The never to be blueprint

The term of the committee to draft the National Education Policy (NEP) was extended by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), for a record fifth time since it was set up.  

Years have passed waiting for a policy, which would breathe some life into a sector that embraces about 200 million lives at any given time and touches some 20 million new lives each year.  

There is a long and chequered history to this policy that promises to catapult India’s moribund education sector into a phase of significant change.

NEP was part of the BJP’s election manifesto in 2014. When the NDA came to power, Smriti Irani was appointed the HRD Minister. She initiated an extensive, time-bound, participative consultative process across gram panchayats, blocks, urban local bodies, districts and all states/Union territories, followed up by meetings with Union ministries and state education ministers. She also sought suggestions from all Members of Parliament.  

This was an extensive exercise, which had led to over 26,000 people putting down their proposals in writing. A committee was later set up in February 2016 under former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian to draft a policy. 

The Committee submitted the report in May 2016, containing its recommendations, which were not received well due to differences between some members of the committee and Smriti Irani, the then HRD minister. 

Two years of work was flushed down the drain, stating that while the report correctly identified many problems, it failed to deliver winning solutions.

Prakash Javadekar replaced Smriti Irani as Minister for HRD in July 2016. A year after taking charge in June 2017, when the Union government had already run for three out of its five-year term, Javadekar formed another committee, this time headed by space scientist K Kasturirangan, to come up with the blueprint for a New Education Policy. 

Extensions in its tenure were granted in December 2017, April 2018, June 2018 and August 2018, before the latest one in October 2018 valid until December 15, 2018, citing the Election Commission’s Code of Conduct being the impediment in releasing the draft of the policy that is otherwise ready.  

After the draft policy or report is released, it will go through a few steps like obtaining reactions from the public, internal consultations within the government, finalisation, cabinet-approval and notification - a process, which will certainly not be completed before the term of the present government ends in May 2019.  

It is therefore certain that this government will not be releasing any Education Policy even within five years of its tenure and even after two years of its second attempt at framing a new policy.

The Kasturirangan Committee has been mandated to make Indian education contemporary, improve its quality, and attach global qualities to it. Contrast this mandate for the committee with some mindless decisions and directions of the HRD Ministry over the last one year. 

Specifying the limit of weight without caring for the contents of a school bag;

Institution approaching HRD Minister for financial assistance gets equated as beggar; 

Perpetuating the caste hierarchy in higher education where an overseas institution and an IIT or an IIM is the upper most caste by birth and not by its contributions or achievements;

Candidates holding PhD from institutions abroad could be directly appointed as Assistant Professors – thus institutional pedigree and not capability gets the nod. 

The deeper you dig, the more filth gets pumped out. Competent, enabled, efficient and effective higher education system needs equally competent, motivated, efficient, innovative, curious and committed teachers, who are in a perpetual mode of learning. 

It is necessary to improve teachers’ qualifications and competence, rather than diluting the established norms of entry to the vocation. 

An adventure of the recent kind, passing off as policy, wherein just to enable easy entry into higher education jobs, even the entry level marks for SC/ST candidates for admission into PhD programmes have been scaled downwards, is just dirty politics. Such a policy disposition will be suicidal for the future of the country.

The Indian education system is driving itself around like an autonomous vehicle, without a driver, sans any sensors, bereft of any logic, remotely connected or embedded in it, and without any algorithm. No one knows, what powers or how many wheels it has, if at all it has any.

Kasturirangan headed an organisation, which promises to deliver a manned-space-flight to the moon in next three years, but he is now heading a committee that cannot make a National Education Policy in half of that time. The irony is complete. 

Since politics as a profession has no requirements of essential educational qualifications, nor is it bound by any chartered code of conduct, is it possible that good education is never a political priority, notwithstanding the fact that the education sector is always in the hands of politicians?  

So much for India, which quotes its legacy of Nalanda and Taxila at the drop of a hat, but does not have even one of its institutions to showcase among the top 200 of the world?

Author is former director, MDI, Gurgaon