By Krishna Jha
Are we pushed back to Macaulay days? Thomas Babington Macaulay was the person who wrote the script for British education policy, a legislative act, passed in 1835, by the British Parliament to educate the Indian masses. The ruling East India Company wanted to promote a slave culture, deprived of right to express, and assert against the injustices. Objective was to promote office assistants to look after their business for which was imperative some knowledge about European culture and language. There was also little knowledge of science, basically Newtonian, history was simply a chronology, divided on communal lines, thus a step to destroy our composite culture and also to deprive us of our past, present and thus, future.
In the decades after independence, based on the tenets of our Constitution, scientific approach was evolved. Institutions were founded to support and organize research in various fields. The objective was to build a strong democratic republic. Challenges were there. During his rule, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had banned the books by eminent historians like Prof RS Sharma, Prof Romila Thapar, Prof D N Jha and many others just because they tried to promote scientific understanding of history, but he refrained from touching the education policy as such. This time, as the right has taken the leash in its hands, entire democratic system is facing the erosion.
Did we shift from our basics? Accepting a World Bank prescription to meet the corporate needs and thus supplying human input which is faceless? It was on June 25, while the country was in the grip of the pandemic, the human resource development ministry finalized the terms on which the World Bank was offered a decisive role in building up the entire school education system, inclusive of its content, management and governance, from pre-nursery to class 12, through its strengthening the Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS).
Just a month later, on July 30, media was informed that Central cabinet had passed the New Education Policy, 2020 with immediate effect. All this took place without any debate or consensus, as Parliament was closed due to Pandemic. Even the existing education system itself has been trying to adjust with lock down, organizing exams and classes online, and thus catering only partially as for thousands, mobiles and computers are only distant dreams. Vast masses have either no employment or have wages with severe cuts.
Economy in the country is facing crisis, with negative growth. Production units are either shut or functioning with minimum staff. The labour that had gone home walking hundreds of miles looking for respite, has started coming back even more disappointed..Starving, unsheltered and under the constant threat of Covid-19, larger masses have yet to wake up to the realities of this World Bank initiative.
World Bank is primarily a financial institution catering to the needs of finance capital. In its blue print of New Education Policy, private agencies have their own role. The corporate sector has in its hands the entire school education system including teachers, their training, syllabus and the study material for the students. The policy stands for the high ideal like Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, education for all. It is to run on the contributions from Centre, states and the Union territories, which stands for 98.6 percent of the entire endeavour, while the World Bank contributes mere 1.4 percent, and yet it has been given the right to shape an entire generation to totally comply with the corporate market interests.
The courses are shaped to discourage critical approach, thus shutting off any possibility for opposition, and also independent thinking. It is based on total servility, even at the cost of their own identity. The learning institutions themselves have no autonomy, and hence, they have no right to assert or oppose. There is stress on centralization at every stage crushing the multiplicity in the process of education. It also denies the Constitutional rights of the Dalits and tribes since in the text of the policy these sections are hardly mentioned. For tribal population, there is to be Ashramshalas instead of popular term of schools. For medium of teaching, Mother tongue has been preferred, singing praises for our languages as beautiful and scientific, but the examples to prove that have been cited from ancient and modern phases, medieval phase has been thrown into oblivion for obvious reasons.
In curricular integration, again it is contributions from ancient India that are to be imbibed by modern India. Also the school system is not the one that existed in the country. The universality of the syllabus is missing. All the children from both rural and urban areas, or from various backgrounds, had the same themes in their courses, which has been reversed. The NEP suggests ‘multiple pathways’ for knowledge and learning. There is ‘curricular content reducing’. There is compromise on ‘core essentials’ also to silence any analysis. Attempt is to quench any light ever entering. Darkness must be absolute. (IPA Service)