS entrants. Similarly, the number of bureaucrats, Ambassadors and CEOs of super-Corporate Houses produced and the opportunities offered for overseas programmes are the main criteria for judging the quality of education a college or university offers. Not much is talked about the extra-ordinary scientific achievements, as evident by international peer recognition, inventions and innovations by its faculty and students. As a result, the meritorious students in the elite schools are identified early as the potential achievers and given special tutorials to prepare them for competitive examinations to professional courses. Almost all the students intending to pursue science stream in their Senior Secondary levels join Coaching Centres by class IX (sometimes as early as in the VII or VIII standard), or go for private tuitions, with the Arjun’s eye fixed on cracking the Entrance Exams and taking admission in one of the IITs or the medical colleges of repute. The unsuccessful ones, having missed the desired engineering/ medical colleges, study science. Even joining a world class Institution of National Importance (INI) like IISc or IISER is considered only the second choice by the majority of bright young boys and girls as well as their families and teachers. This, because at no stage they were taught about the honour of being recognised as a brilliant scientist. Or aspire to win a Nobel one day!

In their most formative years, the youth is conditioned to value education only as a means to get a dream job with ‘never heard of’ kind of pay packages. There is nothing wrong in aspiring to get a well-paid job, since improving one’s employability is one of the primary objectives of obtaining education. But first, we need mentors who would open the wonderful world of science to their pupils, kindle the appetite for learning, encourage experimentations to explore the unknown and expand their knowledge, which ideally should be the primary goal of being educated. Unfortunately, the best scientific brains seldom pursue a career in science education, almost never at the school level. So, the school children and college youth are ‘taught’ by their teachers preparing them to succeed at various levels of examination, not mentored for a career in science. Considering that the opportunity to study at good schools and colleges are rather limited to a small percentage of students, a vast majority of them receive their education from the most mediocre teachers with little or no interest in science. In the majority of stand-alone colleges, students get no opportunity for experimentation and trying something new.  As a result, on one hand the country is losing on its scientific excellence, and on the other those obtaining degrees from sub-standard colleges or universities are not found fit  enough for science-related employment. That the country is presently recording the highest level of unemployment, is making the situation worst.

The good news is that those at the helm of managing the education system in the country have taken note of the problem and are trying to improve the situation and revitalise it to make it relevant to the needs of the nation as well as its citizens. The proposed National Education Policy (NEP) is a step in the right direction. It is heartening to see that in the line of the developed countries, a National Research Foundation (NRF) has also been included as part of the NEP, with a view to build research capacities in the educational institutions. It draws useful directions from the European Union’s policy brief ‘The Economic Rationale for Public Research & Innovation Funding and its Impact’ (2017), which states that two-thirds of the economic growth of Europe from 1995 to 2007 came from research and innovation (R&I) and that an annual increase of 0.2% of GDP in R&D investment would result in an annual increase of 1.1% in GDP – a five-fold return. The draft NEP proposes to increase the overall proportion of Public Expenditure on Education from 10% to 20.9% in the next 10 years. Of this additional 10.9%, a major share of 5% has been assigned for strengthening the quality / faculty /operations at universities and colleges. In addition, it recommends greater contribution from the private sector and ‘Not-for-profit’ organisations in education.

However, the Policy document lacks clarity in terms of allocation of funds, plan of action and intent of execution with respect to strengthening the scientific research and innovation at educational institutions. It would be expected that the final document would give a clear narrative on these.

The following issues also need some deliberation:

• Differentiate the needs for science and technology for a) Science education, b) Professional education and c) Vocational education at 3 levels ( the highest order will have the option of mainstreaming with a) or b) if achieved the desired levels of excellence).

• Take definite steps to upgrade pedagogical capacity of the science teachers at school, college and university levels and ensure that every school has a science laboratory equipped with fundamental facilities, using innovative but commonplace items for experimentation that create curiosity in young minds.

• Indicate the parameters of and mechanism for determining the budgetary allocations for science education and scientific research. For instance, by distributing already limited funds for scientific research to all universities may not yield a desirable result. Identify universities for research grants strictly on the bases of their performance, scientific strength and any special needs which are location specific. Hence, universities may be classified as ‘Only Teaching’ and ‘Teaching and Research’. However, ‘Only Teaching’ universities (with Bachelors Degree only) must also be given grants for discipline-wise functional laboratories, with all essential infrastructure and equipment.

• Emphasise on learning about the history of science in India and the milestones achieved by Indian scientists in different fields. A course on History of Science must be made compulsory both at the school and college levels.

• A number of scientists of Indian origin are doing excellent research in the countries abroad. Such persons may be invited to work in India on sabbatical and mentor young researchers. The existing scheme needs to be made more attractive and simplified.

• Healthy collaboration with the private sector R&D facilities could be a win-win situation for faster development of technology and their innovative application. Best performing students may be given an opportunity to work as interns in the private labs with a possibility of placement.

• Prioritise research areas for funding. Identify programmes in the critical fields for every five years. Strengthen the ones where India has a comparative advantage, or is at par with the global competence.

• Rationalise the mechanism of monitoring for capital expenditure and research auditing by including qualitative indicators (for instance, not just the numbers of scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals, or patents obtained, but also their originality, contribution in advancement of science and real value for public good). Encourage Frugal Innovations at every level.

Malavika Dadlani is a former Joint Director (Research), Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.

The draft National Education Policy (DNEP) was released by the Union government in early June. It is an almost 500 page document that proposes massive restructuring of the entire education system, both school and higher education, in the country. A period of one month’s time was given for public comments initially, which was later extended by another month to July 31, and has now been extended until August 14.

A team of alumni of various institutions in the country worked together on perusing the draft with a critical eye, and identifying points of concern. What follows is a comprehensive report of the findings: a general critical overview, followed by detailed analyses of certain issues. This analysis does not cover Chapters 1-4, 13, 16 and 19-23 of the DNEP. Some notable issues thus left out are the excessive push of Sanskrit [1] and the three language formula, and the thrusting of common entrance exams [2], that have been shown to be biased towards socio-economically advantaged students [3][4], which in the case of certain states is also in direct contravention of state policies [5].

The main feature of the DNEP that stands out evidently is its dictatorial nature. No supporting evidences or references are given for any of the arguments made, and a lot of the arguments are also logically fallacious. Further it is presented as if it is the first such policy of a country, and not as a policy change. It sounds like a reset button or a start from scratch, instead of as building on the existing set-up. So, understanding the nature of changes being proposed is difficult, as the policy says little about the current set-up. This is especially true for matters relating to regulation of educational institutions in the country.

Another important feature of the DNEP is that it proposes one-stop solution to all problems, caring little about federalism, state powers, institutional autonomy, or social and cultural variations demanding different approaches.

The emphasis on building multi-disciplinary capacity at all institutions, and consolidation of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) is extreme. The policy lacks ideas on moulding of thoughts towards inter-disciplinary education and research. As opposed to incentivizing Professors at existing multi-disciplinary institutions for introduction of new multi-, and inter-disciplinary courses, or inter-disciplinary research projects, or activities to broaden the public view of education, the policy calls for what seems only like moving around infrastructure, in fact, clumping of infrastructure in smaller number of institutions. In fact, this move-around of infrastructure is a tremendous overhaul that will affect the entire higher education system in the country. The scale of this change, without any test or pilot programmes carried out at smaller scales, and the lack of uproar in academic and political circles, sounds ominous.

The big push for liberal arts education is another key feature of this draft. The exact nature of ‘liberal arts’ that the committee has in its mind, has raised a lot of questions [6]. It seems like addition of India specific fields of study, and an infusion of nationalism in to existing liberal spaces.

Teacher Education in multi-disciplinary institutions:

The policy emphasizes, strongly and one-too-many times, on ALL teacher education to be carried out ONLY in multi-disciplinary HEIs. It envisions this to happen by 2030. The rationale that is given for this repeatedly, is that teachers ‘require training in a range of content’ [pg. 119]. This is a hand-wavy and lazy argument, without any further evidence or explanation. The assertion that teacher education needs to make them engage deeply with the aims of education, the nature of knowledge, issues around child development, and social context of learning etc. is well-intentioned and makes sense. Yet, this doesn’t fully justify requiring all teacher education to happen in multidisciplinary HEIs. It is only a call for curricular improvement.

Further, the policy says that the process of closing down substandard standalone teacher education institutions will be immediately initiated through mandatory accreditation of all Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) as multidisciplinary HEIs in the next 3-5 years [pg. 136]. It even goes on to say ‘single-stream programmes must be phased out’ [pg. 284]. Yet, the policy does not talk about how and whether standalone TEIs will be supported in this process of transitioning to being a multi-disciplinary HEI. Thus, it looks like a lot of these institutions are at risk of getting shut down.

Overall, this is a tremendous structural change that needs huge fiscal support. The policy has little to say on this, besides acknowledging the need.

Change from (3-year bachelors + 2-year B.Ed.) to 4-year integrated B.Ed.:

The policy says that ‘by 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a four-year liberal integrated B.Ed. degree’ [pg. 120]. The present route to teaching, consisting of a 3-year bachelors + 2-year B.Ed., will continue to exist, albeit only in those multi-disciplinary HEIs that also offer the 4-year integrated B.Ed. The thought behind this move is not fleshed out in the policy.

Firstly, do we have an estimate for the number of students coming out of school today who immediately want to pursue a teaching career? This seems like an important statistic that will affect the success of the 4-year integrated B.Ed. programme.

Secondly, it seems that this programme is aimed at a specific group of students, and that could be a problem. The policy says a large number of merit-based scholarships will be instituted for study in this programme. It further says that students from underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds, rural or tribal areas, and female students will be special targets for these scholarships [pg. 121]. There is little doubt that these initiatives, including guaranteed jobs, will be extremely useful for female students and economically poor students, and help them come up in life. But, possibly deleterious consequences need to be given some thought. Female students are not encouraged to take up professional courses like engineering, medicine, business or law in society today. This targeted approach to recruiting students for 4-year B.Ed. programmes may end up strengthening the existing bias. Opportunities for exploration and seeking one’s calling, in regard to career and life path, are being limited by this change. A student who does a Bachelors in Science may get inspired to pursue a research or technical career. On the other hand, a student in the 4-year B.Ed. is unlikely to pursue an interest leading to a non-teaching career. By the nature of the 4-year B.Ed., this will mainly affect economically poor and female students.

Access and Inclusivity in the move towards school complexes:

The establishment of school complexes is good for coordination in management, professional development of teachers, and improved learning resources for students. But, according to the policy, the route to this may involve closing down of ‘unviable’ schools [pg. 168]. This is a cause of concern without any other counter-measures, because it compounds the problem of accessibility. Already, a lot of states have cited fund crunch to merge or shut down a number of government primary schools that have less attendance [7][8][9]. While the policy says on the one hand that it ‘considers all financial support and spend on education as investment and not expenditure’ [pg. 399], it fudges this increasingly pressing issue of preventing government schools from shutting down.

The policy mentions that significant autonomy will be given to school complexes towards providing integrated education, and to experiment with pedagogies, curriculum etc. It also mentions that schools and school complexes will form their development plans, and lists a number of factors these plans should include. It will be good to also recommend that these development plans include local access and inclusivity related goals and outcomes, for e.g., in terms of primary enrollment rates. The social workers associated with school complexes could help in this process. It will also be a concrete way to ensure teachers are invested in their communities. This will also help in getting grass-root level data about primary enrollment rates across various groups including URGs, which will be very helpful for future planning.

While the grouping of schools into school complexes has several benefits, it must be ensured that this doesn’t compromise the fundamental facilities and resources at each individual school. The policy states that ‘school complexes will also share counsellors, social workers, technical and repair staff’ [pg. 118]. This doesn’t sound ideal, and looks like a budget cut move. The presence of technical staff at all times seems essential, for example, especially with future classrooms expected to be increasingly technology driven.

Deregulating private schools:

The policy says that private schools will continue to be non-profit entities. While it proposes regulation on fee increase and elimination of unanticipated fees under any ‘fees head’, it gives near-full freedom for private schools to set their fees [pg. 191]. The policy doesn’t propose any solid measures to combat education becoming a business. It doesn’t address the existing problem of private schools working around the bar on profiteering [10].

Moreover, it calls for a review of RTE Act 2009 Clause 12(I)(c) which obligated private schools for providing 25% free admission to disadvantaged and weaker section children in class 1-8. Prevalent misuse of this clause is cited in calling for this review, yet no data about the extent of misuse, or studies conducted on this issue, is given or cited [pg. 193]. Both these matters give increased freedom to private schools, and one could reasonably fear that this may compound the problem of widening socio-economic disparity.

In this regard, inconsistency of the policy is evident. While the policy acknowledges that ‘private schools have, over the last 50 years, become much less diverse in socio-economic profile’ and that ‘it harmfully stratifies the school system and access to it’, it goes on to say that ‘giving schools the autonomy to do the right thing is in general the better way’ [pg. 191].  It also calls for regulation of private schools within the same framework as public schools, and an end to what it calls ‘the loading of regulatory requirements only against private schools’ [pg. 190]. The listed principles for the development of School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Framework (SQAAF) omits any parameters that may measure socio-economic diversity and inclusivity [pg. 186]. In light of this, it is imperative for organisations invested in social equity of education, to actively watch the development of SQAAF.

Phasing out single-stream Higher Education Institutions and the move towards large multi-disciplinary institutions:

The policy envisions a complete moving of all Higher Education to multi-disciplinary institutions. It justifies this using vague undefined arguments like “21st century requirements”, “preparing for the next industrial revolution” etc [pg. 202]. Being specific about the need for this move, the rationale behind it, and supporting evidences or studies, is necessary to understand the vision of this document.

Moreover, the glorification of ancient universities like Nalanda and Takshashila as first multi-disciplinary institutions, talking about them at par with modern universities, the repeated invoking of nationalistic pride, and the clarion call for ‘bringing back this great Indian tradition’ [pg. 206], do nothing but raise more suspicion, and makes one wonder about the kinds of thought that have gone in to the making of this draft. When scholars are divided over whether Takshashila was a university in the modern sense [11][12], references to the number and varied composition of students, and the multi-disciplinary environment of these universities are not valid claims, and definitely cannot be valid justifications for a policy in the 21st century. Further, by calling it “great” outright, the draft simply asserts that it is the correct way forward, without any evidence.

The notion put forward by the draft that students are benefited only from being in large multidisciplinary institutes is unjustified, and has no evidence. Small liberal arts colleges in the US like Sarah Lawrence and Barnard harbour great thought. India also has some great institutions like CMI, IMSc, NCBS, HRI etc. that are focused on one or two disciplines. A lot of great cutting edge research in Europe and the US comes out of specialised research institutes because the focus allows them to have more funding, equipment and other resources. At the personal level of students, small colleges and large universities each provide varied environments that suit different students well. It is a matter of compatibility with each student personally and psychologically. The draft says ‘all single-stream HEIs will be phased out, or will move towards becoming multi-disciplinary’ [pg. 207]. This is extreme. Besides, doing this also risks the scenario where universities have namesake multidisciplinary departments in order to keep running – ending up wasting resources. Hence, mixed portfolios – having large HEIs and also small ones – is ideal.

The criteria for an institution to be called multi-disciplinary, as specified in this draft, is that it offer at least two programmes or majors in the arts and humanities, at least two in science and mathematics, and at least one in the social sciences [pg. 212]. The need for a multi-disciplinary environment makes sense for people doing a general Bachelors degree in arts (as in US) and people inclined towards basic sciences and research etc. But, the need for medical colleges to be in a multi-disciplinary environment is miniscule. Instead it is crucial for them to be in a hospital and biological research environment. Also, for people looking to do professional courses and practice as an engineer, lawyer etc after their studies, what are the demonstrated benefits of doing their studies in a multi-disciplinary environment? The draft ignores all these issues.

Further, it is also extremely difficult to imagine how all of the professional educational institutions of today, which are numerous, will transform and grow in to multidisciplinary HEIs.

One of the main driving points of this whole move is that ‘India’s higher education has developed rigid boundaries of disciplines and fields, along with a narrow view of what constitutes education’ and that ‘silos need to be broken between disciplines to encourage more multi-, inter-, and cross-disciplinary conversation, interaction, events, education, and research’ [pg. 203, 235]. This is agreeable. Yet, the proposed solution is too extreme and doesn’t address the issue at hand. There are existing institutions, like DU, Xavier’s, Josephs, the public Universities of Madras, Mumbai, Calcutta, Pune etc., that already have a multidisciplinary environment as mentioned in the draft. What will the newly proposed Multidisciplinary Education Research Universities (MERUs), or all the HEIs that manage to transform successfully into multi-disciplinary institutions, do differently that will break these silos? There is no solid implementation idea for that in this draft.

Liberal arts education:

The policy places undue emphasis on liberal arts education, and presents it as the magic wand solution to lead us in to the 21st century. A country’s policy change requires more evidence and justification than that a liberal arts education ‘enriches one’s life, and makes it so much more meaningful and joyful when one is able to appreciate many worlds’ [pg. 224]. The policy mentions about world’s greatest innovations having occurred due to cross-fertilisation of ideas, and Nobel prize winning scientists being three times more likely than the average scientist to have an artistic hobby [pg. 225], to fallaciously argue for the importance of liberal arts education and to drive home the point that ‘high quality liberal education and high quality research must go hand-in-hand’ [pg. 235]. Correlation is not the same as causation. These Nobel winning scientists with artistic hobbies could just be individuals who are inherently better at managing their time for instance. After one eliminates such fallacious arguments, the draft is severely lacking in justification for the extremely strong push for liberal arts.

Further, one cannot but call in to question the nature of the proposed ‘liberal arts’ education [6]. Liberal arts gets equated in the policy with adding India-specific fields of study, namely ‘Indian languages, Indian literature, Carnatic, Hindustani, folk, and film music, Indian philosophy, including Buddhist and Jain philosophy, Indology’ etc. to all universities [pg. 226]. This cannot be an excuse to infuse nationalism into our existing liberal spaces. If this has to become truly liberal and addressing “21st century problems”, it has to be broad-based and global.

The humanities and social sciences section of the proposed core curriculum is also limited to India [pg. 229]. This needs to be expanded to stay globally relevant. If the aim of this policy is to prepare one for jobs in the global market of the 21st century, this will only stifle the student’s prospects.

The policy also strongly encourages ‘research and teaching in the languages, culture, and history of India’s neighbours’ to promote regional peace and mutual economic growth [pg. 236]. Yet, there is no answer to how these fields and the content of these courses will be decided. Ensuring that the learning is truly independent of govenrnment’s policy towards the neighbor is extremely crucial for these programmes to be of true worth.

The policy suggests that research and teaching programmes will be dynamically and proactively introduced to promote quality research and foster quality liberal education. It identifies some relevant fields classified under one of “strategic areas”, “economic importance” and “emerging fields” [pg. 236]. There is no mention of public health, social inequality, climate emergency – all of which are globally relevant crisis fields, but funding typically goes to technology and innovation related fields. If liberal arts education also focuses mainly on subjects decided by the government as important to national interests, this is not liberal in any sense.

The draft policy says that ‘students will be required to attain proficiency in discussing their major in at least one Indian language’ [pg. 230]. It also calls for ‘all doctoral students to take a unit on communication in at least one Indian language other than English’ [pg. 233]. These hinge on a lot of factors. Firstly, they presuppose the creation and promotion of technical vocabulary for all major fields of study in all languages of the country, at least the 22 languages recognized under the 8th Schedule of the constitution. Further, it also requires that institutions allow equal choice of language for all students, and has adequate support facilities for all languages. Without these fundamental provisions, it is unethical to make this a graduation requirement. The very fact that this policy document, which is going to lead the country in to massive change and which seeks public inputs, was released only in English and Hindi is not particularly reassuring.

Access at Higher Education Institutions:

Among the many challenges currently facing India’s higher education system, the draft policy identifies as first “Fragmentation of the Higher Education System”. It says ‘India has over 800 universities and approximately 40,000 colleges, reflecting the overall severe fragmentation and small size of HEIs in the country’ [pg. 203].

Having a lot of educational institutions is being presented as a problem, provoking a lot of questions and extreme worry. The situation may also be described as representing the ‘accessibility’ of higher education, instead of “fragmentation”.

For comparison, US has around 4300 higher education institutions. The population of India is a little more than 4 times the population of US. Furthermore, the social culture at a lot of places in the country, especially in rural areas and among weaker sections of society, like fear of safety of girls etc., places huge hurdles on students, especially girls, to travel far, or stay in hostel, to pursue higher education. So, having HEIs remain accessible in terms of distance from home, is extremely crucial in this regard. Any closing down of existing institutions will affect access detrimentally.

While the policy recognizes “Lack of access” as the third challenge, measures to combat the above-mentioned cultural problem are lacking. As the proposal of ‘consolidating Higher Education in to smaller number of large HEIs’ is poised to exacerbate this problem, no concrete ideas have been proposed in this policy to counteract and tackle the same. It is crucial that social organisations keep a watchful eye on Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education of women, socially backward categories, and disadvantaged geographies, if this suggested change is undertaken.

One of the mains aims mentioned in this draft policy is to achieve a GER of 50% in higher education [pg. 201]. The policy intends to leverage the full potential of “Open and Distance Learning (ODL)” to enhance access, and expects that it ‘must play a significant role in increasing GER to 50%’ [pg. 247]. But, the problem of access to a reliable internet connection, a key requirement for the providing and success of online learning courses, is completely overlooked. Further, some recent pedagogical research suggests that online courses may not be quality substitutes for in-class learning and may even lead to underperformance of disadvantaged students [13]. This leads one to be skeptical about inflated GER numbers in the future, not representing reality accurately.

Finance of private HEIs:

The draft says that ‘a National Scholarship Fund will be established which will ensure that all students who require financial support to attend a public HEI will receive it’ [pg. 245]. This is great, if it can be implemented and gets implemented well.

For private HEIs, the draft policy provides full freedom to set their fees, but mandates that 20% of its students get a full 100% scholarship, and another 30% of its students get a scholarship of at least 25% [pg. 334]. The proper implementation of this is a regulatory criteria for private HEIs. This overarching regulatory principle about providing financial support needs to be thought in to, with a lot more care. The various kinds of institutions, that India has, pose a big challenge. A number of them, small and catering wholly to local students coming from poor or middle class backgrounds, and running on minimal fees, may be forced to shut down unless they are able to find sufficient capital, and expand to attract students from richer backgrounds as well. Will these institutions be supported in this process? No. The policy is clear in that ‘private HEIs will arrange for their own financial autonomy’ [pg. 319].

The bigger aim of the policy to ‘consolidate’ the ‘fragmented’ higher education system, and ‘move it entirely in to large multidisciplinary institutions’, may very well hinge on the effective implementation of this regulatory apparatus and the shutting down of such small institutions.

Issues related to learning environment in HEIs (caste, class, gender):

The current issues affecting learning environments in Higher Education have been cited as ‘rigid and narrow curricula’, ‘faculty lacking autonomy to design their curricula’, and finally, ‘student support being non-existent at most institutions’ [pg. 240]. This is extremely reductive. The policy manages to reduce the diverse nature of issues a country like India will definitely face, into a few paragraphs. Common issues students face has been incredibly generalised and is acknowledged as nothing more than ‘the stress and pressures’ resulting from it being the ‘first time in students’ lives when they are living and working independently’ [pg. 239]. There is no mention of specific issues around caste, gender or class. Ideas seem to have been formulated without due consideration of India’s specific problems.

Sensitisation of students to caste, and the reservation system, is a very pressing need today. It is a crucial time educationists address this issue. The extremely harmful culture of quota-bashing and the isolation of socially backward students, that is prevalent and on the rise in all institutes, especially IITs, AIIMS etc, a lot of which have been documented and reported on in the last two decades [14], needs to be tackled. Students must be sensitized to the nature of reservation as affirmative action, and be informed of the channels for reporting and the strict measures against discrimination.

While the policy talks about ‘meaningful opportunities for social engagement of students in HEIs’ and their ‘involvement in institutional processes’ [pg. 243, 245], it doesn’t say anything concrete. Involving graduate and senior undergraduate students in organizing such orientation events, and monitoring of issues, presents a concrete avenue for the same.

Moreover, any institution needs to have adequate grievance redressal mechanisms at all levels for all kinds of issues. For example, a women’s cell with adequate mechanisms in place to report instances of sexual harassment, Human Resource cells, conflict resolution mechanisms etc, are compulsory for all educational institutions. The pervasive problem of workplace harassment in academia needs to be addressed, by enabling the provision of strong institutional help and support to those affected. It may prove useful to involve graduate student representatives in such cells. The draft policy doesn’t talk about any of these issues, necessitating a rethink. There is also no mention of student bodies like unions etc, or the possibility of student bodies partaking in the administration. This needs to be given some thought as well.

One stop solution for everyone and everything:

The essential feature of this draft policy is that it proposes a one stop universal solution, caring little about variations. The call for all HEIs to become large multi-disciplinary institutions, with little care about the benefits a specialized institutional environment may provide, is representative of this feature.

The draft also ignores wholly the existence of regional, cultural or demographic variations in any given issue. One of the main goals set, is a Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education of 50% over the period of this policy. It is to be noted that Chandigarh and Delhi already have a greater than 50% GER in higher education in 2017-2018, and Tamilnadu has a GER of 48.6%, while the national average is 25.8% [15]. The draft policy doesn’t mention this, or take this in to account in any way. Tamilnadu’s approach to attaining this GER has been focused on increasing accessibility by increasing the number of HEIs. The proposed consolidation into large HEIs will tamper with this approach, for example, and may even reduce GER in the state.

The draft also stresses on ‘equitable distribution’ [pg. 221] of all institutions across states and regions. While this may sound like a good thing to some, or naïve to others, it is extremely scary as it is in tune with the increasingly authoritarian attitude of Union governments with respect to the constituent states, and represents another threat to federalism. Since the subject of education has been under state purview for a long time, and then moved to concurrent list, there is a disparity in how various states have handled the subject. Some states have invested heavily, while others have not. Any Union body acting with the aim of ‘making’ the distribution of HEIs equitable across states, needs to tread its path carefully, and states have to be watchful to protect their interests. Since the policy calls for ‘integration in to one higher education system’ [pg. 213], and all regulatory and accrediting powers are being transferred to the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), an autonomous body at the level of the Union, the situation is all the more scary [pg. 325].

Regulating HEIs, autonomy of HEIs, and state powers:

The draft policy proposes to ‘have only one regulator for all higher education’ [pg. 210], even though it starts out by saying that ‘the regulatory system has been rife with basic problems, such as concentration of power within a few bodies’ [pg. 205]. The separation of the various distinct functions of funding, standard setting, accreditation, and regulation sounds good. Yet, there is a great need for clarity and details, both in terms of explaining the current situation, and the proposed change.

Furthermore, the policy states that the regulatory and administrative powers of State Departments of Higher Education and State Higher Education Councils will be abolished [pg. 332]. Instead, NAAC will issue licenses to new Accreditation Institutions (AIs) to do the job [pg. 327]. These will be public or private not-for-profit institutions, or agencies set up by HEIs. The Institutional Accreditation Frameworks (IAF) will be created by the National Education Commission, a new apex body headed by the Prime Minister. So, effectively, the existing state bodies are dismantled except for being financial-support providers (they transform into facilitative bodies), and new bodies at the level of the Indian Union are being or have already been formed to overlook all matters regarding education in the country. It makes one wonder if state powers have been grabbed as swiftly and quietly, ever before.

Talks about ‘gradual granting of autonomy to higher education institutions’ [pg. 208, 319] present the policy as a reset button, instead of a policy change which ought to be the case. What happens to existing institutions that already have financial autonomy? Does the policy propose to take this away, citing regulation under new guidelines? When premier research institutions like IISER and NCBS that had lots of funding in the beginning, are struggling to sustain themselves facing huge financial cuts currently, one is left to wonder what will happen to existing financially autonomous institutions under such a change in policy.

References

[1]. https://www.news18.com/news/india/draft-education-policy-recommends-sanskrit-at-all-levels-of-school-and-higher-education-2167783.html

[2]. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/draft-national-education-policy-moots-all-india-entrance-tests-for-ug-courses-in-public-colleges/article27690140.ece

[3]. http://theconversation.com/students-test-scores-tell-us-more-about-the-community-they-live-in-than-what-they-know-77934

[4]. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-university-chicago-sat-act-20180614-story.html

[5]. https://thewire.in/education/tamil-nadu-neet

[6]. https://thewire.in/education/national-education-policy-liberal-education-dissent

[7]. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/fund-crunch-may-force-government-to-close-down-3000-schools/articleshow/65790715.cms

[8]. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/hry-to-shut-96-govt-primary-schools-with-less-than-25-students/articleshow/69550563.cms

[9]. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/odisha-govt-to-shut-down-966-primary-schools-with-less-than-10-students/story-wXIHD44D58iRN4FHcLgB8I.html

[10]. https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/only-for-profit-schools/299371

[11]. Anant Sadashiv Altekar (1934; reprint 1965), Education in Ancient India, Sixth Edition, Revised & Enlarged, Nand Kishore & Bros, Varanasi

[12]. F. W. Thomas (1944), in John Marshall (1951; 1975 reprint), Taxila, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi

[13]. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/01/16/online-learning-fails-deliver-finds-report-aimed-discouraging

[14]. Professor Sukhadeo Thorat Committee report about differential treatment of SC/ST students in AIIMS http://www.nlhmb.in/Reports%20AIIMS.pdf

[15]. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu-leads-the-nation-in-higher-education-enrolment/article22378748.ece

Errata (05-Aug-2019): The name of the second author was wrongly spelled in the original post. The mistake has now been corrected.

1. Remarks on some general features of Draft National Education Policy 2019 (DNEP19)

One of the important ideas in DNEP19 is the suggestion to form conglomerations of several academic bodies of a particular type. However, if a large fraction of the bodies belonging to a conglomeration is not viable, they will certainly affect the overall efficiency of the group adversely. Throughout this section, we discuss how the weaker institutions can be individually uplifted with relatively modest investments before fully implementing NEP 2019, which requires expensive and resource consuming structural changes. A few specific recommendations of DNEP19 for different stages of education will be analyzed in the next section. The Indian Constitution and several government policies and vision documents, including DNEP19, have often emphasized the importance of inculcating scientific temper. Yet our society is still plagued by unscientific ideas and superstitions. A discussion on inculcating scientific temper in an effective way is also included in this section. A summary of the discussions in sections 1 and 2 will be the content of the last section.

1.1 Before implementing the New Education Policy (NEP) one must have a clear idea of the current state of education in India. The DNEP19 has indeed noted that ‘The strength of any good Policy lies in building on what already exists – particularly the structures and institutions; therefore, this Policy will prioritize on strengthening what exists. However, throughout this report, no serious attempt to summarize the existing education system is clearly visible.

1.2 Of course, other publicly available sources offer glimpses of serious maladies in our education system. For example, Scroll.in dated 14.7.2016 reported ‘The findings of the latest National Achievement Survey for Class 5, published by the National Council of Education Research and Training this week, are predictably grim and show that a vast majority of students about to enter middle school face enormous challenges in reading, basic mathematics, and other subject knowledge. (e.g., )43% of all students scored 35% or less in reading comprehension. Only 11% got 75% or more. Unless the above 11% is, e.g., increased to 75% or more any attempt to introduce highly sophisticated experimentations in primary education will be futile. This goal can be achieved by a relatively modest increment in the number of regular and voluntary teachers, improvement in the infrastructure, the use of new teaching techniques and a more efficient method of monitoring the progress. The Panchayat system and government management at block and district levels should be involved in organizing the voluntary teachers and the monitoring system. Similar weakness in the foundation even at higher stages of education will be discussed below. Taking drastic and expensive steps for excellence ignoring the basic drawbacks of the existing system may, in fact, lead to a national disaster.

1.3 It is especially important to revisit the recently introduced Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) since it may be regarded as the precursor of DNEP19 and several criticisms of the hasty implementation of this system have already been made by many academic bodies. This issue will be discussed in further details in the next section.

1.4 The Committee noted that the current education system solely focuses on rote learning of facts and procedures. Hence, it recommends that the curriculum load in each subject should be reduced to its essential core content. This would make space for holistic, discussion and analysis-based learning. (from draft NEP 2019). Similar observations have also been made by many earlier committees on education reform. Yet no concrete change in the mode of learning has been suggested by NEP 2019 or any earlier policy document (see the next section for further details).

1.5 Stiff resistance to any attempt to improve the mode of learning and half-hearted policies of the government have further nurtured this archaic mode of rote learning. A case in point is the fate of the UGC NET examination. This national level examination tests the overall knowledge of a person, aspiring to join the higher education system as a teacher or a Ph.D. student, in his subject. The experts agree that it is not possible to crack this examination by rote learning only. However, since its inception, the success rates in all such tests have been miserable. As an example, we present some relevant statistics on UGC NET December 2018.

“A total of 6,81,930 candidates had appeared for the UGC NET December 2018 exam. Out of these, a total of 44,001 candidates have cleared the exam for the post of Assistant Professor only and 3883 candidates got qualified for the post of both Assistant Professor and JRF.” (from the UGC Website).

Extremely low success rates observed over the years strongly suggest that the method of teaching followed by the institutions of higher education, except for a few with very high standards, is indeed heavily dependent on rote learning. Instead of serious attempts to improve the mode of teaching in relatively backward institutions, our government succumbed to pressure from different influential quarters. The rules were modified so that persons with a Ph.D. degree need not qualify in national level tests like NET and GATE. Success in a qualifying examination for entering the Ph.D. program locally arranged by the university concerned should be enough. Obviously, the standard of this locally organized test will widely vary and, in many cases, may be substandard compared to the national level tests. Unless an appropriate method of teaching, keeping rote learning at the minimum level, is devised and national level tests are reintroduced even partial success in introducing ‘holistic, discussion and analysis-based learning’ is impossible. It can be realized by gradually changing the pattern of college-level examinations by the one that is used by NET, GATE, IITs, IISERs, and IISC systems and introducing intense monitoring system both at the state and national levels. Unless this goal is fulfilled for 60-70% of the colleges the ground for implementing NEP2019 will not be fertile.

1.6 It should be emphasized that rote learning also flourishes due to a ‘principle of least action which both teachers and students in the average institutions at all levels of education have been forced to follow. Memorizing notes distributed by the teachers or available in the market is the easiest way of clearing the examinations for the students because access to more comprehensive learning is not available in the regular classes in an average institution. On the other hand, it is physically impossible for the teacher to deliver ‘holistic, discussion and analysis-based learning’ because of the backbreaking teaching load ( e.g., in many colleges regular major and minor courses in a subject are taught by two/three fulltime teachers with the help of a few part-timers) and additional administrative works as required by the employer. It is curious to note that while DNEP19 emphasizes on short courses designed for teaching the key concepts, CBCS has introduced heavy courses, which under the present circumstances will only reinforce rote learning. Moreover, many students opt for higher education not because of genuine academic interest but simply because no better choice was available to them. The presence of such students creates avoidable extra loads in the higher education system. The above difficulties can be removed-at least partially- by introducing relatively modest financial help and administrative changes before implementing the more ambitious NEP 2019. Therefore, the government must strongly focus on speedy introduction of various channels of vocational training after secondary education with immediate effect so that the above extraneous loads on higher education do not impair the path to excellence envisaged by the NEP-19. It is gratifying to note that the NEP has already observed that ‘this Policy aims to provide access to vocational education to at least 50% of all learners by 2025. Unless the above points are properly addressed rote learning will merrily continue.

1.7 Throughout this draft a new trend is visible. It recommends the merger of a number of academic institutions of the same type at all levels of education. For example, it is proposed that Anganwadis be merged with primary schools, School complexes, which ‘typically consist of 10 – 20 public schools are formed and, finally, ‘the current 800 universities and 40000 colleges will be consolidated into about 15000 excellent institutions. In contrast to the modest changes proposed above these changes are expensive and resource consuming, and careful considerations are called for before implementing them. The positive aspects of this approach are that a few good institutions can provide leadership and guidance to relatively less privileged ones through sharing of teachers and other resources which may improve the latter class in the long run. On the other hand, an overwhelming load due to managing the affairs of a group of substandard institutions after may ruin some existing premier institutions which were doing very well on their own. Given the current rather dismal standard of our average educational institutions, the best policy, to begin with, would be to select a few institutions at different levels of education which can provide the leadership and form clusters around them by including a few relatively backward institutions in the same locality. The performance of such clusters should be closely observed for a period of not less than five years. If significant improvements in the overall academic standards follow, then the number of such clusters may be gradually increased. It should also be borne in mind that such mergers beyond a certain number may also increase administrative complications nonlinearly making the functioning of the cluster quite inefficient. Many of the ambitious recommendations of the draft policy may be first tested via pilot projects as sketched above. It is also worth pointing out that the idea of upgrading all institutions in the country to the same level of excellence is a utopia which has never been realized in any country. It is much more pragmatic to offer a sufficient number of fellowships, scholarships, bank loans, etc so that deserving students from the backward areas may easily get the opportunity of studying in the centers of excellence.

1.8 Beyond the high school level, all predominantly technological or professional (like  law or hotel management) courses should raise at least 30% of the gross expenditure for running the course through tuition fees, consultancy, etc after an initial period of three years. Close collaborations with the Industries should be encouraged. However, a significant amount of the money thus saved should be spent by the government for improving the school education, education for differently abled students and adult education. For the departments of basic sciences, humanities, and fine arts the corresponding amount should never exceed 15%.

1.9 According to the Constitution of India,” to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform” is one of the fundamental duties of the people of the Republic of India. In the course of time several National Education Policies, National Frameworks for School Education, etc have also emphasized the importance of developing the above qualities through our education system. In spite of this, superstitions and unscientific ideas plague every corner of our society even today. The main reason is that the word scientific temper is merely mentioned several times as a ritual in textbooks and other relevant documents. Its significance has never been unambiguously explained. The draft NEP 2019 also discusses the importance of the above values in some details, but several ambiguities still remain. For example, it states that “Evidence-based reasoning and the scientific method will be incorporated throughout the school curriculum – in science as well as in traditionally non-science subjects – in order to encourage rational, analytical, logical, and quantitative thinking in all aspects of the curriculum.” It says “For example, in history, one could ask, what are the possible historical scenarios consistent with the known archaeological and literary evidence?” Unfortunately, literary evidence has often been misused in recent times. Confusion begins when mere mentioning of something from mythologies, which may be important assets of our literature and culture, is promoted as a piece of historical evidence. The DNEP19 must not appear to support the above confusions.

Another example of confusion is the text:

“All stages (of school education) will heavily incorporate Indian and local traditions, as well as ethical reasoning, socio-emotional learning, quantitative and logical reasoning, computational thinking and digital literacy, scientific temper, languages, and communication skills.”

Some Indian and local traditions- e.g., praying to some supernatural forces to end a draught-are certainly not compatible with logical reasoning and scientific temper. This should be unambiguously clarified in the text although the cultural values of such traditions may also get due respect.

1.10 One of the fountainheads of unscientific views is the often-asked question ‘Can science explain everything? The answer is obviously no. In fact, an affirmative answer should never be entertained because that would mean the end of science! But one cannot deny the fact that the phenomena which were attributed to supernatural forces even a century ago are now easily understood scientifically. This remarkable progress of science is never emphasized in the usual textbooks and other relevant documents like the preamble of a syllabus. In the new approach, it should be mandatory to stress this point in all approved science textbooks with various examples from the history of progress in science.

2. Comments on some specific recommendations by the DNEP19 for different stages of education.

 2.1 School education

Some of the new ideas in the DNEP19, if implemented realistically with patience, hold promise for far-reaching consequences for the education system. This section contains observations on a few topics recommended in DNEP19.

2.1.1 Improvement in pre-school education ‘would be implemented by improving and expanding the Anganwadi system and co-locating Anganwadis with primary schools. Successful implementation of this program will help the students from the disadvantageous sections of society as they will get more time for acquiring ‘foundational literacy’. However, the magnitude this task is so overwhelming that implementing it satisfactorily with regular teachers and poorly paid Anganwadi workers may not be feasible. In addition to making the salary of the Anganwadi workers reasonable, a pool of nonconventional teachers consisting of the guardians with some education, say up to class X, and local youths need to be created. A national team of volunteers may also be formed to augment the workforce (for example high school students may help during the vacation time, NGOs may be involved). Successful teachers may also be involved after retirement. This nonconventional workforce may also help to teach the lower rungs of the regular primary level education.

The following measures may make the nonconventional workforce efficient

i) Development of novel teaching methods suitable for pre-school and primary school students,

ii) the persons involved who are not professional teachers should be offered a short course and their teaching skills should be tested,

iii) some honorarium should be paid to the volunteers which is not negligible for a person belonging to a lower middle class/ poor family,

iv) constant monitoring by the guardians’ committees and the Panchayat system should be enforced in addition to the usual government mechanism for monitoring.

2.1.2 The recommendation to ‘extend the coverage of the Right to education (RTE) Act to all children between the ages of three to 18 years is impractical. The existing RTE Act already ‘provides for free and compulsory education to all children from the age of six to 14 years. Did it make a strong impact on the quality of school education especially at the primary level? A saner approach would be to significantly improve primary and middle school education by fulfilling the goals of the existing act before replacing it with a more ambitious act which involves huge additional expenditure and human resources. Moreover, it is not at all clear why students from relatively well-off families who may enjoy better pre-school education from family members should be brought under the RTE act. Of course, poor students should be getting free education even at the pre-school level. As discussed above most of the students above the age of 14 should be encouraged to join some vocational education to find paths for future employment. The same argument holds for the students who continue in mainstream education and are likely to find a successful career. Of course, it is assumed that there shall be adequate scholarships, fellowships and bank loans for supporting the poor students above the age of 14.

2.1.3 As repeatedly mentioned in the DNEP19 the success of our cravings for excellence in education critically depends on the teachers and their proper training. Unfortunately, the current B.Ed course for training school teachers is almost obsolete. The only known new development in recent times, that I am aware of, is an increased duration of practice teaching. However, the method of evaluation of the students and the would-be teachers continues to follow the same old method. The computer revolution in teaching has completely bypassed the B.Ed program. If all institutions offering the B.Ed cannot provide computer literacy to their student nodal training centers should be created by the government so that would-be teachers have enough expertise in using graphics, animations and other modern tools to improve their teaching. B.Ed Students who can develop novel methods of teaching should be offered incentives. The four-year integrated B.Ed program proposed in DNEP19 will be better equipped for introducing modern methods of teaching because of its longer duration.

2.2 Observations on undergraduate teaching

2.2.1 Here a detailed stock-taking is essential since drastic changes have recently been imposed on this sector from above in the form of Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). In principle, this change is an excellent idea. But are the existing institutions prepared to meet the challenges of the new system? The main changes consist of replacing the annual examination system by the semester system and in principle, the students have the freedom to choose the subjects they wish to study rather than following a rigid curriculum. Common sense would immediately suggest that significant development in infrastructure (e.g., more classrooms and laboratories) and more teachers are essential for successful implementation for this ambitious program. The first point to be stressed is that no agency either at the state level or at the UGC level has provided any additional financial assistance to fulfill the above requirements. Because of this bad precedence, all academic institutions will regard any future educational reform as a ploy to impose additional workload without creating the conditions conducive for the proposed reforms. Moreover, the new curriculums are so heavy that the number of class hours has been drastically increased. As an example, it has been estimated that according to the new norms the number of teaching hours per week in a major subject which involve (does not involve) laboratory work will be 118 (96). If a college has five full-time teachers per subject (which is an optimistic scenario; in many cases, the number is smaller) – each of them will have to teach approximately 24 hours per week! Is this the right environment for nurturing ‘holistic, discussion and analysis-based learning’? Although UGC had required a minimum number of teachers for running the CBCS, they have later admitted that this condition could not be fulfilled in many cases. At least in West Bengal, the freedom of a student to choose a course remains on paper only. The facility that a student with a major in a science subject can select an elective paper in humanities or arts is still a mirage. CBCS has been running for 1 or 2 years in most of the colleges. According to some experienced teachers, the hasty implementation of CBCS has heralded unprecedented chaos in undergraduate teaching. It is also worth recalling that some reputed institutions like the University of Calcutta and the Jadavpur University had opposed the hasty implementation of CBCS.

2.2.2 There are several reasons for the above lengthy discussion on CBCS. If fact CBCS is the precursor of the more ambitious and, consequently, complicated ‘broad-based liberal education proposed in the DNEP19. So far, the reference to CBCS in DNEP19 is restricted to a single sentence. Only a thorough review of CBCS can reveal the ability of the colleges of average standard in India to implement education reforms appropriate for the 21st century. However, this must be based on the maximum possible direct interactions with the teachers and the students. This is very important for fully appreciating the ground realities. Appropriately designed questionnaires may be sent to different colleges and universities for this purpose. This is much more important than a few meetings of a high-level committee.

2.2.3 It is inconceivable that the teaching standard and grading of all the institutions in our country will be uniform even if all the drawbacks of the CBCS, some of which have been discussed above, are removed. Appropriate UGC NET/GATE type national level entrance tests for all postgraduate programs must be reintroduced. This is particularly important if all the undergraduate colleges have the authority to offer degrees.

2.2.4 Good training programs for undergraduate teachers are practically non-existing. The existing UGC refresher courses follow totally haphazard and arbitrary schedules and choice of subjects. Quite often the latter choice neither helps to improve the teaching ability of a teacher nor does it help his/ her research. This program should be revamped by introducing broad guidelines at the national level and an efficient monitoring program. A reasonable fraction of the lectures should be devoted to developing improved techniques for teaching a particular subject. Nodal centers for exposing the teachers to expensive advanced experiments in the refresher programs should be set up. If required, these centers should also help the colleges and the universities to set up and maintain advanced laboratories. Incentives must be given to the teachers who design attractive experiments for the nodal centers. Most of the above comments are also applicable to postgraduate teachers training.

2.3 Postgraduate teaching and research

A major concern here is the mushrooming of new institutions offering postgraduate degrees at the state level. The new state government universities are relatively better off, though not ideal, in terms of the number of teachers and infrastructure. Most of the undergraduate colleges upgraded to offer postgraduate teaching are substandard in terms of these facilities although there are a few dignified exceptions. The main reason is that no additional faculty or new infrastructure was provided by the state government in most cases.

The classes are somehow managed with the help of part-time teachers. How these institutions received approval from the UGC is indeed mysterious. These comments are mainly on the basis of such institutions in West Bengal which we are familiar with. However, the new state government institutions offering postgraduate degrees in all states require thorough scrutiny before including them  into the CBCS or NEP2019.

There is no program for teachers training at this level. We have already commented on the totally useless UGC refresher programs. All premier institutions in the country should collectively introduce such a program where only renowned teachers will teach. The Departments of Education of the central and State governments should provide all possible support. Appropriate national level tests should be introduced for all students willing to join any postgraduate program.

Some programs like practice teaching with proper evaluation should also be designed for improving the teaching skills of would be PG teachers. Such programs can be conducted by using Skype and other inexpensive modern communication technologies. These programs should be open to Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculties. A grading system at the national level for the Ph.D. students and their theses will also help to improve the Ph.D. program.

3. Summary

3.1. There is no alternative to uplifting the standards of the existing average institutions, which abound all stages of education, above a certain threshold. The DNEP19 recommends the formation of conglomerations of several academic bodies of a particular type, centered around leading institutions, which will eventually become centers of excellence. However, if a large fraction of the participating academic bodies in a group is weak, which unfortunately is the present scenario, they will certainly affect the overall performance of the group adversely. Before fully implementing NEP19 a large fraction (say, 70% or more) of the average academically backward institutions should be raised above a certain nationally defined standard. This can be done using relatively inexpensive methods primarily dependent on modern technologies in communication and other areas (Section 1, item 7, p-3).

3.2 In the meantime the feasibility of some of the new ideas in DNEP19 should be tested by pilot projects (Section 1, item 7).

3.3 In order to provide a sufficient number of teachers required for the revamped pre-schools as suggested in DNEP19 and the regular primary schools, a properly trained pool of non-conventional teachers must be formed (section 2.1, item 1).

3.4 The DNEP19 recommended the elimination of rote learning from our education system and the introduction of ‘holistic, discussion and analysis-based learning’. This can be achieved by improving teachers’ training. But it also important to reduce the teaching and administrative workload of the teachers who will require more time for implementing the new method of teaching (Section 1, items 4,5,6).

3.5 The recently introduced CBCS system should be thoroughly reviewed before integrating it with NEP19 since there are already many serious complaints against it. The main objection is that no additional manpower or new infrastructure (classrooms, laboratories, etc) was provided for this new system in most cases. The impractical curriculum leads to back-breaking teaching loads in an average college. This is in conflict with the concept-based teaching recommended by DNEP19. The ‘cafeteria type and interdisciplinary approach to learning’, which allows a student to choose the subjects of his study with maximal freedom, could not be introduced due to paucity of the above resources. If these shortcomings can be eliminated the CBCS may indeed help the smooth implementation of NEP19 (Section 2.2, items 1-3).

3.6 Since properly trained teachers are essential for the success of NHEP19, the existing teaching programs for high school teachers should be modernized. Special efforts are required so that the teachers can successfully use computer graphics, animations and other attractive modern aids to teaching (Section 2.1, item 3).

3.7 Good teachers’ training programs are currently non-existent at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Such programs should be devised. Expenses can be significantly reduced by using modern communication techniques like Skype to run part of the training programs. The four-year Integrated B.Ed program as proposed in DNEP19 may be the right platform for modernization of school teaching(Section 2.2, item 4).

3.8 If the undergraduate colleges with uneven standards enjoy degree awarding authority, national level tests for admission to all postgraduate courses should be introduced (section 2.2, item 3).

3.9 The importance of inculcating scientific temper in society has been emphasized in our constitution and many national policy documents including DNEP19. DNHEP19 made a significant step forward by explicitly mentioning that this concept can be applied to subjects like history which are usually not regarded as a science. However, our society is still a hot bed of superstitions and other unscientific ideas. The reason is that scientific temper is mentioned in textbooks and other relevant documents as a ritual. Its significance is never explained. In order to remove this lacuna text books and other relevant documents must introduce a section by illustrating this concept with examples from the history of science and scientific methods. (Section 1, items 9,10)

Acknowledgements:

The following friends and colleagues helped me through discussions and sharing of written materials:

Professor Anirban Kundu, Dept of Physics, Univ. of Calcutta;

Professor Debajyoti Choudhury, Dept. of Physics and Astrophysics, Univ. of Delhi;

Professor Debasish Aich,Dept of Physics, Kharagpur College, Kharagpur;

Professor Indrani Kar, Dept of Sanskrit, Scottish Church College, Kolkata;

Shri Mantu Kumar Das, Principal, Goaltore College, Goaltore, West Bengal;

Professor Supratim Das, Vice Principal and Prof of History, Scottish Church College, Kolkata

Professor Sujoy Poddar,Dept. of Physics, Diamond Harbour Women’s University, Diamond Harbour,

Professor Soumitra Banerjee, Dept. of Physics, IISER Kolkata  and

Professor Upendranath Nandi, Dept. of Physics, Scottish Church College Kolkata.

Professor Amitava Datta, FNA was a Professor of Physics at Jadavpur University (1981-2008), Kolkata, India and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata (2008-2013). He is an INSA Senior Scientist at the Dept. of Physics, Univ of Calcutta (2013-continuing).

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author

The other articles in this series can be found here.

School education needs to be child-centered by default because the whole system of teaching-learning has evolved to facilitate the students. Keeping this in mind, the 2019 draft of new education policy of India (NEP) drafted by a committee of eminent scholars, chaired by Dr. K. Kasturirangan proposes to bring in a system that caters to children of age 3 to 18 years, to replace the current system of age 5 to 17 years. Further, in accordance with developmental stages of children, the first 5 years of school will be considered foundational, the next 3 years preparatory, further 3 years middle and finally 4 years of secondary education. Several radical modifications have been suggested towards higher education as well, which is beyond the purview of the present article.  The ideal scenario in school education would be when the curriculum, as well as the teaching-learning process, are child-centered, alongside providing a teacher-centered support system. Interestingly, at the same time as focusing on the needs of the students, the NEP has placed the teacher also at the center of its deliberations, and this article looks into the teacher-specific issues it has addressed.

Refreshingly, the policy document declares that all walks of learning will be embedded into the ‘curriculum’, hence eliminating the need for the youngsters to spend out-of-school hours in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. A detailed plan with a timeline for implementing the proposed changes in phases, listing out what is doable in the next one, five or ten years, as required. Here we won’t get into the specifics of the timeline for all the points being discussed.

NEP has proposed setting up of a national education commission, also named Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog, to frame the overall guidelines for all matters related to education in India – at both school level and for various streams of higher education. All existing and specialized governing bodies and assessment councils are to come under its wing in diverse forms.

Teacher Education

The National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE, 2010) had recommended a 4-year integrated program of teacher education, which has come into practice at a few chosen locations across the country. These courses at present mainly cater to the preparation of high school teachers. The NEP goes a step further and proposes new, level-specific programs of teacher education in accordance with the 5+3+3+4 system of schooling to be unrolled.

Teacher education for all levels – Foundational, Preparatory, Middle, and Secondary – will take place within large multidisciplinary universities or colleges as a stage-specific, four-year integrated B.Ed. program, combining content, pedagogy, and practical training. Teachers-in-training would thereby be able to interact with peers from other disciplines and be taught by faculty in allied disciplines of education such as psychology, child development, and social sciences – making them that much stronger as teachers when they graduate.

For students who have completed regular bachelors degrees in another discipline and wish to take up teacher training, the duration of ‘lateral entry’ B.Ed. program will be for two years.

The policy deals a heavy hand to substandard, stand-alone teacher education institutes and recommends identifying and closing them all down in the five years. This is a welcome move to ensure that the required quality of teacher training is maintained all over the country.

Continuous professional development (CPD)

By definition, PD refers to the process of tracking and documenting the skills, knowledge, and experience that you gain both formally and informally as you work, beyond any initial training.

In the teaching profession, this refers to observing, identifying and documenting the changes and improvements in skills and experience of a teacher. This would involve several aspects of routine activities and interactions of the teaching profession. For example – the ability to convey concepts effectively to the students, winning the confidence of students and colleagues, ability to make a difference in students’ understanding and application of concepts, providing better learning experience inside as well as outside the classroom, ability to pick up and utilize new skills, etc. In fact, NCFTE  has stated six clear aims of CPD for Indian teachers.

Section 5.3 of NEP elaborates on some new steps to make CPD accessible and effective for every teacher in the country. Main features that are special to NEP are (1) introduction of veritable professional standards for teachers  (2) a performance dependent scheme of promotions/salary rises, (3) Modular, accredited courses and other PD options to be made available to all teachers in a decentralized fashion.

(1) National and State professional standards for teachers (NPST and SPST): “Such standards for performance appraisal would include both hard indicators which are non-negotiable (e.g. attendance regularity and punctuality, financial propriety, not using corporal punishment, participating in any mandatory school functions and meetings, etc.) and soft indicators (such as effective  pedagogy and classroom practices, effective developmental assessment of progress of students, effective use of teaching-learning material, quality of engagement and interaction with parents and students, organisation of quality school events, etc.) which are related to professional practice and competencies. The NPST and SPST will also inform the design of the pre-service teacher education programs.”

“The professional standards will be reviewed and revised nationally and then at the State level in 2030, and thereafter every ten years, on the basis of rigorous empirical analysis of the efficacy of the system. All appraisals will be based on carefully recorded multiple sources of evidence, comprising minimally of school visits, school records and classroom observations, peer review, and feedback on the progress of students. The appraisal must be endorsed by the SMC. The details of this process will be delineated by the SCERTs by 2022 for each State.”

Setting up of these professional standards, instead of just generically stating ‘teachers must improve’, is certainly a welcome move. The scheme of appraisal though, while it sounds very good on paper, threatens to allow a lot of room for malpractice at all stages – I do hope there will be sufficient care taken to monitor and streamline the process.

(2) Regarding salary and promotions, the NEP recommends that “there will be at least five promotional levels as a teacher in each stage, which may be labeled Early Teacher (without tenure), Early Teacher (with tenure), Proficient Teacher, Expert Teacher, and Master Teacher. Within each promotional level/rank, there would be a preset range of salary levels  through which teachers could progress based on merit and performance in that rank.” The phased transition from the current system is also proposed, to be completed by the year 2030. The aim will be to have a clearly-defined promotion-and-salary ladder to mark milestones in professional development and accomplishment, and therefore continuous incentives for conducting outstanding work as a teacher. In the context of appraisal along the lines of NPST and SPST, the policy states in no uncertain terms that “Promotions and salary increases will not occur based on the length of tenure or seniority, but only on the basis of such appraisal.”

One guideline for quantifying teacher performance has been available in the form of “Performance Indicators (PINDICS)” for elementary school teachers, published by the NCERT in the year 2013. While several points in this guideline are useful, it does not appear to consider the teacher an empowered professional as she rightly deserves. There are many lists of points to be noted as self-report by the teacher or observations by others, but the initiative of and suggestions made by the teachers is nowhere to be seen. In order to get a well-rounded view of the teacher’s performance, PINDICS hopes to collect data from many sources. But it is unclear as to what are the points to be specifically noted from talking to students/colleagues/parents and others. Amongst all the angles of forming an opinion ON the performance of the teacher, there does not seem to be any room for feedback BY  the teacher on how rewarding or not various aspects of teaching/working have been, what additional resources/support would they like to have/use, etc. It would be nice if the upcoming guidelines would include it, along with asking what motivates him/her as a teacher and how would they like to share their expertise with others.  We ought to steer clear of a mindset that even remotely suggests a teacher to be someone waiting to be told where she stands and how she must proceed!

(3) In its deliberations regarding CPD for teachers, NEP wishes to develop “a culture of self/peer learning rather than a “command and control”-type of directed learning. … There will be no centralized determination of the curriculum, no cascade-model training and no rigid norms”. At the same time, it also wants to make available modular, accredited courses to teachers which they can access on their own.

There are a number of aspects of CPD other than taking course modules. They need to be focused and emphasized too! Ready modules are not suited to the necessary levels of customization, whereas each teacher’s needs and strengths vary very widely, and for the same teacher for different parts of the student curriculum. Elaborating on the specifications of who will offer the courses? by what modality? and so on, there is a need to develop a system for assessing the actual requirements at present.

While most of the above discussion has been about school teachers, Section 13.1 of NEP also states that “higher education faculty must be valued and supported with excellent preparation and conducive working environments”. This, of course, is much needed too.

I wish to conclude with a quote from the NEP that makes very good sense. “It will always be important to remember that empowerment and autonomy are preconditions for true accountability – a threatening environment is the nemesis of sustainable quality. An accountability mechanism that has clear non-negotiables and supports teachers in effecting improvements will tend to work the most effectively.”

References:

1. Draft of National Education Policy, India, 2019
2. Performance indicators for elementary teachers, 2013

Sushama Yermal has been a researcher in biology and an educator, taught at the undergraduate program of IISc from its beginning; now freelancing as a writer and independent advisor in teacher education, educational policy, curriculum development, implementation, and related areas. She can be reached at ysushama@gmail.com.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author.

The other articles in this series can be found here.

At the outset I begin with my overwhelming concern over the erosion of state rights in education that this Draft represents. That states have had minimal inputs in formulating the current Draft worries me as a citizen and as an actor in the school education sector for over 30 years.

There are certain concepts in political imaginations of a democratic society that are powerful in combination: equality and equity for example. Equality of opportunity for all its citizens is a hallmark of a democratic polity. When these concepts are articulated together, they offer hope for inclusive society especially to those who have been denied hope for centuries. Yet the Draft separates concepts such as universal access from right to access, right to quality education, right to participation and equity.

In a deeply divided society like ours, deprivations cross-cut and reinforce lack of opportunities in multiple ways: caste, class, gender, place of residence, disability and similar factors of marginalization combine together to create strong intergenerational cycles of underdevelopment for a number of people. Hence any national-level initiatives like educational opportunity require differentiated options: options that are politically and socially custom-made to a large variety of groups and regions. This draft, despite pious declarations about rich and varied traditions of Indian life, offers a forcibly unified education system, by ignoring the history of uneven development across regions and sections of society.

Why such a centralizing policy?

How does a single centralizing policy draft serve a diverse country like India with inequalities of tectonic proportions? The draft, on a first linear reading, expresses common sense notions about many aspects of education: the potency of mother tongue as medium of instruction, play-way method for 3 to 8 year olds, need for quality textbooks and learning materials in Indian languages, critical skills across the curriculum, formative assessment rather than rote examinations and bi-lingual teachers, to cite a few.  It also analyses the crises of various kinds in school education extremely well: in pre-school years, in educational outcomes at elementary stage, the stress induced by Board examinations and teacher education.

It is passionate about the urgency to change the status quo in our anganwadis/ nursery schools, classrooms, examination system, curricular integration of academic and vocational streams and in our teacher preparation and deployment. It also argues well about changing how we evaluate our education system. Its critique of teacher education institutions and regulatory system is spot on.

A critical analysis

Curiously it falls short on a vision for our children: if it is the right of a child to get quality education from age 3 to age 18, what does that mean for a child? There are a number of fantastic adjectives and phrases about activity-based fun pedagogy across the stages, about bi-lingual transaction, about higher order thinking, analytical skills, physical wellbeing, and about formative assessment. What do all these add up to?

Despite its concise and well articulated analyses of issues facing our children in our system, it has unexpected gaps in its presentation of what actually has worked in the past 70 years (in some parts of the country at least), solutions for many issues it mentions and in offering future direction.

Let us look at what it offers for child development in the most crucial years: the Draft is emphatic about the importance of these early years and mentions recent research in neuro-science and allied fields in support. Though the term Early Childhood Care & Development (ECCD) became more common since UN Child Rights Charter, the ideas have longer history as evidenced by putting child development right into the name of ICDS in 1975. There are states within India who have used the provisions of ICDS well for the benefit of children under 6 and post-natal mothers. Despite this long history, the Draft gives early childhood development a slip and takes up only Early Childhood Education (ECE).

There are nuances in early childhood care and development, which are glided over in this section of the current draft. Cognitive development is interlinked to other facets of children’s growth. One third of our under-five children are either malnourished or stunted. Stunting not only affects physical stature but brain architecture and subsequent overall development. It is precisely because of this that ICDS integrated health, nutrition and parental well-being under its programmes.

To have our child population thrive – not merely survive – we need parenting networks and information for birth to 5 years as part of family welfare measures. To give an example, in non-propertied classes and castes of India, young couples set up nuclear homes. Lower age at marriage/ pregnancy and child birth, migration of fathers to urban centres and increasing alcoholism of male members of families behoove family welfare services to be very much part of early childhood care and development.

There is no recognition of early intervention for different groups of children in the draft: (as usual in any official document, there are shunting yards for difference: all “others” who are not “mainstream” are dealt with in Chapter 6). The same sources of research quoted earlier to bring urgency to ECCE also point to the crucial nature of early intervention for all children whose developmental trajectory deviates from the norm for various reasons (developmental delay/ defects or abandonment by parents)

Another case in point is teacher preparation for all the stages of schooling: we do need child-friendly humans capable of speaking in two or three languages in early years. We do need teachers who can harness the potential of students and local community in primary schools, subject teachers in middle and high school. We do have such human resources in our villages, towns and urban centres. But do we have systems to certify them to lead our children in learning? There have been projects like Siksha Karmi in Rajasthan, which managed to harness these resources. Yet, the Draft falls back on pen and paper tests like Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) and four year courses for teacher preparation.

While the Draft rightly points out the academic burden placed on children throughout our school system and castigates the examination system, it piles on more senseless examinations like census examinations in grades 3, 5 and 8 in addition to modular Board exams (including 24 subject Board examinations) at secondary level and a national test for entrance to post secondary education. National Curriculum Framework (NCF) had initiated a child and learning-friendly Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) for elementary level with school-level autonomy. CCE enabled children to show their talents in academic and co-curricular and extra curricular areas. This system has been dismantled in favour of pen and paper tests and examinations, leading back to rote teaching despite phrases like activity-based learning in the past few years.

Language Learning and proficiency

The most confused parts of the Draft concern language learning. Children do learn languages better than adults but such “learning” is hinged on emotional and meaningful usage in their daily lives. This capacity to learn in early childhood does not mean we impose learning the scripts of three languages before they are 10 (P4.5.5.). Learning through meaningful articulation and socialization has not happened in early years in our institutions even in home languages or local languages. Blaming our craze for English medium does not hide this reality.

We have failed huge number of our children in our schools (both private and public) through various misconceptions about language and learning. Despite the di-glossic nature of many Indian languages, there has been no attempt to bridge the gap between the home/ semi-formal version and the taught version of these languages. Regional dialects and tribal languages are ignored in our teacher preparation, in-service training and learning materials. Complete neglect of this reality is part of the reason for failure of literacy and numeracy in early years across the country.

Despite our rich traditions of story-telling and other linguistic arts, we have very little understanding of transferring oral fluency to literacy and formal articulation in any language. As a result even NCF and similar well-thought documents offer very little insight to teaching of languages in formal classrooms.

This Draft is no exception: it has multiple paragraphs about language (see P4.5 in DNEP) and an entire section on “Multilingualism and the power of language” (p 81 to 85). Immersion is cited by the Draft as an effective strategy without any reference to the working conditions required to make it successful. Bi-lingual dictionaries are mentioned with reference to tribal languages. Learning science bilingually is also mentioned (P4.5.8) citing complaints of “many scientists have complained about their inability to think and speak about their subject in their mother tongue, and how this has hindered both their own thinking and their outreach capabilities in their communities” (page 84). A huge number of scientists do engage in popularization of science in Indian languages as well as in English unheard by the Committee!

Middle grades are chosen as a stage for a “fun course” (P4.5.12) to “learn about the remarkable unity of most of the major Indian languages, starting with their common phonetic and scientifically-arranged alphabets and scripts, their common grammatical structures, their origins and sources of vocabularies from Sanskrit and other classical languages, as well as their rich inter-influences and differences.” (page 86). Again the reasoning for this as well as for learning of Sanskrit and other classical languages is bafflingly vague.

Way Forward

There are other problematic areas which I have not included here such as loosening of current Right to Education (RTE) norms for schools especially for drop-outs and push outs, regulatory mechanisms for private and public systems, funding for education, administration and academic support systems, Rashtriya Siksha Ayog and its attendant boards and councils.

We do need to insist on broadening the options under this policy taking into account the developmental trajectories of different states and regions of this diverse nation. State and local autonomy in educational matters is imperative for social justice and equality of opportunity. The further away the decision-maker is, the less democratic our educational and social provisions will be. For holistic development of our children we need devolution of powers in social sector not centralized control over our institutions for children.

Aruna Rathnam is an activist in the education sector and based in Chennai.

The other articles in this series can be found here.

This article first appeared on ndtv.com and is reprinted with the permission of ndtv and the author.

The Draft New Education Policy 2018 (DNEP) is a grandiose document that covers a student’s entire life span from pre-schooling to the PhD degree in about 500 pages. Here, we look at what has been proposed in relation to school education.

The draft says that all schools, including public ones, will have to possess world-class infrastructure and have competent teachers and in full strength to keep the pupil teacher ratio below 30. This will be supported by the best creative teaching-learning styles, the best students teaching those who are weaker, and community volunteers pitching in as well. Students will learn many languages, have choices for elective subjects, and will study about ancient Indian knowledge, scientific temper, ethical reasoning, digital literacy and social awareness. Not just this, board examinations will now be made less “high stakes” and less “life determining”; they will not require any cramming and can therefore be cleared without coaching. School governance structures will be revamped so that they function with the highest efficiency.

The first problem with this well-intentioned document is that it has no sense of realism. One set of recommendations cannot cover goals across various social divides: rich versus poor schools, urban versus rural, elite versus municipal, and so on. Some rich schools already have pupil-teacher ratios lower than 30 and are well-equipped in every possible manner; on the other hand, we have schools that barely exist, housed in a ramshackle room or two. Over one lakh schools have just one teacher (leave aside teacher quality). What was needed is a set of specific and realistic targets for different categories of schools. “World class” facilities in a village school, or teachers who are updated to the “latest pedagogies” in a small town are a pipe dream, when the local socio-economic milieu is so down in the dumps. This fact that we live in a highly unequal society, where some sections live in dire poverty, seems to inform the policy quite poorly.

Second, the document has a poor sense of engagement with history. It does not dwell upon why we have such a terrible infrastructure deficit in most public schools. Teacher vacancies have grown and have remained unfilled for decades in public schools, and a deficit prevails despite the large number of temporary teachers. Teachers are well-paid only in affluent schools. Permanent teachers in government schools get a decent salary, though probably not enough to make the profession enticing. The stock of even the Kendriya Vidyalayas has fallen, due not just to understaffing, but also decay of infrastructure. Teacher absenteeism remains a persistent bane. Small, dysfunctional schools, with just a few students, dot rural areas. The policy document does not tell us how we came to this sorry pass, nor, therefore, how we will come out of it.

The most significant and visible problem is that of rote learning. How did we fall into, what Paulo Freire calls a “banking model” of education where teachers deposit knowledge in lectures and students produce it in examinations? It is likely that the pressure of large numbers of students in a class and the relative paucity of teachers has led us to this “optimal” solution of a rigid, memorization-based pedagogy. It has given rise to assessment forms that rely mostly on short-answer, multiple choice questions with answers which focus more on correct keywords rather than creative analysis or expression. Why did progressive initiatives like Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) fall by the wayside? Any policy that proposes to slay the demon of rote learning must first tell us why and how we fell into this pit. Merely saying, in flowery prose, that we will get rid of rote learning, will not solve the problem. Where will we get teachers to do all the creative and customized stuff, teach so many languages and other multidisciplinary subjects (e.g. digital, climate) when we cannot find enough to teach the routines ones like English and Mathematics?

Third, a sense of innocence pervades the draft. Many existing things are being paraded as novel. The newly labelled foundational stage already has many activities like math puzzles, play-based learning, etc even in the poorest of schools. The 5+3+3+4, in lieu of the 10+2 school grades classification, is just a cosmetic refresh. Much of what happens in Grades 1 to 12 today is similar to what has been labelled in the draft report as “foundation”, “preparatory”, “middle” and “secondary” stages. The point should have been to interrogate these classifications more deeply as to how valid these are in the light of current debates.

There is also this quaint obsession with jargon. Using words like “deep” or “experiential” multiple times may lend gravitas to a document but does not help with any actual solutions.

The suggestions regarding inclusion of ancient Indian knowledge into the curricula is welcome but this deserves special care to separate myth from history, and empirically validated knowledge from pseudoscientific claims. There is also the inclusion of scientific temper in the curricula but here brews a fight between tradition and modernity. Will our schools be allowed to debate this?

Regarding board exams, the policy says that examinations should be held multiple number of times in a year, and students should be able to take a subject examination whenever they are ready. These measures are likely to introduce logistical nightmares into a system that is currently so fragile in its current, “rigid” form. There is talk of eliminating coaching from student lives but this is unlikely because coaching will simply exploit whatever examination is “life-determining”.

We did not really need a policy document; what we need is an action document on strategy and implementation, one that identifies the few most significant issues and then details how these can be tackled.

To my mind there are four urgent problems:

1) Infrastructure in public schools: if education is to remain a public good in any meaningful way, this is an essential reform. A task force should fix minimal mandatory standards and ask the central and state governments to put their money where their mouth is.

2) Elimination of rote learning: getting rid of this is going to be a Herculean task, especially because low availability of teachers will remain a persistent, concomitant constraint. A task force, consisting of representatives of public and private boards, NCERT, teachers, educationists should prepare detailed teaching manuals, and recommend model textbooks. This is needed for a pedagogy based on questioning and critical analysis ready to be implemented, at all levels, as soon as these documents are finalized. Much can be learned from the way school teaching is done in good schools in Europe and America.

3) Immediate restructuring of board examinations: could possibly start with intensive teachers’ training for Grades 9 to 12 to move the pedagogy towards more analytical and open-ended teaching-learning styles. Indeed it will remain an imperfect system because such a pedagogy will not have been practised in the earlier grades. But it is absolutely imperative to get rid of the current fascination with multiple choice questions and keyword-based answers.

4) Recruitment and training of teachers: this is the toughest one to solve because a competent pool from which teachers can be recruited is simply too small. My experience in teacher selection committees shows that the quality of candidates who are interviewed is abysmal. Not too many people are interested in becoming school teachers given the uncertain working conditions and tenures, as well as the relatively low salaries in most private schools; even in government schools, while the salary is decent, temporariness seems to be standard. There seems to be little incentive for aspiring teachers in rural areas and small towns to invest in a 4-year B.Ed degree when their likely monthly pay will be a few thousand rupees. If these issues are not addressed through regulation and special recruitment drives to hire smart people, then there is no feasible solution.

A critical mass of teachers is a must for any creative teaching and assessment as well as elimination of rote learning. Further, extensive training will be required for incoming teachers who themselves are a product of the rote learning system they will be tasked to overcome.

Finally, of course, much of this will come to nought if governments do not have the political will and social wisdom to spend the required money on school education. Perhaps the education reforms in Delhi by the AAP government provides hopeful pointers.

Anurag Mehra is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Associate Faculty at the Center for Policy Studies, at IIT Bombay.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author.

The other articles in this series can be found here.