Successive governments led by the BJP or Congress have tried their hand at Educational Reforms and these efforts have mostly proved to be no more than sleight of hand to distract the ‘stakeholders’ from glaring failures. This is why it is difficult to feel excited or enthusiastic about the unveiling of the NEP 2020.
The writer of these lines, a teacher by profession and dare one add passion, firmly believes that most of our problems have arisen by treating school education as Rocket Science. This time it is the distinguished former ISRO chairperson Dr Kasturi Rangan who has taken the lead in reassuring his compatriots that the countdown for perfect blastoff akin to Mars and Moon missions has started. Decades ago, it was another space scientist, the venerable and voluble Prof Yashpal, who had with grand avuncular grin given the nation similar assurances.
Sun, moon, and the star were promised. The school bags would be lightened dramatically, learning by rote will end, school kids will be encouraged to follow their natural aptitudes and talents. Maths would happily coexist with Music, and why should the student be forced to study a compulsory subject (like Civics or History) if he felt like dancing?
The idea was to unleash creative energy and originality of young minds that would revolutionise Higher Education. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary had become buzz words even before that. JNU was perhaps the first university to adopt a semester system and ongoing internal assessment throughout the term.
Let’s accept and give credit where due. Prof Krishnakumar, a distinguished educationist, tried to reshape school syllabi and textbooks. He managed to associate some of the finest minds in Indian universities with this work. Alas, with the change in government and political climate in the country, these left-tilting ‘pink’ textbooks (in social science, humanities, and language) became the first casualty.
This is not the place to focus on the sins of commission and omission committed by Marxist scholars who thought that their reign would continue forever. What followed as revisionist-nationalist rewriting was nothing less than a fiasco. Saffron became synonymous not with valour but, dumbing down of school textbooks. But we digress. Let’s return to the present.
The prime minister has stolen the thunder of the education minister by commenting on the NEP emphasising that its objective is to increase the number of job creators than job seekers. Haven’t we heard this before?
The only hitch is that if all students aspire to become job creators who will perform these jobs? A clue is provided in the document that students will have an option to choose vocational/job-oriented skills as early as class sixth.
Many questions remain unanswered. Can a young student decide for him/herself what vocation to opt for? Is this lot going to be drawn from slow learners or those belonging to poor families who know that their parents can’t afford higher education for them?
It is difficult to imagine that children of affluent and powerful parents are going to exercise such an option that kills the dream to follow in the footsteps of professional parents—doctors, engineers, lawyers, architects etc.
What is most disappointing that the NEP concedes that as education is a subject in the concurrent list, it will be up to the states to implement it in the manner they consider most appropriate to their needs. The three-language formula is a dead horse even before the race has started! As long as two systems of education are allowed to operate—one for the rich and another for the poor—there can be no hope for any meaningful reform. English medium expensive private schools and universities will agitate against a level-playing field.
What one found most amusing was the anecdotal evidence put forth by Dr Kasturi Rangan in support of the NEP. He said that he had personally never encountered any difficulty because of birth in Tamil Nadu, education in Kerala, and professional life in Karnataka. One is sure that Bharat Ratna CNR Rao would have said the same. Ditto Bhabha and Sarabhai. None of these brilliant minds was crippled by coaching at Kota.
Like Prof Yashpal, Dr KasturiRangan was schooled in a different era by a differently motivated set of school teachers. Today Indian schooling suffers from the Emperor of Maladies—tuitions. That cancer needs to be excised before anything else and dignity restored to school teaching.
(The writer is Former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University and can be contacted at pushpeshpant@gmail.com)