NEP 2020: 'Revolutionary' changes envisaged in higher education

The New Education Policy 2020 (NEP) by the committee headed by K. Kasturirangan committee is a much-awaited and needed policy voicing the national and educational aspirations of the country. The last NEP was released in the year 1986, followed by a POA in 1992. Since then the concerns of education have been dealt with by various committees or through five-year plans, but the vacuum remained. The new education policy laments less on the existing concerns in higher education but seeks to respond at the structural, aspirational and ideological level. It does not situate the conversation in the existing discourse on quality, access or equity in higher education. In fact, it projects quality in education as a given and as a right of every learner and recognises education as a service.

The policy stands out for the revolutionary structural reforms suggested at the higher educational level promoting a flexible three or four years degree programme structure at the undergraduate level, accommodating multiple exits to learners. Exit after one year of education would result in certification, two years would lead to a diploma and three years and above would lead to a Bachelor’s degree. The degrees will be assigned based on credit attained, stored in an Academic Bank of Credits, a novel addition. While the concept of multiple exits is an important step towards reducing dropouts without a degree or certification, a question mark might remain on the value of such certifications or diplomas. This is a concern that is currently manifesting in vocational education considering degrees and job prospects are still closely associated in the Indian psyche, even with the experience of diminishing returns on higher education and educated unemployability.

The policy attempts to depart from the current and conventional model of three-year undergraduate programmes and accords preference to the four-year model, inculcating a research component at the undergraduate level which will lead to a degree with research by the completion of the degree. Traditionally, research has been a reserve of postgraduate education in the country. The four-year model allows one to pursue a PhD right after graduation. This, along with the discontinuation of the two-year MPhil programme, may give impetus to the number of students who opt for Doctoral programmes in the country, which is abysmally low at 0.5% as per AISHE report 2019. The flexibility accorded to undergraduate programmes extends to Master’s programmes as well, with a combination of one year and two-year programmes depending on the length of undergraduate education undertaken by a learner.

The recommendation on including subject-specific teaching-education-pedagogy courses across disciplines for doctoral students is commendable considering the lack of formal training and orientation towards pedagogy and andragogy in the existing framework of teacher education, which focusses on training teachers for school and largely excludes pedagogy and practice at the higher education level. With multiple exits and flexibility at the structural level of the Bachelor’s, Master’s programmes, the curriculum design will have to be flexible and organic to ensure that it responds to the need of foundational and higher-order thinking and skill inculcation at different levels of education. Accordingly, the policy moots for higher autonomy for teachers in the curriculum, up-gradation and pedagogical innovations.

Another major reform envisaged in the new NEP is the bifurcation of universities under three categories— research-intensive universities, teaching-intensive universities and degree-granting colleges that provide undergraduate degrees. It locates research as an important activity that should be undertaken by all types of universities, though in varying degrees. In the context of research, the policy makes an important declaration in the establishment of National Research Foundation, that would fund peer-review journals and institutional research projects.

The policy views universities as multi-disciplinary institutions and suggests gradual phasing out of single-disciplinary institutions, which have been a regulatory nightmare and have adversely impacted quality in Higher Education. It emphasises on a multidisciplinary, broad-based, liberal education where rigid binaries of sciences and arts collapse in the pursuit of knowledge and learning, particularly in higher education, reclaiming Liberal Arts as Indian tradition of education, followed today in the western framework. To this extent, the policy suggests turning IITs to multi-disciplinary institutions offering courses beyond engineering.

The policy suggests increasing the number of higher education institutions. Each district must have at least one higher education institution, particularly in states and remote regions that have a dearth of higher education institutions. NEP 2020 recognizes the role of private providers of education in attaining the educational and national goals of the country, with suggestions to encourage private universities to offer increased scholarships. It does not suggest how this may be achieved. It mentions ‘public philanthropy partnership’ model to enhance access to higher education and advocates increased investment in higher education, like its policy predecessors, including the Kothari Commission’s recommendation of 6% of GDP investment in education. The policy indicates the need for and continuance of greater public funding in higher education, which does not speak to the current realities.

The policy strives to streamline the various regulatory bodies under the Higher Education Commission of India as an apex body overseeing regulation, accreditation, funding, and academic standards through four main regulatory bodies — the National Higher Education Regulatory Framework Council (NHERC), National Accreditation Council (NAC); a meta accrediting body, Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC); a funding and financing body, and General Education Grants Council (GEC), responsible for framing expected learning outcomes of various higher education programmes along with existing discipline-specific regulatory bodies. As the policy also suggests, such adjustment calls for existing bodies to undergo an evolution.

While highlighting ‘light but tight’ regulatory model, it suggests the need to ease the regulatory regime in setting up of new HEIs and moots for a broad yet uniform regulatory system for both private and public institutions. To ensure the ‘not for profit’ nature of Higher Education Institutions and curbing commercialisation the policy moots for constituting transparent mechanism in determining fees, reinvesting surpluses in education, and public disclosure of grievance handling and financial status of HEIs.

This policy is aspirational and broad-based. It recognized the devaluation of online degrees and vocational courses and seeks to uplift them. It does not fill pages on existing realities of quality, equity and access but strives to move beyond the public-private binaries in the provisions for education. It calls for an overhaul of the higher education system in India, offers partnerships and makes recommendations to attain transparency to build an environment of trust. How it unfolds remains to be seen.

(The writer is Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School)