National Education Policy 2020

The HRD minister will be called Education Minister, which is the headline feature of the new education policy.The Change that Rajiv Gandhi had brought about in 1986, with his Education Policy which was India’s last education Policy renaming Education Minister as HRD ministry, with P.V.Narsimha Rao becoming the first HRD minister., is now being restored back to Education Ministry. Our Education Minister to be Ramesh Pokhriyal released the document of New education Policy.

Let us now look at the headline points and key concerns with our Education System.The Nature of the Complaint will vary from the Vintage of the people you ask or the generation of the people you ask.However,some complaints will remain common across all generation , they will transcend vintages.

1. Our education system does not give us Jobs.
2. What we study too much in School and colleges are irrelevant in our lives? Time and again popular culture has made fun of these things.
3. Our Exam System is too much Exam Centric. It is too much like Russian Roulette , wherein we put a bullet in one chamber out of the six, revolve it and put it in your head and fire it.There are 5 out of 6 chances that you will survive but one out of six chance is fatal.This is not a good odds , when you have one out of 6 odds of your life written off.

Our Education system is like Russian Roulette-:

Our exam System have become like Russian roulette because , chances are there that you will survive, that is pass, you may get decent marks, but if you don’t get then you are out, dead,history.Now even if you are among the Lucky 5, there is a situation where everyone gets more than 95%.In that case where do you go with your marks of 82%,85%,92% with the parents going to mourning.This is madness .Good people are not surviving and will not survive.These may destroy your life early on, but later on as things turns out one ends up realizing that after all these were not that relevant.

The exams are held once a year, you prepare all the time.That day you can have a fever, you can have a headache, you can fall in a ditch,twist your ankle,your bicycle can have a flat tire on way to school or college,Your Mother may not have prayed harder,Your competitor’s mother may have prayed harder.It is a lottery that has to be addressed.This is a big problem of our education system.

Problem of commercialization, corruption and Capitation fees .

During this Covid-Lockdown the management of several schools and colleges, their revenue stream having dried up, set about using novel forms of authoritarianism including digital surveillance, bullying and threatening teachers, to circumvent the Central government’s instruction not to pressure parents to pay fees till normalcy is restored. This pressure has been so intense that many teachers are either succumbing to the managerial diktats, or facing unemployment. 

Problem of Insularity

Currently there is too much insularity in our education system. Students from a young age and especially from 10,11,12 spend a lot of time in studying science physics,chemistry, math, become an engineer or botany zoology,chemistry to become a doctor. We end up becoming an engineer,MBA,or a doctor,college teacher in sociology,physics, chemistry without knowing anything about anyone else.

The Jihad Problem

What is it that makes so many engineers into terrorist ? From class 8, we study so much physics,chemistry,math to become an engineer or similar other subjects for pursuing a career in Doctor, Sociology or humanities .Our young children are put into tremendous pressure , right from the beginning Physics,Chemistry Maths, tuition, Competitive Exams ,parents pressure.We get an engineering degree .Then again go for MBA , where again we study maths and etc.Now they know everything but not jihad.So when they go out and search in google for jihad, the most searched items pop up, which is Laksher -e -Taiba,ISIS etc.Instead of that if they would have been taught the real meaning of Jihad in madrassa or school, he would have been well informed about it and not misguided ,manipulated by anyone.

Education system does not encourage Working with hands

We get compartmentalized too early in our life. We learn to do very little from our hands.Small town guys are better , much better than city guys.They know how to fix fuse, fixing a cycle chain, etc.This is because there the fuse blows frequently and you learn to take a wire,cut it,tie it,and put the cutout back.We are not brought up like that to work with hands.

To further illustrate this point , Eminent Journalist Shekhar Gupta shares his experience. In 1984, he and professor Stephen Cohen was travelling in a motorbike in India .When they were in a very crowded juncture,his motorbike stopped and was not starting again. He said sorry to professor for the discomfort and wanted to go to a nearby service center to sort the issue.Professor asked Shekhar to stop and tried by himself for some time.He opened the spark plug, blew it and inserted it back again. He asked Shekhar to Start again. and it suddenly sprung back to life . To his surprise Shekhar Gupta asked whether he was an engineer.”I am American” came the reply.

What we study too much in School and colleges are irrelevant in our lives?

What do we do after collecting degrees after years of rote learning ? .Jobs we go looking for has no relevance to studies.A sizable percentage of IIT graduates , the so called students at the upper end of the success ladder , the so called part of the upper academic echelon gets an MBA degree and ends up selling toothpaste .It raises several questions like what your parents wanted and invested in you ?, What state wanted from you with the time and money invested ? and what you wanted to become?.There is a quote from the Hindi heartland “Padhe pharsi, beche tel”.In this case it is “Padhe Engg, beche tel” .It is not about Undermining selling toothpaste,but the issue is what we studied and what we ended up doing after investing so much money,emotion and time.

This is going on since a long time and to think that one policy can make overnight changes to it and transform it, is very childish and impractical.

Let’s now look at the steps included in the draft to stem the rot.

Focus on Early and Extended Learning

This policy however aims to fix some of this problem .The policymakers have added a new thing which is learning from the beginning. If we study the Pratham surveys, The Annual Status of Education Report surveys, we would come to know about the dire straits of our education system. Upto std 3,4,5 our young ones ,can’t do basic addition,cant spell basic words.Just 11% of children in class 1 can read a class 1 text and just 15% in class 2 can read an age appropriate paragraph.Just 28% of those in class 3 can do subtraction and division and only over half of those in class 5 can do division. Effort has been made on that regard by extending the right to Education from 3 to 18 years from the earlier version of 5-14 years. This will ensure that from nursery to plus 2 , all will be entitled to education at Government’s Expense.This will ensure that learning will start early from a very young age. Though the policy has not mentioned it, it looks like Mid-day meal will be extended as well to plus 2 students.Overall this is a very good idea.

Schools to decide the Language best suited for the Children.

To further improve the basic learning it does not lay down a particular language , but it encourages that to keep the medium of instruction to language which is comfortably understood by children till class 5.But it is not clear how it will work for minority institutions. Secondly Convent school became attractive because they had compulsory English education. School will have the option to decide the language which the child’s understands the best.But here again there is still doubt, what language will the schools of Mumbai adopt which have lot of migrants from all over the country .Native Language cannot be applied here.

There is doubt on which language Delhi Sanskriti school will teach and on which language Dhiru Bhai Ambanii school in Mumbai will teach.Though the idea of any language is not a bad one, but still , the Government missed a point here.Now a days all parents are demanding good English educations.States with smart politicians have already started it like UP,West Bengal. English language is very important and it makes us equal. We cannot go back to eras where politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ram Manohar Lohia vociferously opposed English as medium of communication. This will be a disaster as this will deprive a generation from able to deal with business Leader in english, interact with the world or start a business.

Merger of Regulatory Bodies

Regulators like UGC,AICTE, NTCE will be merged to become one regulator in india. This is a good idea, but again the Government will have to appoint right people to run it.These institutions are as good as the people who run it.

Insularity addressed

Students will be given opportunity to mix and match subjects,in senior school.if you don’t want physics and maths, you can learn chemistry. if you love biology you can have it,if you also like geography,if you also like history,sociology you can have it in senior school and college.The devil lies in the detail and the success lies in its implementation.

The FYUP Program

Another big announcement is 3 year degree course will be history. The FYUP program was announced first by professor Dinesh Singh, Vice Chancellor of Delhi university. 7 years ago, he proposed this program. He then ran into oppositions from the union of the left as well as right from Entrenched elites .However, the Government has now included it.

FYUP stands for 4 year education program. The 4 th year will be dedicated to research. If someone gets a 4 year undergraduate degree, then he can go straight to research.Also this will help in applying for foreign universities as the look for 2 + 4 education.

Master’s Degree will loose its relevance

One can do masters after 3 year/4 year degrees also. However, Masters degrees will loose the importance that it used to have,especially for anyone who wants to have knowledge in a more specific area.Some university have this system already, like the honors school system in Punjab University, Chandigarh.

The dropout Stigma has been adressed

Stigma of ba 1st year fail, ba 2nd year fail haunts people for lifetime. In some parts of the country, people carry cards like ba 2nd year pass. The issue one faces now is that If one drops out, he/she drops out forever.But with the announcements now , if he stops after a certain year , he can now keep the credits in a bank and can go back to complete the degree education anytime.According to the new policy , if dropped out after 1 year you get a certificate, if dropped out after 2nd year you get a diploma,if you finish after 3 years you get a bachelor degree or finish your 4 year get a undergraduate degree. Colleges will provide options whether they want a 3 year bachelor degree course or a 4 year undergraduate degree course. In long run college will start providing both the courses.

More robust Internal assesment

Internal assessment will be made more robust, schools will have option of two exams in a year , instead of one. Odds of failure will improve further . Because of higher weight-age to internal assessment throughout the year , lottery of 1 day will become less of Russian roulette revolver as pointed out earlier.

Problem that is not being addressed -:

Commercialization and corruption-:The solution to this problem is to allow legal and commercial profit making education, but we continue under the hypocrisy of “Not for Profit” . There are many wonderful charity institutions that works on charity, but education is an enterprise, and many colleges and university , work as a “For profit Enterprise”.

Then there are issues like hidden fees, capitation fees , cash payments. We have to allow free markets to function , but political system not willing to get over this hypocrisy. There was high expectations from strong Modi Govt. to do it,but they could not.

We have to read lot more, we have to become multi-disciplinary , the system have to be much fairer, lottery of the marks have to go and the obscenity of 98%, more plus guys not getting college seats have to go.

The problem of Under-Supply.

Another issue the policy did not address, is that we have under-supply of good education. This policy promises, that by 2035, there will be twice as many Indians in higher education Institutions as today from 26% to 50 %. by 2035 . Of the children that will now go to school, 15 years from now on 50 % of them will apply for higher education. For that to happen we have to increase the supply of higher education phenomenally .Govt. is planning to increase the GDP from 4.5% to 6 % of the GDP. between the center and the states together.Even this is not enough.and to achieve this target , private sector have to come up and invest . For this to happen, the sector has to be free, free from Govt. interference, transparent fee structures,regulated but in a minimally invasive manner, so that private sector can compete with the public sector.

All engineering colleges, even if they are taking capitation from their side, are competing with the IIT’s. All medical colleges are competing with the AIIMS. .Govt. has to keep on building these institutions, but govt. has to allow private sector to build similar institutions.So that the standards set by the Govt. Institutions can finally catch up with the Private sector.But we have to move away from the hypocrisy of “Not for Profit Education.”