New National Education Policy for India, 2016 (draft)
Need for a new policy:
National education policies have been formulated from time to time. The last such exercise was made in 1986 and the said policy was partially modified in 1992. MHRD has already started a process of consultation and they hope to formulate a New NEP by early 2016. A quarter century does not appear to be an unreasonably short period for such a policy-bending effort.
Factors to be taken into account:
The new factors that have to be taken into account are the following:
i) The Constitutional provisions for a fundamental right to education.
ii) The Constitutional requirement that all children between the ages of six and fourteen should be in elementary school.
iii) The pledge taken in the presence of the global community that Millennial Development Goals shall be achieved within a certain time frame.
iv) The targets laid down in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and the Rashtriya Uchtar Shiksha Abhiyan.
v) The policy pronouncements about Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Digital India, Skill India, Make in India, Smart Cities and the like.
vi) The recommendations made by various expert committees about the educational system.
Changes in the situation:
Since the last review, there have been momentous changes in the situation in India and worldwide. Some of these may be summarised below:
a) The rate of change has accelerated. New knowledge is being generated at a faster pace. Individuals, societies, governments and educational and other systems are finding it difficult to keep pace.
b) The introduction of sophisticated ICT devices has transformed the educational scene beyond recognition. Classrooms are becoming passé. The emphasis is on experiential learning in project mode and group work, with the teachers acting more as facilitators and sounding boards than as transmitters of information.
c) Education is getting globalised and commercialised, and the participation of the private sector is changing the rules of the game.
d) A view has to be taken as to what part of the financial burden would continue to be borne by the Governments on equity considerations and what can be passed on to the other players like not-for-profit entities, totally private bodies with a clear profit motive and various shades of public-private participation.
e) What would be the ideal funding pattern, sharing of liability between the Central and State governments, possibilities of international agencies and foreign Governments pumping in resources, scope for private investment, both domestic and foreign etc.
SCHOOL EDUCATION:
A new National Curricular Framework:
A new national curricular framework needs to be worked out. There should be awareness and acceptance of the newly emerging realities of the Indian and global situation.
For example, the environment is being damaged to an extent where it appears that humanity is moving towards voluntary self-destruction. Gender parity and the need to protect women from rape, sexual exploitation and ill treatment are becoming live issues.
There has to be greater emphasis on acquainting the students with the magnificent ancient Indian heritage. History will have to be rewritten with glorification of Indian heroes, patriots and freedom fighters and a more balanced evaluation of the foreign invaders who have been lionized by historians with a colonial mind-set.
Immense damage has been caused by the predominance of the western tendency to place science and spirituality as mutually antagonistic .The Indian wisdom that the physical and the spiritual are part of the same continuum needs to be taught.
Nationalism and patriotism are values that ought to be instilled in our youth. They should be lovers of their own country without being jingoistic. More than ever before, they have to be taught how to live together in harmony and peace.
While there has to be a national framework, it is more urgent than ever before that the curriculum should be transacted in the specific regional context in which the students live.
Introduction of the common school system:
We have been talking of various programmes aimed at improving the lot of the poor, but we have a dual educational system, with the children of the rich and the poor going to different types of schools. The Right to Education Act is infructuous without the adjunct concept of a neighbourhood school, to which all children have an equal right to be admitted.
The only exception is the Navodaya School, which caters predominantly to the poor and the weaker sections and at the same time provides a first-rate education.
What we need is a Navodaya School for every child, with a map of the neighbourhood each school is supposed to serve. Each child would have a justiciable right to be admitted to the neighbourhood school. It shall be the duty of the school management to admit every child currently out of school. Reasonable fees shall be charged, with the poor getting educational vouchers from a Government agency.
Policy of no detention:
Currently no child is detained at any stage in elementary school up to Class X. This decision was taken on the ground that children could not bear the stress of frequent examinations and tended to go into bouts of depression, even extending to a tendency to commit suicide.
This might be partially true, but a ‘no detention’ policy is not the answer. While the public schools take weekly, monthly and quarterly tests, teachers in government schools have stopped teaching, as their inefficiency or idleness does not get exposed.
Traditional methods of teaching:
As the foundations of the learning process are laid during this period, time-tested techniques of teaching should not be jettisoned. For example, there used to be a sing-song recitation of the multiplication table, which practice has been rather carelessly given up. Grammar used to be taught with examples of correct and incorrect usage. We should not have novelty in pedagogical techniques for novelty’s sake.
Response to evaluation reports:
Pratham and the Aser Foundation have been bringing out year after year the results of surveys of learning outcomes in government schools. These make dismal reading as they show that fifth grade students have literacy and numeracy skills of Class 2. This calls for special classes during the holidays to specially teach literacy and numeracy skills, especially to first generation learners.
Objectives of education:
The chief objectives of education should be threefold:
Values
Vocation
Wisdom
Values:
The values to be instilled are Truth, Righteous Conduct, Love, Non-violence and Peace.
Vocation:
Vocational education is not popular either with parents or students. A new mind-set has to be created through advocacy and public relations effort at the highest level. The attempt should be to send 80% of the school-going population into vocations, whether through vocational education in schools, industrial training or training through master-craftsmen. What is needed is a seamless transfer of credits across educational systems, hierarchies of technical training and education and practical industrial experience. A beginning has been made with the promulgation of the National Skill Qualification Framework. This system of credit transfer has now to work across States, countries, general and vocational education streams and on-the-job industry experience.
The objective should be to make India a Knowledge Superpower, with emphasis on technical skills. For this purpose, technical education/ skill infusion should be declared to be a fundamental right.
Wisdom:
Wisdom can be transmitted by cadres of inspiring teachers who shall transfer the art of living through example, precept, yoga, meditation and applied philosophy. The role of teachers in the educational process has to be revisited. Teachers can no longer be mere purveyors of information. They should act as mentors who advise students how to learn. More than anything else they should inspire students to prepare their entire personality to live a life of creativity, innovation and service to society.
HIGHER EDUCATION
India has the second largest system of higher education in the world. The gross enrolment ratio is also quite high.
What is worrying is the small average size of our universities and colleges. They are academically and economically unviable, and operate at sub-optimal levels. Their regional distribution is also quite skewed. This last problem has been recently addressed by setting up central universities, IITs and IIMs in States where there were none. But such easy solutions merely hide the problem and do not solve it.
The real solution lies in infusion of sufficient funds into this sector by making suitable provisions in the Central and State budgets. In the absence of such resources, state Governments have been compelled to launch schemes for provision of subsidies to SC, ST, OBC and women students to permit them to join self-financing courses of study. Reservation, quotas and affirmative action are essential but these will have to be supported by a large number of scholarships, fee-waiver and effective loan programmes.
While the State Governments have been drawn into this quagmire of infinite expenditure, they are now feeling the pinch and find themselves unable to sustain the burden. Resultantly, in many States, the Central assistance under RUSA is getting diverted to cover the yawning deficit.
A few years back, the Govt. had imposed an education cess on income tax, and this had become an elastic source of funding for the education sector. This cess has been recently discontinued, but there is an obvious need to rethink this decision and in fact, take recourse to multiple sources of funding like international bodies, bilateral aid, FDI, funds available in CSR budgets of corporates etc.
Over the last two decades, the field of higher education has witnessed a degree of chaos and confusion. Although there have been private institutions of repute, there has been no declaration of a cogent policy on higher education.
The fact of the matter is that the demand for higher education has escalated at a tremendous pace due to the perceived advantage both to the individual and the economy. The budgetary provisions have not kept pace with the demand and the Government has allowed the entry of the private sector, with reluctance. There has been a stigma attached to the emergence of private initiatives, in as much as these have been seen as actuated solely by the profit motive. Some time back, the Planning Commission went as far as classifying higher education as “a non-merit good” to justify its benign neglect of the sector.
In order to provide for an overarching mechanism for rational policy formulation, there have been several attempts to invent such a mechanism. Thus the National Knowledge Commission suggested the constitution of an ERAHE (Exclusive Regulatory Authority of Higher Education). The Yash Pal Committee recommended a NCHER (National Commission for Higher Education and Research). The AICTE Review Committee has suggested a Higher Education Policy Panel in the Niti Aayog. None of these options has come about so far. The bull has to be taken by the horns by clearly defining the role of the private sector.
It does not seem feasible to create a combined mechanism owing to the turf battles among the various apex regulatory authorities. But it seems necessary to demarcate their areas of jurisdiction with clarity and insulate the highest positions from outside interference by delineating a special procedure for recruitment and giving them a single tenure of five years. All these bodies should enjoy greater autonomy.
It does not appear necessary to have such a vast variety of higher educational institutions. What we need is a small compact band of top-rated institutions like Central Universities, IITs and IIMs to lead the pack. The second rung can consist of Universities and deemed universities. All other brands can be discontinued.
India is only one among four countries where colleges are still affiliated to universities. The system of affiliation should be discontinued within a decade. All institutions should be regulated through a system of rating by independent rating agencies and evolve across phases of graded autonomy through a process of well-directed mentoring and development.
It should be mandatory for each educational institution to get an annual rating and a periodic accreditation through authorised agencies. Only institutions with a proper score should be allowed to continue. Those who do not improve should be merged in other institutions or closed down. Such a strict procedure will ensure the quality of our graduates and make them acceptable anywhere in the world.
While NBA should continue to be the authority for accreditation of technical institutions and NAAC the same for general institutions, both the organisations will need to be supported by a number of sister agencies duly licensed for the same by the respective apex regulatory authority.
Control, Regulation, Self-regulation and Autonomy:
While investment in educational institutions has to be made by the Government, philanthropists, industrial houses, not-for-profit entities and individual investors that does not mean that they should control the institution. At best they may regulate, but even this should depend on a rating by independent rating agencies. Better than this would be self-regulation. And the best option is that of autonomy
More than any other sector the educational sector should apply the twin principles of graded autonomy and generous financial assistance.
Governance and recruitment procedures:
There are vestiges of colonial thinking in our higher educational institutions. For example, the Chancellor has merely a ceremonial role, as he presides over meetings of the university court and the Convocation. The University Court meets once a year to listen to the Annual Report and the Annual Accounts. Such institutions perhaps need to be discontinued.
There has been a complete bureaucratisation of the procedures for recruitment to the posts of Vice-Chancellors, Pro-Vice Chancellors, Deans, HODs, Professors and other teaching staff. The whole process needs transparency and decentralisation. The VCs should be appointed by a Search cum selection Committee and they in their turn should appoint Pro-VCs and HODs, who should appoint professors and so on.
The day to day management should be delegated to the PVCs, Deans and HODs. The VCs should concentrate on long-term vision, futuristic thinking and overall leadership.
The whole atmosphere should be one of trust and confidence. Feelings of loyalty should be generated.
ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES:
At the top of the pyramid there should be a single Ministry of Human Resource Development, covering the entire gamut of education. It should have a single cabinet Minister and a single Secretary..
The Ministry should cover the cognate subjects of culture, sports,, women and child development and so on.
The expenditure on education should be at least 8% of the GDP.
There should be a combined Central Board of School Education. The CBSE and ICSE should be merged therein.
There should be an all India Service called the Indian Education service. It should man all the senior posts in the Centre and the States.
An Education Commission should be set up in each State. It should recommend major modifications that ought to be made in the educational system of the state.
The entire policy making should be masterminded by the CABE which should give representation to all the stakeholders.
Need for a new policy:
National education policies have been formulated from time to time. The last such exercise was made in 1986 and the said policy was partially modified in 1992. MHRD has already started a process of consultation and they hope to formulate a New NEP by early 2016. A quarter century does not appear to be an unreasonably short period for such a policy-bending effort.
Factors to be taken into account:
The new factors that have to be taken into account are the following:
i) The Constitutional provisions for a fundamental right to education.
ii) The Constitutional requirement that all children between the ages of six and fourteen should be in elementary school.
iii) The pledge taken in the presence of the global community that Millennial Development Goals shall be achieved within a certain time frame.
iv) The targets laid down in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and the Rashtriya Uchtar Shiksha Abhiyan.
v) The policy pronouncements about Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Digital India, Skill India, Make in India, Smart Cities and the like.
vi) The recommendations made by various expert committees about the educational system.
Changes in the situation:
Since the last review, there have been momentous changes in the situation in India and worldwide. Some of these may be summarised below:
a) The rate of change has accelerated. New knowledge is being generated at a faster pace. Individuals, societies, governments and educational and other systems are finding it difficult to keep pace.
b) The introduction of sophisticated ICT devices has transformed the educational scene beyond recognition. Classrooms are becoming passé. The emphasis is on experiential learning in project mode and group work, with the teachers acting more as facilitators and sounding boards than as transmitters of information.
c) Education is getting globalised and commercialised, and the participation of the private sector is changing the rules of the game.
d) A view has to be taken as to what part of the financial burden would continue to be borne by the Governments on equity considerations and what can be passed on to the other players like not-for-profit entities, totally private bodies with a clear profit motive and various shades of public-private participation.
e) What would be the ideal funding pattern, sharing of liability between the Central and State governments, possibilities of international agencies and foreign Governments pumping in resources, scope for private investment, both domestic and foreign etc.
SCHOOL EDUCATION:
A new National Curricular Framework:
A new national curricular framework needs to be worked out. There should be awareness and acceptance of the newly emerging realities of the Indian and global situation.
For example, the environment is being damaged to an extent where it appears that humanity is moving towards voluntary self-destruction. Gender parity and the need to protect women from rape, sexual exploitation and ill treatment are becoming live issues.
There has to be greater emphasis on acquainting the students with the magnificent ancient Indian heritage. History will have to be rewritten with glorification of Indian heroes, patriots and freedom fighters and a more balanced evaluation of the foreign invaders who have been lionized by historians with a colonial mind-set.
Immense damage has been caused by the predominance of the western tendency to place science and spirituality as mutually antagonistic .The Indian wisdom that the physical and the spiritual are part of the same continuum needs to be taught.
Nationalism and patriotism are values that ought to be instilled in our youth. They should be lovers of their own country without being jingoistic. More than ever before, they have to be taught how to live together in harmony and peace.
While there has to be a national framework, it is more urgent than ever before that the curriculum should be transacted in the specific regional context in which the students live.
Introduction of the common school system:
We have been talking of various programmes aimed at improving the lot of the poor, but we have a dual educational system, with the children of the rich and the poor going to different types of schools. The Right to Education Act is infructuous without the adjunct concept of a neighbourhood school, to which all children have an equal right to be admitted.
The only exception is the Navodaya School, which caters predominantly to the poor and the weaker sections and at the same time provides a first-rate education.
What we need is a Navodaya School for every child, with a map of the neighbourhood each school is supposed to serve. Each child would have a justiciable right to be admitted to the neighbourhood school. It shall be the duty of the school management to admit every child currently out of school. Reasonable fees shall be charged, with the poor getting educational vouchers from a Government agency.
Policy of no detention:
Currently no child is detained at any stage in elementary school up to Class X. This decision was taken on the ground that children could not bear the stress of frequent examinations and tended to go into bouts of depression, even extending to a tendency to commit suicide.
This might be partially true, but a ‘no detention’ policy is not the answer. While the public schools take weekly, monthly and quarterly tests, teachers in government schools have stopped teaching, as their inefficiency or idleness does not get exposed.
Traditional methods of teaching:
As the foundations of the learning process are laid during this period, time-tested techniques of teaching should not be jettisoned. For example, there used to be a sing-song recitation of the multiplication table, which practice has been rather carelessly given up. Grammar used to be taught with examples of correct and incorrect usage. We should not have novelty in pedagogical techniques for novelty’s sake.
Response to evaluation reports:
Pratham and the Aser Foundation have been bringing out year after year the results of surveys of learning outcomes in government schools. These make dismal reading as they show that fifth grade students have literacy and numeracy skills of Class 2. This calls for special classes during the holidays to specially teach literacy and numeracy skills, especially to first generation learners.
Objectives of education:
The chief objectives of education should be threefold:
Values
Vocation
Wisdom
Values:
The values to be instilled are Truth, Righteous Conduct, Love, Non-violence and Peace.
Vocation:
Vocational education is not popular either with parents or students. A new mind-set has to be created through advocacy and public relations effort at the highest level. The attempt should be to send 80% of the school-going population into vocations, whether through vocational education in schools, industrial training or training through master-craftsmen. What is needed is a seamless transfer of credits across educational systems, hierarchies of technical training and education and practical industrial experience. A beginning has been made with the promulgation of the National Skill Qualification Framework. This system of credit transfer has now to work across States, countries, general and vocational education streams and on-the-job industry experience.
The objective should be to make India a Knowledge Superpower, with emphasis on technical skills. For this purpose, technical education/ skill infusion should be declared to be a fundamental right.
Wisdom:
Wisdom can be transmitted by cadres of inspiring teachers who shall transfer the art of living through example, precept, yoga, meditation and applied philosophy. The role of teachers in the educational process has to be revisited. Teachers can no longer be mere purveyors of information. They should act as mentors who advise students how to learn. More than anything else they should inspire students to prepare their entire personality to live a life of creativity, innovation and service to society.
HIGHER EDUCATION
India has the second largest system of higher education in the world. The gross enrolment ratio is also quite high.
What is worrying is the small average size of our universities and colleges. They are academically and economically unviable, and operate at sub-optimal levels. Their regional distribution is also quite skewed. This last problem has been recently addressed by setting up central universities, IITs and IIMs in States where there were none. But such easy solutions merely hide the problem and do not solve it.
The real solution lies in infusion of sufficient funds into this sector by making suitable provisions in the Central and State budgets. In the absence of such resources, state Governments have been compelled to launch schemes for provision of subsidies to SC, ST, OBC and women students to permit them to join self-financing courses of study. Reservation, quotas and affirmative action are essential but these will have to be supported by a large number of scholarships, fee-waiver and effective loan programmes.
While the State Governments have been drawn into this quagmire of infinite expenditure, they are now feeling the pinch and find themselves unable to sustain the burden. Resultantly, in many States, the Central assistance under RUSA is getting diverted to cover the yawning deficit.
A few years back, the Govt. had imposed an education cess on income tax, and this had become an elastic source of funding for the education sector. This cess has been recently discontinued, but there is an obvious need to rethink this decision and in fact, take recourse to multiple sources of funding like international bodies, bilateral aid, FDI, funds available in CSR budgets of corporates etc.
Over the last two decades, the field of higher education has witnessed a degree of chaos and confusion. Although there have been private institutions of repute, there has been no declaration of a cogent policy on higher education.
The fact of the matter is that the demand for higher education has escalated at a tremendous pace due to the perceived advantage both to the individual and the economy. The budgetary provisions have not kept pace with the demand and the Government has allowed the entry of the private sector, with reluctance. There has been a stigma attached to the emergence of private initiatives, in as much as these have been seen as actuated solely by the profit motive. Some time back, the Planning Commission went as far as classifying higher education as “a non-merit good” to justify its benign neglect of the sector.
In order to provide for an overarching mechanism for rational policy formulation, there have been several attempts to invent such a mechanism. Thus the National Knowledge Commission suggested the constitution of an ERAHE (Exclusive Regulatory Authority of Higher Education). The Yash Pal Committee recommended a NCHER (National Commission for Higher Education and Research). The AICTE Review Committee has suggested a Higher Education Policy Panel in the Niti Aayog. None of these options has come about so far. The bull has to be taken by the horns by clearly defining the role of the private sector.
It does not seem feasible to create a combined mechanism owing to the turf battles among the various apex regulatory authorities. But it seems necessary to demarcate their areas of jurisdiction with clarity and insulate the highest positions from outside interference by delineating a special procedure for recruitment and giving them a single tenure of five years. All these bodies should enjoy greater autonomy.
It does not appear necessary to have such a vast variety of higher educational institutions. What we need is a small compact band of top-rated institutions like Central Universities, IITs and IIMs to lead the pack. The second rung can consist of Universities and deemed universities. All other brands can be discontinued.
India is only one among four countries where colleges are still affiliated to universities. The system of affiliation should be discontinued within a decade. All institutions should be regulated through a system of rating by independent rating agencies and evolve across phases of graded autonomy through a process of well-directed mentoring and development.
It should be mandatory for each educational institution to get an annual rating and a periodic accreditation through authorised agencies. Only institutions with a proper score should be allowed to continue. Those who do not improve should be merged in other institutions or closed down. Such a strict procedure will ensure the quality of our graduates and make them acceptable anywhere in the world.
While NBA should continue to be the authority for accreditation of technical institutions and NAAC the same for general institutions, both the organisations will need to be supported by a number of sister agencies duly licensed for the same by the respective apex regulatory authority.
Control, Regulation, Self-regulation and Autonomy:
While investment in educational institutions has to be made by the Government, philanthropists, industrial houses, not-for-profit entities and individual investors that does not mean that they should control the institution. At best they may regulate, but even this should depend on a rating by independent rating agencies. Better than this would be self-regulation. And the best option is that of autonomy
More than any other sector the educational sector should apply the twin principles of graded autonomy and generous financial assistance.
Governance and recruitment procedures:
There are vestiges of colonial thinking in our higher educational institutions. For example, the Chancellor has merely a ceremonial role, as he presides over meetings of the university court and the Convocation. The University Court meets once a year to listen to the Annual Report and the Annual Accounts. Such institutions perhaps need to be discontinued.
There has been a complete bureaucratisation of the procedures for recruitment to the posts of Vice-Chancellors, Pro-Vice Chancellors, Deans, HODs, Professors and other teaching staff. The whole process needs transparency and decentralisation. The VCs should be appointed by a Search cum selection Committee and they in their turn should appoint Pro-VCs and HODs, who should appoint professors and so on.
The day to day management should be delegated to the PVCs, Deans and HODs. The VCs should concentrate on long-term vision, futuristic thinking and overall leadership.
The whole atmosphere should be one of trust and confidence. Feelings of loyalty should be generated.
ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES:
At the top of the pyramid there should be a single Ministry of Human Resource Development, covering the entire gamut of education. It should have a single cabinet Minister and a single Secretary..
The Ministry should cover the cognate subjects of culture, sports,, women and child development and so on.
The expenditure on education should be at least 8% of the GDP.
There should be a combined Central Board of School Education. The CBSE and ICSE should be merged therein.
There should be an all India Service called the Indian Education service. It should man all the senior posts in the Centre and the States.
An Education Commission should be set up in each State. It should recommend major modifications that ought to be made in the educational system of the state.
The entire policy making should be masterminded by the CABE which should give representation to all the stakeholders.
