The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020)
announced by the Ministry of Human Resource Development sets itself the goal of
completing the unfinished agenda of its predecessors – the New Education Policy
1986 and as amended in 1992.
The NEP 1986 envisaged the gradual withdrawal
of the state from the responsibility of providing education and replacing it
with the private market forces. It also envisaged the stratification of
children into ‘gifted’, ‘affordable’ and ‘vulnerable’ sections in the name of a
three tier system. This goal of NEP1986 was basically achieved in the primary
and secondary education and to a large extent in higher education. The NEP 2020
is committed itself to complete this process of privatization.
The NEP 2020 made usual exercise in numbers
to dish out the formula of 5+3+3+4 and merged together primary and secondary
education spanning age from 3 to 18 years. It is full of lofty ideals and pious
wishes, of course with riders. Some of these are universalization from the age
of 3 to Class 10. Mother tongue as the medium of instruction, new curriculum to
include 21st
century
skills from Class 6, offering teaching in Sanskrit, Pali and Paakrut languages
and learning foreign languages and so on and on. Almost all of them are mere
repetition from the earlier policies, but failed in implementation during the
last seven decades. The sincerity of their implementation is questionable given
the instance of mother tongue as medium of instruction which has the rider
“wherever possible”. This will only ratify the continuation of English as
medium of instruction wherever it is in vogue.
The process of privatizing higher education
is particularly emphasized in the NEP 2020. Some of them are: multidisciplinary
universities and higher education institution clusters; rationalisatiion of
about 50,000 colleges into 15,000 and closure of those having less than 3000
students; upgradation of single subject institutions like IIT, IIM, IIIT etc to
multidisciplinary ones; allowing foreign institutions to open campus in India;
merger of UGC and AICTE to form Higher education Regulatory Council, which will
have less regulatory power and more of licensing authority.
In practice, these proposals for higher education exacerbate disparities between the states and regions and social and economic inequalities. The NEP 2020 agrees that education is a public good and profiteering should be controlled. Some fee regulations exist in certain states, but they are unable to curtail profit making. The proposed upgraded colleges will have free hand not only in deciding syllabus and conducting exams and issuing degrees but also in deciding fee structure. It also envisages philanthropic donations to be allowed for universities and HE clusters. It is every body’s knowledge the education is the biggest commercial activity with highest margins of profits with lowest investment in India today.
The NEP 2020pledged not to compromise on
financial aid to students in the form of stipend and scholarships and committed
to provide energy rich food with morning breakfast in addition to the existing
mid-day meals. All these ambitious looking proposals are not going to be
realized in implementation. The NEP 2020 proposed to raise the expenditure on
education to 6% from existing 4.45% of GDP and aims to raise total
(Centre+States) public expenditure on education from 10 to 20% of whole public
expenditure. Such an outlay for education was recommended long back in 1950s
but never reached to that level at any time in the past.
On the pretext of Covid-19 the BJP government
by-passed the Parliament without placing such an important policy and infringed
upon the domain of states in formulating the educational policy according to
their local needs conditions. The highhandedness of the Narendra Modi’s
government can be seen in its claim that it had extensive consultation with MPs
from six southern states and Odisha, while there are 29 states and UTs and
corresponding governments.
The Central Committee of CPI (ML) calls upon
the people to oppose the rampant commercialization of education at all levels
and subtle meddling of curriculum to give a communal tinge and struggle for a
democratic, egalitarian and scientific education.
With revolutionary greetings,
Viswam
General
Secretary.
CPI (ML)
Vijayawada
2 August 2020.
