School education in light of NEP-2016

It has been nearly five decades since the first National Policy on Education (1968) was framed. A committee constituted in October 2015 by the Government of India, under the chairmanship of TSR Subramanian, a former Cabinet Secretary, for evolution of a National Education Policy (NEP-2016), submitted its report to MHRD on 27th May 2016. This report was not made public. Instead, interestingly, a document titled “Some inputs for the draft New Educational Policy” was posted all of sudden on the MHRD website seeking suggestions from people and organizations, by September30.

The 43-page document organised into five chapters, namely, preamble, key challenges in the education sector, vision-mission-goals and objectives of the National Education Policy, policy framework, implementation and monitoring, attempts to frame general education at all levels right from pre-primary to research, categorised into school education and higher education. In its preamble, the document narrates the evolution of education system from ancient era to post independent era, the key issues and challenges, the chronicle of a few education committees, and the need for new educational policy.

One witnesses its tall recognition of education as the most potent tool for socio-economic mobility, for building an equitable, just and human society, promoter of social cohesion and national identity, and facilitator to amalgamate globalisation with localisation. NEP-2016 is supposed to provide a framework for the development of education in India over the coming several years. It chooses to continue addressing the unfinished goals and targets set in the previous policies on education along with the current and emerging new challenges.

The policy initiatives for a few creditable issues like Protection of Child Rights and Adolescent Education, Literacy and Lifelong Learning, Teacher Development and Management are counterproductive and fraught with imperfections. Educating and recruiting teachers with genuine teaching aptitudes without any prejudices is a first step in ensuring quality education. Then, affirmative actions like continuous monitoring, motivating, and endeavoring to reform, nurture them to be regular, disciplined and responsible.

Interference of politicians and school management committees in assessing teacher and school performance is detrimental to peaceful running of schools. Malnutrition and anemia can be addressed by neither physical education nor yoga nor any co-scholastic activity, but by the affirmative actions like free provision of nutritious breakfast, lunch and evening snacks.

Although the document seems to have rightly identified the pre-school education, as a universally accepted imperative for child’s mental and physical development, assurance to provide pre-school education as a part of school education under the same ministry for all children between 0-6 years is most desirable. Since, fostering the child school-ready at that tender age is sensitive and responsible task, it must be carried out with the help of diligently trained staff only. Entrusting this job simply to Anganwadis or their gradual conversion into pre-primary schools, without any constitutional guarantee or legislation provision, will prove to be futile.

The document wrongly diagnoses the reason for the poor learning outcomes in elementary education as the existing non-detention policy. Strangely, it says poor academic performance is at primary level and treatment of detention policy is said to be restored at upper primary level. Detention policy punishes largely the students of disadvantaged groups for the fault of education system. Chances are more for increased early-drop-outs and their derailment from mainstream quality higher education.

The proposed open school system at elementary level legitimises the child labour, violating the constitutional right to life, and furthering the dropout rate. The very idea of centralisation as has been evident in higher education with CBCS pattern, in school education fully in Mathematics, Science, English and partly in Social Sciences disregards the diversity of India.

On-demand board examinations like Part-A and Part-B exams in class-X, conveniently ward off the students of underprivileged sections. Students at that level are not mature enough to make decision as to what to do after class X. Moreover they must be delivered quality curriculum upto class-X.

Irony is quoting Swami Vivekananda as “education is not the amount of information put in brain” on one side, and the overstating of information and communication technology (ICT) as though an alternative for a teacher on the other side. It is menacing when the document says ICT is used for remedial education, teacher training, adult literacy and skill education. ICT can never be a substitute for either a well-trained teacher or a highly skilled instructor. Haphazard use in place of judicious use of ICT anywhere ruins the purpose rather than energising it. Before that, a perfect ambience for establishment of ICT machinery as well as its sustenance must be ensured.

The wrong perception of the purpose of school education as making student job-ready brings forward the idea of creation of skill schools, skill development programs. There are no jobs for already vocationally, professionally trained students. The variation of employability, several studies report, between professional and general graduates is not much pronounced.

Now, by introducing skill courses in general education right from upper primary, where do these general stream students with haphazard skills have to find jobs? When all the subjects upto Class X, along with co-curricular activities, are taught properly, students are sure to be equipped with a lot many skills necessary in any sphere of life. Avocation of integration of work-experience in general education by Phule, Gandhi and Kothari must not be misconstrued.

The idea of vocational-skill-based specialist-programmes conveniently branches off the so-called meritless, and confines them to either caste-based vocations or low-level global market jobs well before they enter higher secondary education only. Clarity is always needed in understanding the language policy in India, amongst the general public and policy makers alike.

Importance of ‘English-as-a-communicative language’ and significance of ‘English-as-a-medium of instruction’ up to a certain class is to be unambiguously distinguished. For want of perfect language policy, local aspirations and preferences are misguided by education traders. The document proposes that those states and UTs which so desire may provide primary education in mother tongue, otherwise any (English) medium they wish.

What stops the government from making it a mandatory the mother tongue as medium of instruction upto elementary level, just like RTE up to class VIII? Curricular and procedural reforms of the policy only do no help realise the objectives of education. They ought to be augmented with proper support and delivery system in action, and continous and spirited monitoring system with time-bound feedback analysis.

One of the appropriate measures could be to make the entire education-sector autonomous to prevent subjectivity associated with the ideologies of bureaucrats, parties, and governments. (Writer is an Assistant Professor, Kakatiya Government College, Hanamkonda)

By Bairy Satyanarayana