By Glenn C. Kharkongor
The National Education Policy 2020 is the best policy on education in the post-Independence era. Not since the 1949 “Report of The University Education Commission”, known more popularly as the Radhakrishnan Commission, has India been given such an enlightened agenda for educational change. The only other policy document of high quality was the National Curriculum Framework of 2005 from the NCERT. There have been various other commissions and policy formulations, but they hadfew bright spots. Sadly in India, most well-intentioned policies have been reduced to rubble by education hacks and control-minded bureaucrats.
The abysmal state of Indian education is too well-known to need repeating. Two Nobel laureates have summed it up well, albeit a couple of generations apart. Rabindranath Tagore sadly noted, “In my view the imposing tower of misery which today rests on the heart of India has its sole foundation in the absence of education.” And then Amartya Sen, “The general state of public services in India remains absolutely dismal, and the country’s health and education systems in particular have been severely messed up.”
So what’s good about this policy? Firstly, that it will provide youth with a broad-based liberal arts multi-disciplinary education that will enable them to look beyond the confines of a single knowledge domain. Silo learning suffers from the danger of obsolescence and prevents individual versatility in the job market. Job seekers need broad-based skills to adapt in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Secondly, university autonomy will enable innovation in teaching-learning. Decades of strait-jacketed regulation has sapped the vitality of Indian universities. As Amartya Sen has observed, students are not at fault, they do well when given opportunities to show their potential, for example when they go abroad.
Other much-needed radical changes are termination of the affiliating system by 2040, and teacher education, four-year BEd, to be conducted only within multi-disciplinary environments on university campuses. The present statutory bodies will have only advisory roles and no statutory powers.
Some critics have bemoaned the lack of adequate increase in the education budget and the clear move to more privatisation. These notions go hand in hand. A mixed public-private sector has advantages, but balance is key. Right now we have an under-funded over-regulated regime in education and this had to yield to a better formula.
Overview of the policy
The Draft NEP released in 2019 is a pretty heavy document, 484 pages in all, and will take a good day of reading to get to the last appendix. It has been distilled to 66 pages in the final version, but the larger version provides the background thoughts of the committee.
The document, bulky as it is, sits lightly in your hands throughout the reading. The early pages provide a sense of freshness and the succeeding chapters do not disappoint. One is conditioned to policy papers compiled by bureaucrats that make laborious reading, but this is different. New directions have been crafted and the visions that have been laid down make striking departures from our hitherto hapless education system.
Those that love the paranoia of conspiracy theories will be disappointed. Given the present political dispensation, some would have expected ideological demons in the print, but there are none such, either overtly or between the lines. There is the expected clarion call to recall India’s rich heritage and to draw on the wide cultural diversities in the country but this is balanced by a global outlook.
21st century skills through a liberal education
The introduction of the NEP records the usual lofty premises but there is a focus on 21st century skills which have been listed, defined and justified. Theseskills are critical thinking, communication, problem solving, creativity, cultural literacy, global outlook, teamwork, ethical reasoning, and social responsibility. For this, students need a broad-based multi-disciplinary education.
The reductionism of education has created isolated disciplines, specializations, and subjects, but modern-day problems like climate change require an integration of knowledge. J. Krishnamurti said, “Wisdom is infinite, but we take hold of a branch and think it is the whole tree.”
The multidisciplinary approach to higher education is a new horizon for the educational system in the country. If higher education is to prepare students for life, for work and for becoming an effective member of the society, they must be given a lens that will help them view the world from scientific, artistic and humanistic angles.
Indigenous learning
A liberal arts education will enable the inclusion of cultural heritage. Tribal communities have a legacy of dominance and influence from colonialism, Westernization, Christianity, and mainland India. We can come to a rapprochement by taking the best of this variegated legacy and intertwine it with the richness of tribal traditions, knowledge and worldview, using it to secure identity, achieve conservation and broaden horizons.
In Soso Tham’s poem, Grains of Gold are these lines: “We scour the world in search of light, now not the light within our land”. According to T. K.Bamon: “What the learner needs is learning materials prepared by one’s own countrymen, relating to his own life, but challenging him to think beyond his everyday concerns. To combat the threats of being de-ethnified and deculturalised, there is a need to establish identities both local and global.”
Student assessment
More than any other feature, examinations have been the culprit of the dismal education landscape. Bharat Ratna CNR Rao, the then scientific advisor to the PM, wrote bluntly to Manmohan Singh, “India has an examination system but not an education system.”
The Radhakrishnan Commission observed, “examinations have been recognized as one of the worst features of Indian education… We are convinced that if we are to suggest one single reform in university education it should be that of the examinations. It has subjected teaching to the examination, made it almost impossible to provide true education and to develop wider interests, and has created temptations of cheating, corruption and favouritism.”
According to the NEP, “The rigid curriculum that is transacted, combined with the external assessment of students that follows – with no formal processes for formative assessments in the majority of institutions – ensure emphasis on rote memorisation with little room for critical thinking, creative projects, and discussion. All assessment systems shall be decided by the higher education institution (HEI).HEIs should move away from high-stakes examinations towards more continuous and comprehensive evaluation.”
“The purpose of assessment must not be to label or rank but to identify areas of strength and areas that need improvement, as students move towards attaining the outcomes defined for their programme.A range of tools and processes for assessment should be used for this purpose, e.g. peer and self-assessment, portfolios, assignments, projects, presentations, and dissertations. The criteria and rubrics for assessment must be determined in a collaborative manner by the faculty and shared with students. The NEP provides room for teacher-led assessment.
Autonomy
According to the NEP, regulation has been too heavy-handed for decades. Institutions will be enabled to start and run novel and cutting-edge programmes, and develop innovative curricula.
Private higher educational institutions will move towards full autonomy inorder to allow them to strive for excellence.HEIs will be governed by independent boards, with complete academic and administrative autonomy. All HEIs will have complete autonomy on curricular, pedagogical, assessment, and resource-related, including qualification of faculty, matters.
MLCU has conducted several workshops on NEP 2020 and its academic council has approved its adoption. All undergraduate degrees from this year are in alignment with the NEP, and also with the Meghalaya State Education Policy 2018. In fact the State education policy seems to have been drafted keeping in mind the early versions of the NEP (2016).
Covid as catalyst
The Covid shutdown of universities has unwittingly accelerated many concepts of the NEP. The decrease of spoon-feeding note-taking lectures is welcome. Blended learning has been accepted as a mainstream pedagogy. The separation of teachers from students has increased self-responsibility and self-efficacy in learning. The stressful hegemony of exams has been reduced. The forced awareness about Covid has shown its many dimensions: scientific, social, medical, psychological, economic and political. This in itself is an excellent exercise in multidisciplinary thinking.