 Hello and welcome to NewsClick, I am Apoorva and today we will be discussing a very pressing matter which is the recent draft National Education Policy which was brought out by the government and it was sent back to get revised because of the imposition of Hindi and it sparked a controversy. But more than that most people do not know about what this policy is. For this we are joined today in our studio by Shraikat Ghosh. He is a professor in Delhi University and currently a member of the academic council. So to begin with Shraikat I would like you to tell our audience what actually this NEP entails and how this government has visioned education of India to be like. See like you use the word vision so the NEP is primarily a vision document of how education should be like in the process of India's transition as a developing nation. What education needs to be in order to serve the needs of the nation and its people, its various sections of people. Then the second part of the NEP has to be a kind of a proper believable roadmap to achieve that vision. Now India is a diverse country we all know that and because of its diversity and the federal nature of the public sort of representation we have always had education in I mean primarily it began in post independence India it began as a state level prerogative. So every state had the prerogative to decide what the education of people within that state ought to be like. But since there had to be some kind of a national coherence therefore the constitution was amended to include education in the concurrent list where the prerogative primary prerogative still lay with states but then the central government and the central sort of parliament actually had the right to take certain decisions that would enable a kind of coordination between states. So that is how some of that prerogative came to the centre also. As well as establish central institutions like universities or IITs of repute which would attract people from all states. Now if you consider this diversity this diversity is not merely reflected in the learning needs of people from different regions of the country but also of people from different sections of society like women, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, the differently abled people. Okay now we have a fairly complex idea of what our diversity entails. Going by that an education policy has to reflect the diverse learning needs, the diverse educational needs. Unfortunately however this education policy this draft education policy it has been drafted assuming that India is a homogenous entity by ignoring the fact that states have perhaps a greater prerogative in deciding the educational agenda of the people and by giving all powers of governing education okay and setting the educational agenda to the central government to the executive where the parliamentary prerogatives have also been transferred on to the executive. So the fundamental thing that you know obviously leaps out of the pages of this draft policy is that there is a Rashtriya Siksha Ayog which comes directly under the authority of the prime minister and the union cabinet and this Rashtriya Siksha Ayog is going to decide the agenda the educational agenda of the entire nation of all the states of all the institutions that fall within the territorial boundaries of the nation. Now that is going against the spirit as it were of the constitution as well as it is going against the entire idea of diversity and what education ought to be like and its fallouts in very specific ways are very very dangerous as I would imagine. So let's go to the fallouts as you said and we can take this step by step so I feel like strategically a lot of parts have been targeted for example funding or academic freedom and when it comes to teachers as well teachers forming the talking about education reforms. So going step by step what is the first thing that you would want to comment upon or talk about in regard to how they have changing the entire learning process. Before we come to the process of learning what is integrally linked to the process of learning and because I come from higher education I teach in Delhi University that's why my experience is primarily based on what has been happening in higher education so I'm going to focus on that. Now a lot of money is required as we all know that funding alright and the draft education policy sets a target of expanding higher education and increasing enrollment okay so there is something called the gross enrollment ratio GER which is at this point of time it is around 25.2% of the total population that is eligible to be enrolled in higher education okay. The draft policy sets a target for 2035 and says that we have to have 50% which is roughly double which means that for a layman it's easy enough to imagine that whatever institutional capacity and infrastructure exists right now there has to be a double of that in order to achieve the GER target of 50%. However this draft policy does not actually make the government commit to any kind of further expansion in public spending you know in India higher education the backbone of Indian higher education is the public funded system okay the private system obviously because the private system is you know has to sort of run it keeping profits in mind okay whatever the margin of profits maybe is debatable but then obviously some if a private investor is investing money into the project of education then cost recovery breaking even and maybe some additional sort of profit is always on their minds okay it's the public system that can cater to the democratic aspiration for education and education is so central to our nation because we have seen that you know despite all the prejudices and hierarchies that society is beset by education remains still date a strong means to social transformation upliftment of people who have been marginalized and depressed suppressed for over the centuries so it is the only sort of means to a progressive kind of social transformation in society so the so the government has to cater to the democratic aspirations of the people by primarily you know catering to their educational aspirations and their access to healthcare now if the government is not forced to commit funding to this envisaged expansion then there is a there is a serious problem then what is the draft education policy in effect saying that you know is privatization going to actually help us achieve this target at the backdrop of this draft education policy we are seeing that the government is withdrawing from grants funding of institution and shifting towards loan funding now university is like do you are being forced to sign MOUs wherein we will voluntarily commit ourselves to taking loans for infrastructural expansion and then those loans have to be paid back paid back within a stipulated period of time so that means that the disciplines and subjects that are not able to fetch enough revenue from the market those subjects are under attack because they are not commercially viable because to on in order to pay back the loan then immediately the management or the authorities priorities shift from imparting good valuable holistic education towards cutting costs what the government calls financial prudence okay and then in order to recover the principal amount and pay it back it will it will have to hike student fees okay user charges as we call it today the cost of education within institutions is bound to rise unless the government gives us money and increases the money that it gives us it's bound to rise if we are going to be dependent on loan funding for expansion then that rise will also be quite drastic it will be exponential and the obvious fallout of that is that people who come from the poorer strata or people who even the middle income groups wherein there is always a kind of concern about the rising cost of things of amenities you know very important amenities and choices have to be made so the students from these strata are immediately going to be affected they are going to be further marginalized and probably thrown out of the ambit of education and so exactly the opposite of what is being envisaged in terms of the GR target is going to be the likely outcome of this huge sort of lacunae or oversight I don't know what to call it of letting the government decide its own funding commitments and if we look at the record of the government and not just this government by the way it successive government since 2005 we will see that governments have been slashing the expenditure on education that they have been advocating you know private public partnership models and all kinds of things and this government specifically has been very aggressively pursuing this agenda that we can commonly describe as privatization does this what is entailed in this policy does it also take away the can we say academic freedom of teachers and for since now we have seen that teachers have been part in making a lot of decisions for the university and for students but now how will this change see I will address this question by giving you a sense of the structure of governance that has been laid down in the draft policy so there is the Rashtri Shiksha Iyog under the prime minister and the cabinet union cabinet and then the Rashtri Shiksha Iyog branches out into local level state level units so the state states that used to have some kind of an autonomy vis-a-vis the center in deciding their educational agenda are now going to be forced to function as merely as local units of the central Rashtri Shiksha Iyog and therefore the state proposals will all be vetted and approved by the central now beyond this they are talking about autonomy for institutions but that autonomy is not an academic autonomy that autonomy is primarily financial and managerial autonomy that is being given to institutions in terms of creating separate silos of governance which are called board of governors BOGs for each and every institution whether it's a university or a college or autonomous institute all of the institutions will have a board of governors now this board of governors earlier I mean till now what has been happening is that every public funded university at least has had democratic representations of teachers in their statutory decision-making bodies as well as students not just teachers but also students in in bodies like the academic council executive council senate syndicate these are known by different names but essentially they are the statutory decision-making bodies or authorities of the institution now the board of governors will not have any elected component from the teachers and students so essentially these two central stakeholders of the education system are being sort of left out in the sense that there is not going to be any democratic representation so obviously the structure that is envisaged is an undemocratic structure there may be teachers who are included in the BOGs but those teachers are going to be nominated by and large the BOGs are going to comprise of executive administrative authority like vice chancellors principles deans and so on and so forth and they will also have some representation from the industry okay so that shows you that institutions are also being gradually pushed towards commercialization which in any case a commercialization becomes a kind of a you know a way of institutional survival if institutions have to depend on loans okay so obviously commercialization is going to be a logical fallout so industry is going to be represented and of course the government is going to be represented so there is going to be political interference there is going to be the interference from the businesses which have a very very dubious record of lobbying for all kinds of things and there is going to be of course an administrative component in the BOGs but there is not going to be any democratic component unless there is democratic component institutions cannot be publicly accountable okay these institutions are all set up through taxpayers money so public accountability can only be ensured through some kind of a democratic governance that is lacking now these BOGs are going to prepare what they call institutional development plans IDPs and the role of the government is going to be limited to vetting these plans looking at the outcomes that have been listed in these plans and assessing these institutions on the basis of whether these outcomes have been achieved or not what are these outcomes primarily going to be they are going to be like you know what kind of employability is the institution able to generate what kind of commercially viable courses is the institution able to run how many self-financing courses are being run how many MOOCs and online development courses are being run by the way let me tell you the the draft policy also envisages the expansion of the gross enrollment ratio in terms of a heavy intensive involvement of online digital learning ODL which includes your MOOCs and your e-learning modules and all which don't really sort of demand infrastructural development in terms of classrooms and laboratories and teachers and how efficient or how good are these learning techniques well you know where they sort of emerge from that is the united states in the united states after two decades of this ODL most of the best universities the ivy league schools and MIT and all are now acknowledging the fact that they are not as popular as they were expected to be that the student enrollment has declined drastically in recent years and they are not even fulfilling they are not even achieving their learning outcomes for instance I'll give you an example science is practical oriented okay now if the government does not spend money on laboratories but it asks science teachers to teach primarily through the ODL method then what the students are learning is not a practical oriented knowledge of science what they are learning is simulation is through simulation so how long can that sustain and how can it strengthen the entire scientific project how can it help us generate enough scientific talent for the country to cater to the country's needs of development it's a big question mark but I'm afraid that the draft NEP does not address these important questions okay it is very glib about them and it is picking up from this fad or that fad that may have been prevalent in the last few decades around the world and trying to create a collage of attractive propositions that they have no way of you know achieving there is no roadmap there is no operative policy to achieve this okay so coming back to the idps now the id the government is going to assess the idps the what the board of governors are doing in terms of these stated outcomes but the government is not going to inquire into whether adequate inputs have gone in to achieve these stated outcomes for instance there are going to be learning outcomes all right but the learning outcomes cannot be achieved unless and until there is adequate faculty adequate number of classrooms laboratories and so on and so forth right now all across the country we have this model called a cbcs choice-based credit system in which the students get a bouquet of courses and they can choose to do as many and of the courses that they like they are not bound by any kind of disciplinary or disciplinary boundary or stream or anything so a student of let's say literature can also do physics a student of music can study economics and so on and so forth which is fantastic in terms of theory but it is this cbcs model is failing across the country because in every institution there aren't enough teachers to offer all the subjects so the bouquet is not actually coming to the students even if there are teachers i mean there aren't teachers but then there are other associated problems there aren't enough classrooms to have different kinds of classes there aren't enough laboratories there aren't enough like now we are doing courses in media or music and all you need studios there is no such infrastructure okay so the people are being fooled by these things that look very good on paper but they are not actually happening they are not taking place because the government is not investing money all right so that input the government is not going to inquire into as long as the outputs are there and in some way data can be shown to you know even a partial fulfillment of those outputs the government the rastri siksha ayog will be happy and pleased it is not going to be bothered about what is happening on the ground now this is a very dangerous thing this is i mean this is like turning the education system into the advertising industry so if i mean since everything will be so micromanaged do you think that the freedom of teachers in general about what they do in their for example they have a union teachers have a union and they exercise their freedom through that and they demand their rights through that so all of these things do you think it will be diluted after if this is implemented see already unions teachers unions are facing a lot of difficulty they are not heard okay although teachers unions make very very acute observations and interventions in policy making and teachers become a part of the entire debate on policy making through their unions that's what has been happening in the years since independence but of late teachers unions are weakening because the government has been pushing informalization of employment you know in even in the most prestigious so-called eminent universities and yesterday the government included del university in this institutions of eminence category but in del university 70 percent of the teachers are working on ad hoc or guest basis they have no job security they are not i mean they are nominally a part of the union but they can't participate in union activities they can't be a part of the union action programs because they can be thrown out of their jobs with a day's notice okay they don't enjoy the secure service conditions that permanent teachers do okay now already in that situation now what the government is decide the next step that the government is going to take through the draft policy is that it's going to dismember these large affiliating type universities like do you okay so the del university is going to become a unitary institution like maybe like bhu or you know which the bhu still has some colleges but the like jnu jnu doesn't have any colleges right and it's a small institution and the colleges are going to be given complete autonomy that autonomy is only going to be exercised by the board of governors of the colleges so obviously the teachers are going to be like slave slaves who are driven by the board of governors the teachers you know the board of governors are also empowered to decide variable salaries service conditions promotions and retirement benefits okay there won't be any sarkari standardization like a pay commission or something or regulations that you know set minimum standards they're doing away with all of that they are giving complete freedom to these institutional bogs to decide what is going to be the teachers working conditions and remuneration and what is the nature of the job security in these circumstances obviously no teacher is going to be able to be encouraged to speak out with an independent voice you know the the whole structure is designed to only promote conformism of a most sterile kind okay and you know that knowledge cannot develop it cannot grow unless the scope for dissent and criticism is there knowledge always I mean any kind of knowledge develops only through by being disputed okay we don't live in an era where all knowledge is encompassed in some Brahma gyan all right so who will do the disputation the teachers who have developed their intellectual faculties and their educational qualifications okay and if you don't allow the teachers this independent this freedom this independent space then they are going to be like you know we've already seen the destruction of school education which is now schools are trying to produce sort of clones you know everything is very standardized you know the evaluation pattern is so standardized questions are completely standardized so students and in India students are not getting the opportunity to develop their original thinking and their intellectual faculties as a result you know the outcome on research also Indian research is declining in quality because of all these things now if this pattern is replicated in higher education then only the worst outcomes can be imagined so as you mentioned all of this we can like conclude this to my last question being that with the commercial subjects coming of self-financing courses coming up what is going to happen to subjects like subjects that are arts you know liberal arts and research as you mentioned because research is not as it's not something that's gonna make money it's not something that it takes time it takes you know you have to sit and study it involves thinking and using your brains and all of the government that they're pushing towards education they're pushing education towards something which will cut out all of this and just focus on something that will profit the big players into making money so what happens to subjects like history literature and people doing research what happens to all of that see as I said that there is already a process of commercialization that has been afoot the ball has been set rolling a long time ago what you see in this present time is a very very aggressive pursuit of commercialization also connected to the ruling party's ideology yeah so I mean you this government has for the first time created a uniform syllabus for all universities at the undergraduate level and now is planning to do it with the postgraduate education also it's unprecedented because you know when we talk about diversity of learning needs every university has been set up either through parliamentary or state level legislation with a certain vision in mind a very specific vision in mind and that vision is also reflected in the kind of courses in the kind of syllabus that universities offer to their students which cannot be uniform but this government has come and said you know it's turned the clock back and created a uniform syllabus that has to be followed by everybody so academic freedom obviously has gone for a toss now what this government is doing that through commercialization it is ensuring that the critical subjects the subjects that really talk about constitutional values civil rights okay subjects that empower a democratic consciousness within students teach them to you know question things those kind of subjects are under attack you rightly pointed out history literature political science sociology the human sciences and the humanities okay that is been the traditional stress now these subjects are being turned towards the market so for instance in Delhi University the history department has been forced to offer a skill based course called history and tourism where history is being reduced to some data that will help in creating tourist brochures and marketing the tourism value of you know historical places monuments and so on and so forth and teachers are being forced to teach that there's also some level of popularity because these subjects then you know are also marketed by promising students jobs employment opportunities well I see I have nothing per se against employment opportunities but to reduce academic subjects into employment generation is I think a very myopic and jaundiced view of education okay and to say that professor kasturi rangan headed this draft policy team I mean it's really sad because I really admire him as a scientist he's got a very high stature but his his draft does not reflect the profundity of thinking that has gone into the making of his own academic career the critical subjects are under attack by first you know not allowing the teachers to frame syllabi for their students secondly by possibly directing these subjects the disciplinary logic of these subjects towards commercially viable kind of things okay in English communication you know functional communication and you know media and PR public relations all this is coming in a big way and beginning to replace the humanity's core that is literature and philosophy and so on and so forth so we can see this happening everywhere in all these and the fallout of course again is going to be therefore conformism you know students are only going to enter a higher education from the point of view of getting jobs in any case if the students themselves are forced to take loans then their primary focus will be on the repayment of loans rather than on focusing on acquiring knowledge critical knowledge and being able able to develop themselves in a holistic manner that's going to be the last priority first priority is going to be getting enrolled in commercially viable courses and getting jobs and paying back your loans so we have in a sense if the draft education policy can be seen as a blueprint for tomorrow's India then we have created an India or we are creating an India of clones and slaves rather than independent minded people so basically our policy is doing the opposite of creating independent thinkers you know people who are trying to enter the academic profession as teachers after doing long years of research as you said getting you know having consistently good academic record now they are they are really frustrated in the public funded institutions especially and because they are not getting jobs they're work they're being forced to work for long years in ad hoc or guest capacity they are not getting jobs they are you know all their life plans are held in suspension it's already a very miserable situation I mean ignoring this situation the draft policy has gone one step further by suggesting that all newly appointed teachers be taken through a five-year probation period five years five years probation period where each year they will be subjected to a 360 degree appraisal which will include you know a peers authorities students parents anybody can say anything against that teacher so you're breaking the backbone of that teacher you're breaking the independence of that teacher and you're subjecting that teacher to so much fear and insecurity we already see because of this continued ad hocism the brightest teachers are having to face so much fear and humiliation in the institutions that they are working they are not able to speak their minds so this five year kind of it's a ten year track model that's again derivative it's derived from the US model it is going to completely destroy the independence of teachers it's making academics of an extremely unattractive profession and as a result we are already beginning to see and we see more of it if this policy is implemented you know we are not going to be able to retain talented people in the in our education system they are all going to go to the foreign universities or or the private universities the public funded universities are not going to be able to retain talent and even like potential people who have talent will not be able to enter the universities because if they do not come from a well-off economic background they will not even be able to enter the sphere of education but I don't think that the government is bothered about that because I know for a fact that many people in the government have stakes in private education system which has been expanding rapidly since 1995 okay some of them are in the boards the of governors of these private universities and colleges so there is a vested interest which makes the government push our education system towards privatization in policy as well as practice terms right so on this point we can conclude this discussion and thank you so much for joining us and we will talk to you more about this as this progresses that's all the time we have for news quick thank you for watching