Centre’s new education policy is biased, lengthy, has holes: Experts

With more than 40,000 online suggestions pouring in for Centre’s new education policy, the impression is of a broad democratic exercise has gone into the formulation of this draft policy. But, academicians in Tamil Nadu point out that the MHRD has hurriedly prepared the draft without consulting the states’ and stakeholders’ opinion and suggestions. They also said that the document is lengthy and it must be revised into a simple, concise and reader-friendly document.

The Draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 might run into 484 pages covering 23 Sections and 38 pages with 14 appendices. Since higher education plays an important role in deciding the future of the students, the Union Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD) have brought several initiatives to improve the standards of institutions.

Experts point out that the omission of progressive groups, establishing 200 global universities, failing to refer earlier prominent reports, lack of transparency, making all BEd degrees into four-year degree programmes were the major problemds with the policy.

The Tamil Nadu Federation of University Faculty Association (TNFUFA) says that draft NEP 2019 seems to have omitted the progressive groups and state representatives and has included Hindutva groups in consultations.

“After the Kasturirangan Committee was formed, it presumably interacted with 74 organisations and 217 eminent people (cf. Appendix VII). But, there is no rationale given behind the selection of organisations or eminent people except the obvious unstated omission of progressive groups and teacher associations across the country,” said Dr K Sadasivam, Secretary of TNFUFA.

Stating that for example, under organisations the draft listed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Bharatiya Shiksha Shodh Sansthan, he said Wikipedia mentions “Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is a right-wing all India student organisation affiliated to the Hindu nationalist organisation — Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)”.

“Further, it is interesting to note that one of the members of the Kasturirangan Committee was Krishna Mohan Tripathi, who became the Chairperson of the Bharatiya Shiksha Shodh Sansthan just a month before the formation of the drafting committee,” he added.

The TNFUFA further said the document begins with an undated message from Prakash Javadekar, as MHRD in page one. “The report was submitted on 15 December 2018 (in page 3), so we have assumed that the message was inserted sometime between December 2018 and May 2019”, Sadasivam said.

Pointing out that after the protest from Tamil Nadu in connection with Hindi imposition on student and the subsequent revision of the draft policy, Sadasivam said, “The revised draft has no clue about the changes. The basic ethics of any document publishing is that the changes or revisions are documented in subsequent versions has not been followed. More importantly, there is no mention in the draft NEP 2019 about the data on the state of the education system and how this draft differs from the previous NEPs.”

Retired professor from Madurai Kamarajar University S Ramamurthy said that the policy does not even mention education in the concurrent list as per the constitutional amendment of 1976.

“The role of students and their democratic functioning in educational campuses especially higher education institutions is absent in the new policy. The NEP 1986 had a separate section on the contribution of students including the need for democratic spaces of discussion,” he added.

On the proposal of setting up over 200 global universities, former Anna University vice chancellor Balaguruswamy said there are more than 600 universities functioning across the country.

“Instead of improving the existing one, proposal to set up additional universities is not a good move. It will be commercialised. The proposal will invite universities which have been ranked by business institutions,” he said.

Balaguruswamy added that in addition to the improvement of universities, the government should also improve the quality of faculty in the institutions. “There is no mention in the policy about these aspects, which causes a great concern,” he said. The former vice chancellor also opposed the proposal to set up National Education Commission, which will be led by the Prime Minister. “If there is a UGC, the proposal to set up a commission is not a right move. No one could question the commission if a Prime Minister heads that,” he said.

Tamil Nadu Teachers Association said that already there is a comprehensive three-year BEd programme for the teaching aspirants. “In addition to the three-year degree programme, they need to complete Teacher’s Eligibility Test, which is mandatory for the appointment of teachers,” PK Ilamaran, president of the association, said.

According to him, if the new education policy introduces four-year UG programme, the TET should not be made compulsory. “It would put more burden on teachers, who need to spend one year extra and also appear for TET,” he added.

TN Association of Collegiate Education also oppose the proposal to introduce four-year degree programme for BSc and BCom. “It is not an engineering course, which would take four years. There is no point in expanding the present available courses. Currently, students, who pursue three-year degree programme in BSc and BCom have excellent job opportunities. A four-year programme will mean wasting a year,” association member P Kannappan said.