Since, the education policy under the Chairmanship of former ISRO Chairman Dr K Kasturirangan was drafted well before the onslaught of Covid 19, it must have visualized the PM’s vision of self-reliant India well in advance, and otherwise, the foremost important tool for making India self-reliant would not have been approved by the Cabinet without making changes. In that way, Dr Kasturirangan seems to think well ahead of the Prime Minister, and that too by opening up education for foreign Universities.

The National Education Policy never tries to find the problem of India’s education system. It only wants to cover up the successive Government’s failure to ramp it up to provide universal education to the Indian youth. It never mentioned that what has happened or has been happening in Indian education cannot be isolated from what has happened in the Indian Economy and society. A caste based and highly unequal society and economy cannot provide just and equitable education for all.

An economy burdened with millions of impoverished masses and the fifth richest individual in the globe together will definitely suffer from sharp disparity in all the spheres of life, be it education or health. The health deprivation has become apparent during the recent pandemic as also the educational one when we observed crores of immigrant laborers roaming the streets of the metropolis for getting back home. If one compiles the statistics of those laborers one would find how many of them left the schools because of poverty. Universalization of education without providing enough to eat and live is impossible.

The policy rejects the process of rote learning and learning for exams, and wants to emphasize on the conceptual understanding, but never utters that it is because of commoditization of education and the resultant commercialization such a kind of learning has become all pervasive. The parents finance and encourage those rote and exam oriented learnings to make their children moving ahead of others in getting a decent job outcompeting many in a short supplied job market. The national education policy is totally silent on how it will do away with the so called competitive success, for which coaching has become a rule, required to get into the elite institutions, which may now become a multidisciplinary ones.

The policy gives emphasis on Early Care and Childhood Education (ECCE), which will be delivered to children aged 3 to 5 years, in Anganwadis, for which Anganwadi workers will be properly trained through DTH and Smart Phones. Those workers will take the training alongside their usual work. The question arises, first, the Anganwadi workers are paid a pittance and not recognized as government employees; how can they be entrusted with such a burden without a corresponding recognition. Second, will all middle and upper class elites send their children to Anganwadis? Thus, from the very childhood discrimination will start and calling education a great leveler becomes useless.

The discrimination will continue in a surrogate manner when it comes to medium of instruction too. We all know that English medium education is the preferred choice of the ruling elites paving the way of privatization of school education gradually and steadily. In all our cities public schools with vernacular medium have been deserted as a little well to do parents also get their children admitted in to English medium schools. To bring in equality among the students, it is hyped that medium of instruction at least up to Grade 5 shall be in English, both in Public and Private Schools. But, the policy actually says, “Wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/mother tongue/local language/regional language.” That wherever possible has kept everything open. If the Government really wants to introduce it, we shall have a spurt of International schools, where the rich will send their children.

The concept of abolition of streams such as Science, Arts and Commerce and allowing students to study whatever combination of subjects as they wish sounds nice but can never be practiced. In, West Bengal, in the school level there is no such division. Students of class XI and XII need to select subjects of their choice. But because of practical constraints, institutional restrictions are there. Otherwise, only a single subject can be taught in a single period. Thus, for all practical purpose creating such a division is unavoidable.

The policy makes 3 language formula compulsory and wants to teach 3 languages in different forms right from the beginning. On the one hand talking about reduction of burden of heavy syllabus and on the other imposition of 3 languages on the children sounds contradictory. Accepting that the students learn languages easily in the initial years doesn’t mean a child has to learn three languages. If that be the logic, then why not 4 and more? This three language formula is a disguised method of making Hindi compulsory from the very beginning. If we go through the entire policy document, such a surrogacy becomes discernible between the lines.

In the field of higher education, centralization becomes evident. Making all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) multidisciplinary sounds logical but hollow. The intention to make all HEIs ultimately autonomous seems unrealistic. The policy proposes to make those autonomous not only academically and administratively, but also financially. Had that been so, a number of HEIs will ultimately face closure. The Government wants to change whatever democracy existing there in the management of the HEIs and has placed no role of the teachers or employees of the institutions in the Board of Governors (BoG) of those institutions.

The policy speaks about philanthropic but private managed Educational Institutions at all levels. Experience shows how those are run and for what motive. Even if fees are monitored, how can one stop payment of capitation fees in the name of donation. If private institutions are allowed and welcome, discrimination cannot be ruled out. The Policy makes a distinction between teaching Universities and research Universities. Such a distinction is useless and unwelcome. All Universities teach students as well as engage in research. The Government wants to make research funding heavily centralized through a NRF. Infiltration of Government in Higher Education is the intention, though in the name of autonomy.

The usual tone of saffron highlighting and glorifying ancient India and its institutions are there in almost everywhere in the policy. The glory and pride of Takshashila, Vikramshila, Ballavi and Nalanda’s are obviously ours, but at the same time the ugly caste based hierarchy where education to Dalits and untouchables were absent are also our ignominious heritage. Sanskrit was the monopoly of the upper caste. This policy makes too much glorification of Sanskrit possibly to highlight the ignominy too.

Lastly, in India education is in the concurrent list. But through utmost centralization, the sates are forced to accept the policy imposed upon them by the Central Government. The previous education policy of 1986 also curtailed the role of the states in education policy formulation by the states keeping its regional and local features and aspirations. This policy is farther advancement towards unitary decision making destroying gradually whatever federalism left in the Constitution.
(IPA Service)