 Welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to discuss about the philosophy behind the evolution of education policy. We have with us Dr. L. Jahawardnesan, a person who had travelled with people especially with the working class and he was able to understand the social issues and he is coming out with his own philosophy that he has derived from the society and he is linking that with the draft National Education Policy 2019. We will speak to him, let him share his views. It's really nice having you here. Thank you. After you have come out with your fresh book in search of education, we are all travelling together in searching what education is. Many people think literacy is education and they see if they are not literate we say they are not educated. Now you have come out with a title in search of education. What really made you write this or what motivated you? What was the issues that provoked you in bringing out this book? Yeah, it's a good question. The problem is, it's a long pending quest inside me. I have been travelling across the world and living in different academic settings and involved with different societal discourses which deals with education and where I found that what is education when it comes to the Indian societal settings and Indian conditions has been the question driving me for a long time. So this had tempted me to attempt into finding what education is about and I always had a contention that education without taking into consideration the kind of society and conditions that the society is facing then it cannot serve the educational service. So that means that there was a confrontation and conflict that always observed between the way in which education has been addressed in India and the kind of society that is prevalent for the past several thousand years and especially in recent times it is heading towards a more segregated kind of society. More and more segregation and divisions and disparities are going ahead. I found that education is not doing its enough job. Then I thought that there must be a solution with respect to the Indian condition and the society that we have in India that education must address. So eventually when I was looking and previewing and investigating these matters within myself for a long number of years suddenly this policy came up. The draft policy, the draft national education policy came up and that triggered me that this is the time that I must step into it and then tell this nation that what education is about and also the policy makers, law makers and the citizens of this country as to what education is about and how education has to be handled in the kind of the society, the social structure that we have, the social conditions, economic conditions that we have in India. So that is the main reason. You are very right. I remember last year a 13-year-old girl, Rajalakshmi, she was beheaded inside her house and head was carried on the streets by the perpetrator. Entire Tamil Nadu was silent. Our own school, our own teachers and our own classmates, they not even moaned at it, not condemning it. So that is the social discrimination that we have and the reason for beheading her head is that she questioned her neighbor and the neighbor asked her, you born in this community? The girl belonged to a Dalit community and the question before slitting her head, the question that was put by that person was you born in this community? You dare to question me? So if somebody were born in some other community, they can question but the person who is born in this community cannot question. That is what we were able to understand. So that is the society. A 13-year-old girl, she was studying 8th standard Tamil medium in a government school and what she did is that what was in the text. The text said that you have a pope so act, which says that somebody comes and touches you. You don't feel that, you can react. She reacted, she did what the textbook told her to do and that is the ground reality. Do you feel that draft national education policy is trying to democratize the society? It is trying to help the people understand what education is about or what actually the draft policy is trying to do? I think that you answered yourself. Actually, I have to just build on the question. The question itself that you asked me has answered itself that the girl who was beheaded has been prevented from questioning the facts or issues that confront her. So that means what? So that means this kind of the education. I see education is not to be confined within four walls. Education is naturally as a social function is there in the society and the society has to have an informal question and questions and challenges to be answered itself. So that means the society directly or indirectly is involved in searching solutions, in searching truths through a kind of a social learning. That is what a natural education as a social function is embedded there in the society. So that means both the formal education and the kind of an informal education that the society imbibes itself has been facing in this country that do what I say. There is a state of mind created by the people in this country and they are going to tell both the students as well as the society that you please talk and do what I say. So this is the state of mind that you should assume and you should not question. So that means that criticality in the thought process is prevented or blocked. So that means that the draft policy in its entire 484 pages it never ever talk about the society structure, the kind of a critical self-reflective attitude that a learner has to imbibe. So it is not even saying how education could be used to solve the social problems that this country is facing. I mean the social problem is the caste in equal unequal and democratic society that we have which is the menace that prevented this country to prosper in many ways. So if anyone involves in drafting a policy or giving some solutions to education in this country it cannot go without considering the societal structure that we have and without democratizing the society we cannot go but the society, the national education policy, draft policy doesn't even have one word in its entire document. I feel you are very correct. It's not only talking about that. They don't recognize that such an issue is there. But what they talk in the draft policy is that today's market demands skilled labor and this current education system does not produce skilled person for the market. Their worry is that the people come out of school, come out of college, come out of university. They just hold a degree. They do not have any skills. And now what we are going to do is that we are going to introduce occasional training. They say no hard separation between occasion and academic stream. How do you look at this? Just killing people will help the individual as well as the society or it is going to serve only the market. At the outset I would like to say that this draft education policy is trying to impose the aspirations of the society, the unequal society, hierarchically degraded unequal society and the neoliberal social order. The neoliberal social order is the one that is based on the consumer economy and market driven economy. So the market is playing a vital role nowadays. It is brought into the society's centre point and it is trying to inculcate its attitude, its culture, its aggressive attitudes that it wants to and that is the way that it expects education to follow the suit. So that means education has to be like focusing more on the technicalities satisfying the demands of the market. So that means they expect only the students to be extended machines to just act like an extended machine and the students or learners should not think beyond that and acquire the skills needed by the corporate bodies, business sectors and the market. So that means that it is like a tuition centre, it is like a coaching centre, it is not the place where students are allowed to think and act. It is not the place where the students are allowed to reflect upon the conditions, the challenges and the questions that they face in their career or in their life or the society's life. So that means that what this country, this education policy is asking us to do is to just simply focus on the skills required by the corporate bodies like Ambanis and things and just stop, period, that's it. You don't go beyond that. On the other hand, the social structure, the mindset of the requirements of the super speciality, specially cultivated class of the society which is at the helm of the affairs of the society at the top. So that means that it is trying to inculcate mainly the desirable goals and aspirations of these two major menaces facing this country. So that is the reason because education is a kind of platform where we can use social learning to inculcate or intoxicate or induct in it the ideologies, the ideals of the social liberal mechanisms and ideals of the caste system mechanisms. So the way they have portrayed the Indian centric education, the Indian pride are fostering mainly the ideals of the specially cultivated class on one hand and on the other hand it is fostering the neoliberal social order thirst. So that means that these are all the things that they want to inculcate through a social learning into the classrooms and make the people or students, the future adults into their kind of a citizens. So the citizenry that this education is going to create is not going to be the kind of a society or kind of people or citizens that this country deserve for, but only to serve the needs of those at the helm of the affairs. So that is the reason I outright, it should reject because it doesn't have any relevance to the society or the kind of problems and conditions, social conditions, economic conditions this country faces.