The escalator-elevator-every step climb to reach the airlines departure gate in an airport is left to every passenger’s personal situation influenced by their age, hand baggage, available time etc. Once the security check is over at the long queues, there is no more hassle for the passenger to choose between the three modes. Other than the three is the simplest way, a short walk to the departure gate.
Likewise, the implementation plan of National Education Policy (NEP) needs to be staggered with short-, medium- and long-term plans. The shortest of the short-term plan already implemented (walking to the gate) is the ministry’s new name Ministry of Education (MoE).
The MoE now has its hands full to lay down its implementation pathway that can take the learners on their knowledge flight to reach their destinations. A quick peep into the higher education implementation.
The estimated global spend on education and training by 2030 is $10 trillion with over one billion students to enter school and college education that shall see an average annual addition of 1.3 million teachers.
A significant push towards such gargantuan numbers comes from Asia and Africa with India being a key to this growth. The Prime Minister’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat provides the much-needed policy fertiliser to transform Indian education from a consumer mode to a contributor mode that can position India as the world’s education model.
The NEP has touched all the elements of the education value chain leaving it to the key stakeholders to uncork the value in each value chain link based on institution expertise. It calls for the establishment of the Higher Education Council of India (HECI), which shall be a four-stroke higher education engine fuelled by approval, funding, standards and accreditation. It is this four-stroke engine that shall power the higher education flight to higher levels without turbulence.
Just as a passenger aircraft ensures optimal load for a smooth take-off, flight and landing, the HECI aircraft needs only an optimal policy load that shall unburden the stakeholders from the usual annual rituals, which in many cases are unproductive, irrelevant and redundant. The composition of the HECI to undertake this important policy transition for a disruptive transformation is significant.
Just as various stakeholders, including the taxi, housekeeping agency and canteen operators, are involved from home to departure gate to ensure a timely takeoff, the HECI composition must be as diverse as possible to accommodate experts from Central/State government agencies, industry, private HEIs, civil society, etc.
A calibrated version of a similar composition is also essential for the four verticals planned—National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC), National Accreditation Council (NAC), Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) and the General Education Council (GEC).
The coordinated effort of these verticals for approval, accreditation, funding and standards setting shall be steered by the HECI in a seamlessly integrated model in a manner that is unprecedented.
The operational choking due to regulatory strangulation needs to be cleared to ensure more than survival oxygenation for higher educational institutions - public and private. A mere naming ceremony of existing statutory and regulatory bodies and committees without the much-needed overhaul will serve very little purpose, necessitating a new birth and not just a new name.
The short-, medium- and long-term implementation plan is a much-required approach touching the entire education value chain, including higher education, which is the best possible interface between school education and new knowledge creation.
The HECI and its quadruplets in its diverse composition should trigger such a three-phased approach that catalyses the Indian higher education engine in a calibrated and accelerated manner. The NEP has all the ingredients to prepare a buffet of sorts for a gastronomically diverse learner appetite.
Just as we have commercial aircraft, which are low-cost, full-service, national, regional, international, private charters, etc, the higher education knowledge flight needs a similar trajectory with diverse pathways taking learners to their respective destinations.
Such a diverse knowledge pathway requires a robust HECI (read Air Traffic Control) that takes learners for an aspirational journey. The NEP has issued the boarding pass for the knowledge flight. Await the boarding announcement soon.
(The author can be contacted at vaidhya@sastra.edu)