When I went abroad to gain a doctoral degree at a British university, I had already acquired fives years of formal training—post high school—in mathematics at my Indian university. This was in direct contrast with what was happening at my British university. The doctoral students who had studied there for their undergraduate degree in mathematics had a single three-year qualification. The practice persists till today. Does that mean that the academic quality of the locally nurtured doctoral student was in any way less than that of students from India who had acquired a five-year degree?
After all these years and after much reflection I have come to the firm conclusion that we teach too much in India. And this business of overstuffing young minds with so-called ‘knowledge’ starts from the first years of schooling and persists till the final years of university education. This practice is prevalent in almost every part of India except for some isolated exceptions. I can say with a fair degree of certitude that a significant part of the mathematical knowledge that I had acquired during my five years of university life in India really did not help me much with my doctoral research. In addition, the mathematical knowledge that I had used for my doctoral research, was essentially based on about a quarter of the three-year UG degree at my British university.
I was thus delighted to learn that the National Education Policy (2020) recognised this malaise for every programme of learning; be it a school course or a college degree. The NEP advocates the adage ‘less is more’ when it comes to teaching content. However and most unfortunately, the UGC and its counterpart agencies at the state level have missed this point altogether. The most worrying part of this practice of teaching more than what is necessary is that this leaves our students with no time to reflect, experiment and absorb in a creative manner the knowledge that is being thrown at them. I have taught briefly at one of the better known IITs before making my escape. I was fortunate enough to get to know my students in a liberating fashion. To my utter surprise, almost the entire batch had confessed at that time that they were learning next to nothing. All that they really excelled at was how to secure good scores. There was almost no knowledge acquisition that was taking place. Lest the reader may be under the impression that things have changed for the better in significant ways, I have come across, in recent times, a large number of similar laments by students of several IITs.
Is it any surprise that in spite of having such talented students in our institutions, we are not able to capitalise on this as productively as we should? This is true across the length and breadth of our land. To remedy this situation, the NEP 2020 wisely prescribes transdisciplinary learning through project work in groups. In addition, it emphasises the imbibing of several vital skills such as coding, basic data analysis, communication skills, analytical skills and the skills needed to engage in practical ways with the world around us. In many ways, the NEP 2020 asks us to treat the world as a university.
Several institutions in J&K have imbibed the true spirit of the NEP. The outcomes are encouraging and it shall be very productive for institutions from other parts of India to interact with these institutions. I would also urge the UGC to alter their rather moribund prescriptions that seem to have strangled our education system.