NEP 2020: What an insipid policy!

“Teach him it is more honourable to fail than to cheat. Teach him that a dollar earned is of more value than five found. Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong. Give him the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the bandwagon. Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders, but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Teach him to fight if he thinks he is right. Teach him to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind. This is a big order, but see what you can do...He is such a fine little fellow, my son.”

These inspiring words, written by Abraham Lincoln to the headmaster of his son’s school, could have been the foreword to the National Education Policy (NEP) recently released by the Government of India. Instead of using meaningless buzz words, the authors of this important document could have summed up a child’s education in three simple concepts like seeing, learning and doing. If a child is free to see things around him, learn from them and respond in his own childlike way, his early childhood education will be complete. Teachers and other adults who interfere in this process are actually the deterrents of such education. Just as “lecturers” who deliver learned orations from icy heights to a class of obedient students make up our institutions of higher education.

Our dismal learning process at all levels is an exercise in obedience to a teacher and to a system. There is no imagination or inspiration in it. Sadly, these two qualities are also missing in the authors of education policies who keep hashing and rehashing existing ones. Right from 1968 to 2020, every elected government has tinkered with the existing policy instead of introducing reforms that are relevant to the present context. Even today, the Kothari Commission Report of 1968 can be considered a pragmatic treatise on how to impart quality education at all levels. According to its authors, learning was an “adventure.” That one word described education as an enjoyable pursuit. A discovery of rich treasures. A veritable Ali Baba’s cave. If there is a student in school or college who tells you that she delights in learning and looks forward to the next class, we may conclude that our education system has succeeded beyond words. Far from being a bureaucratic exercise, it will be the gateway to knowledge – not through fear of examinations, but through curiosity and discovery.

But how does one achieve this objective without proper teachers? The NEP says “teaching and learning will strive to be conducted more interactively; questions will be encouraged, and classroom sessions will regularly contain more creative, collaborative, and exploratory activities for deeper and more experiential learning.” A glorious vision, no doubt. But with more than 90,000 schools in the country having a single teacher at the primary and secondary level combined, where can we find that creative interaction between teacher and pupil? There are thousands of other schools functioning with no teachers at all. There are schools with no buildings, classrooms, books or furniture. Have the authors of education policies visited such schools? If they had, the NEP would have been designed differently. In its present form, it is a Utopian concept of languages that must be taught, of theories that must be explored, of skills that must be mastered. A wonderful voyage of discovery for a child granting that there is a teacher to teach those languages, impart those skills or unravel those theories.

Like its earlier versions, it reads like a policy meant to enhance the image of a government. Just like other popular and populist viewpoints that a child will enrol and remain in school if given a free meal. Let us not insult a child’s aspirations. Children are eager learners and, given the right environment, will come to school even without a meal. This is not to underestimate the importance of proper nutrition which governments must ensure in every school.

The NEP has simply filled old wine into new bottles by revising the 15-year education formula from the well tested 10+2+3 pattern into 5+3+3+4. It all adds up to the same anyway. Changing these superficial components was not as important as changing the teaching and examining methods. It would have been simpler and more practical to abolish the gargantuan end of school examination, and instead give a certificate of eligibility for public service at the end of ten years of schooling to every child. This would have reduced teenaged unemployment. On the other hand, standardised and rigorous entrance tests for further studies would have ensured that the highly motivated alone would opt for higher education. These were time tested methods of ensuring quality in education at all levels. We need an education that leads to employment as well as specialisation. Both are crucial for a country that was trapped in colonial rule for centuries.

Again, when millions of young people need to be usefully employed in socially relevant vocations, specialised education in marketable subjects should be the main component in the higher secondary stage. That would leave universities to be places of research, added to a world-class higher education system which generates well-qualified professionals in every field. Strong, research-oriented universities would also prevent brain drain to other countries. If such simple strategies were properly implemented, do we need new education policies every few years just to boost a government’s image?