The hazards of too many choices in high school

After 34 years, education reforms that have been talked about for decades are here in the form of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The changes that have been proposed for the school education system, in particular, are many. These include the idea of reinventing the curriculum to test conceptual learning rather than rote memorization (section 4.4), changing the medium of instruction to the child’s mother tongue until at least grade 5 (section 4.11) among others.

For high school students in particular though, a potential game-changer is the proposal of extending flexibility to students in Grades 11 and 12 in choosing subjects across all subject streams (highlighted in sections 4.9 and 4.10). Ask any high school student and they will tell you that flexibility in subject streams is something that they have always desired. As a young teenager, very few students usually have a clear understanding of what they would like to pursue as a career in their future. Many are usually torn between different options.

“Not everyone is interested in every subject offered within the streams available in schools right now,” says Palak Vohra, a student of Grade 9. “If flexibility is allowed, then I will choose subjects that I am definitely interested in, and that will help me to explore and learn at a deeper level. My family would support me in this as well because they are invested in seeing me learn what I am passionate about.”

Flexibility in subject streams can open up the possibility of varied career options to young students since they will not be forced to specialize in any particular subject area at an early age. Ideally, an integrated combination of subjects from the humanities, commerce and science streams can result in strengthened quantitative and qualitative analytical skills.

“I personally favour the NEP’s guideline of allowing flexibility in subject combinations,” states Rubica Vohra, mother of Palak Vohra. “In her time, my elder daughter didn’t have many options to choose from. This was four years ago. From her experience, I know how hard it is for a student to perform equally well in all the subjects provided in a particular stream, especially when some of them do not really fall within their interest area.”

But the practical challenges of implementing such a comprehensive change in the school curriculum are many. Critics of the NEP have already pointed out that unless the same flexibility in choosing subjects is extended to college admission criteria (especially in the medical and engineering fields, as these domains require at least 3 compulsory subjects to qualify for the entrance examinations), the flexibility offered to high school students in choosing any subject they wish to study would fail in achieving its ultimate objectives. Then the questions arise: what are the metrics based on which students will be allowed to choose subjects? Would it be entirely left up to the school administration’s discretion? If so, are there regulatory measures to ensure that school administrations don’t indulge in malpractices while exercising this kind of power?

The notion of choosing any randomized set of subject combinations in the most critical years of a student’s school life may not be a practical idea. The implementation of such flexibility in subject choices is currently a vague notion for most school administrators. “This reform is something that we in the teaching profession have all been waiting for. However, the way that it has been laid out in the NEP, the implementation may be a challenge,” opines Shubhi Vadehra, a high school teacher. “For one thing, there are endless options available in terms of subjects that students can choose from if there really is flexibility on the same matter. But the more subjects a school offers, the more trained faculty it needs for teaching the same.

I am not sure how exactly it will be implemented in government schools in particular since it is common knowledge that they already suffer from a shortage of trained staff.”

Though there are so many challenges in implementation, the NEP has devoted only two pages in its entire draft on laying out implementation road maps (found in Part IV of the document). With regard to implementing the policy, the mechanisms mentioned in the document are vaguely worded and offer no clear-cut strategy for the public. It has left strategizing on implementation to a wide variety of stakeholders (including the union and state governments along with schools) and has merely recommended that these diverse institutions work closely together. It appears that the next step is for the union government to consolidate criticism and feedback on the NEP to revise the guidelines.

(Ankitha Cheerakathil is the Executive
Director-India of Institute H21, a policy research organization. Manvi Vohra is her Research Assistant.)