Articles

“NEP 2020 – Opportunities and Challenges of Implementation

Prof. G D Sharma
Former Secretary – UGC
President – Society for Education and Economic Development

The Raisin de‘etre of a policy:

When a Nation-state wants to achieve certain goals for the development and welfare of the people it attempts to express its intention to do so through a policy statement. This is followed by a detailed plan to implement the policy taking into account time frame, resources – both human and material and technology know-how.

India, after gaining independence from British Rule, attempted to do so through the formulation of a system of governance in the form of the Constitution of India, a system of education in the form of education policy, a system of economic development in the form of Planned Process through Planning Commission, Science and Technology Development in the form of Science and Technology Policy.

The implementation of policy is done through several schemes, action plans resource inputs, and finally monitoring its implementation in a given scheduled time frame. Success and failure of implementation, besides several factors, depends on the resource inputs and seriousness about the implementation of policies.

Policy and Politics:

Policies are dynamic and do reflect the ideology, the intention of the political party in power both at central and state governments levels. India being Constitutional and Electoral Democracy, citizen elects the parties through universal franchise to form the government. Parties in power change through the majority of votes to a party both at the central and state governments’ level.

Responsibility of Education of Citizen:

The Constitution of India spelled out the role of Central Government and State Governments with regards to education through a list of responsibilities of central government and state governments. Education was on the list of state responsibilities. With the 76th Amendment of the Constitution of Indian, Education was brought under the concurrent list. Thereby both Central and State governments can undertake to carry out education work. However, the responsibility to formulate the Policy was with the Central Government and with the approval of the Parliament.

Education Policies of India- The Story:

Soon after independence, under the Prime Minister Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, India attempted to form a national policy on Education. As a first step, it constituted a University Education Commission headed by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. Commission in 1948-49. The Commission in turn made several recommendations for the development of higher education. One of the key recommendations was to give the responsibility of maintenance and coordination of standards of higher education to the Central Government. In the field of School Education Commission (1952-53) headed by Dr. L. Mudaliar made recommendations for formulation policy on school education.

The policy of Education was formulated by the Government of India and implemented through the setting up of several institutions, namely, the University Grants Commission –to maintain and coordinate the standards of Higher Education, the National Council of Education, Research and Training for framing school education framework and guidance. It also set up several universities, Institutes of Technology, Institutes of Sciences at higher education.

To serve the interest of central government employees’ the Central Government also set up Central Schools, and for equity and quality Navodya Vidyalayas. State Governments set up the universities and schools in their respective states.

A good deal of progress was made in the field of higher education and school education over the period through the process of planned development. However, it was felt that the general thrust has been the continuance of the old system of education with several modifications. It was felt that there is a need to closely link education with the development of the country. To do that there is a need for reform in the education system. Accordingly a new Education Commission –headed by Dr. D.S. Kothari was set up-1964 to -66. Which in term made several recommendations about school and higher education. Which were then incorporated in the NEP -1966.

Political Parties in power and Education Policy:

The Indian National Congress(INC) Party- which was in forefront of the freedom movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi came into power under the leadership of Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru at the Central Government level. The policies under INC reflected the development of education on the lines of equity, access quality, scientific temper, and liberal democratic values. At the same time, it focused on the promotion of indigenous knowledge, art and culture. It recognized the role played by philanthropists in the promotion of school and higher education and it supported these institutions through the system of grant in aid financing.

NEP -1986:

Owing to several factors growth in education and development of the economy did not match. Many graduate degree holders are unemployed in the late seventies. It was felt that there is a need for a re-look at the education policy. Around 1983 a commission about teachers in higher and school education headed by Dr. Rais Ahmed and Dr. Kireet Joshi respectively under the chairmanship of Professor S. Chattopadhyay was constituted to look into the status of teachers in higher and school education, as teachers constituted the key to implement any reform in education. This committee submitted its recommendation concerning improving the status of teachers. This happened after Mrs. Indira Gandhi former Prime Minister of India was assassinated and Shri Rajiv Gandhi become Prime Minister of India under the Congress Party (Indira). But it carried out broadly the same agenda of the Congress Party. The main concerns were: Equity, Access, Relevance, Autonomy, Democratic Values, and Scientific Temper and State support for educational development through a planned process of Development. Based on these principles National Education Policy of 1986 was formulated by Congress Party in power headed by Shri Rajiv Gandhi and Shri Narsimha Rao as the Education Minister. Governments at the Central and State levels attempted to implement it through the planned process of development.

After the assassination of Shri Rajiv Gandhi, Janta Party came into power and it also attempted to formulate the policy. Professor Ramamurthy Committee was set up to suggest the reform. The committee suggested the reform in education. The Congress Party came to power again in 1990. A revised policy was placed in parliament in 1992 and passed under Prime Minister Shri Narsimha Rao. With Shri Narshimha Rao as Prime Minister and Dr. Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister, the approach towards the role of the state for the development of education was somewhat changed under the concept of liberalization of the economy. The revised Education Policy 1992 broadly reaffirmed the provisions of the 1986 policy and added some new aspects. The planned process continued as an instrument of the development of the economy and education. But many things started changing both in education and economic practices. Many state governments started changing policy through practices.

Under the policy of liberalization of the economy, a concept of self-financing of education also started. The practice of self-financing education by students had slowly progressed in school education with the emergence of the convent and public schools. In higher education, it started with engineering and medical education colleges in various states of India. In higher education the concept of self–financing progressed after the year 1990, with the introduction of the policy of liberalization of the economy. The process was however slow.

From 1999 to 2004 when the Bhartiya Janta Party with the support of several parties (NDA) was in power some changes did take place concerning liberalization and growth of self-financing institutions at school and higher education level. The planned process of development continued, but it lost the steam of development of education by the state as many education entrepreneurs entered the field of education. The period of 2004 to 20012 under the Congress Party (UPA) government under the Prime Minister of Dr. Manhoman Singh showed significant growth of self-financing (cost + fee charged from students) in higher education.

By the time 2014 when Bhartiya Janta Party (NDA) came to power a substantial portion of professional education was under the private self-financing model. Although education in the public sector also expanded through the setting up of Central Universities, IITs, IIMs IIITs, and so on. But the expansion of private self-financing institutions was significant.

This all happed under the 1986 revised 1992 policy of education through changes in practices. Therefore, it was incumbent on the new government to formulate the policy. It took almost five years of consultation and formulation of policy recommendations. Based on consultation a report was prepared and submitted to government which was not accepted by the Government of India. A new committee headed by Dr. K Kasturi Rangan was constituted to frame a Draft Education Policy.. This committee made recommendations for the formulation of policy. The recommendation of the committee became the basis for the government of India to formulate NEP-2020 duly approved by the Parliament of India.

The NEP- 2020

Principles:

The Policy has laid down 22 principles of policy formulation and drawn a vision for the education of people in India, i.e. Bharat.

The 22 principles can be summarized in seven broad categories, namely,

• Flexibility, Autonomy, Accountability, Multidisciplinary system
• Contents and Processes- rooted in India and globally oriented,
• Creativity and Critical Thinking and Outcome-based Evaluation,
• Composite system of educational institutions in substantial size
• Doing away with affiliation, fragmentation, and silos in education.
• Light but tight governance -based on principles of integrity, transparency
• Finally, the public education system strongly financially supported by the state and encouragement to genuine philanthropic private education providers

The Vision:

The policy vision is that “the education system rooted in Indian ethos,that contributes directly to transforming India, sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high-quality education to all, thereby making India a global knowledge superpower.” The” Viswa Guru”

The Proposal:

• The education policy proposes to break the age-old colonial Affiliating College System, and recently emerged “stand-alone single subject educational institutions”.
• It proposes to have composite educational institutions, as India had in the form of three universities namely, Nalanda, Taxshilla, and Vikramshila, imparting education in all the fields of knowledge or the present-day Ivy League universities in the USA.
• It has proposed to convert all the colleges into autonomous degree-granting colleges by 2030.
• It proposes a three-tier system of higher education namely, Research Universities, Teaching and Research Universities, and Degree awarding autonomous colleges
• It proposes to achieve GER ( Enrollment of students – Gross Enrollment Ratio – Age group 18-23 population) 50% by the year 2035
• The education policy proposes to settle the issue of public vs. private institutions of higher education by clearly focusing on education as a “public good.” and therefore, it is State’s responsibility to provide funds and strengthen the public education system.
• The policy provides for a genuine private philanthropist to engage in the provision of education without a commercial motive.
• It has proposed increasing the public expenditure by 20% every year and reaching 6% of GDP in due course of time
• The regulation and promotion of higher education are proposed to be done by the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) with its four major departments called verticals namely, Regulation, Funding, Accreditation, and Standard-setting, named as Higher Education Regulation Council, National Accreditation Council, Higher Education Funding Council, and General Education Council

The Focus:

• The policy focuses on scientific temper, constitutional values and recognizes existing Indian Knowledge systems, and suggests furtherance of this knowledge on scientific lines to address the problems development of India and the world.
• The policy focus is on the virtual education program. The scheme to provide education both through face to face, digital mode, and blended way.
• It focuses on creating knowledge, entrepreneurial abilities, and skill practices that will make India “Atma Nirbhar.” This means generating a lot of content and skill practices that are locally and globally relevant

The Challenges of Implementation:

• There are about 45 thousand colleges in the country of this nearly 30 percent are single faculty colleges the question is: how this large number will get integrated with the new concept of multidisciplinary Institute of higher education?
• There are also a large number of standalone PG Diploma offering institutions of Management most of them are student financed institutions- How are they going to be integrated with the university system?
• The policy of multiple exit and entries with an accumulation of credit sounds good. So far single institute is considered it could work as the account of credit earned can be kept with the university. When it comes to the transfer of credit earned by the students to other universities or another program the matter would become complex? How this complexity is likely to be addressed? UGC has drafted Guidelines for Bank of Academic Credit. It attempts to answer some of the above questions.
• Certification for various levels of attainment by the students says 1^styear to 3^rd-year degree and fourth year Hon. The degree is likely to be considered by employers in India?
• Besides, two constitutional stakeholders namely Central and State Governments, during the last one and half decades, a third party, in the form of a substantial size of private education providers, has emerged. How this party is would be taken into account while finalizing the implementation strategy? This is particularly because the education policy has made serious observations on the commercialization aspects of education.
• There is a huge challenge of allocation of funds to education. The promise of allocation of funds to the tune of 6 percent of GDP in the next 10 years and a 20 % increase every year has not been met during the budgetary allocation during 2021-22.

Opportunities:

There is an opportunity to break silos in the system of higher education by orienting curricular and program of studies oriented towards the multidisciplinary school of studies or the departments. Jawaharlal Nehru University has already implemented by constituting schools of studies in various multidisciplinary manners. Such orientation will also give research impetus as problems of society and life are multidisciplinary.

There is also an opportunity to break the old age colonial system of affiliated colleges by granting autonomy and degree-granting status to colleges and consolidation of colleges in a multidisciplinary manner. This is going to be the most difficult task. It would require structural changes and amendments of acts and statutes of the Universities.

There is an opportunity to involve private education providers in implementation policy, as their share in professional education and university education is substantial. Their participation in research activities may add to the development of research infrastructure and outcomes for the larger benefit of industry and society.

There is an opportunity to strengthen the system of external quality assurance through the development of well-defined protocols of quality assurance and accreditation. The present system of a single institution may be inadequate to handle the quality assessment and accreditation issue of the large Indian higher education system.

Their opportunity to link education to future needs of the society in the particular emerging fourth industrial revolution, AI, IoT, and Blockchain technology is going to transform the production of goods and services and may take over several of the cognitive-based white collars as well blue collar jobs.

There is a huge opportunity to transform higher education at the ground level to carry out research and teaching in the technology revolution in the field of renewable sources of energy, storage of energy, and impacting the fourth industrial revolution.

There are opportunities for universities and colleges to inculcate democratic values, scientific temper, and social cohesion in the campus leading to its spread in the larger society within and outside India.

Above all, there is a great opportunity for central government, state governments, industry, and philanthropists to participate in the development and transformation of higher education to effectively participate in emerging technology and quality of life particularly after a great gap of time in normal working and life of people due to Covid-19.

It is an opportunity to strengthen health sciences, natural and physical sciences, technology, and social sciences research to deal with ever-rising new challenges to humanity on this planet earth.

*Dr. G.D. Sharma
Former Secretary, UGC, Former Director, CEC and Former Professor NIEPA