Discontinuing the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, the Congress-led Government of Karnataka (GoK) has committed to evolving its own State Education Policy. It has offered several reasons for this move. One, the NEP does not ensure adequate representation for Karnataka in the curricula. Two, it does not offer a secure space for the country’s pluralism. Three, the previous BJP-led state government as well as the central government did not provide any resources to train faculty for the expanded 4-year undergraduate honours programmes, which showed their non-seriousness about the NEP. The GoK could have added another complaint: the previous government did little to improve the Anganwadi system, showing indifference to a key recommendation of the NEP on early childhood education.
Education is on the Concurrent List and Karnataka, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which have declined to endorse the NEP, is well within its rights to not abide by the NEP. This situation would not have arisen if the NEP had been drafted with the co-participation of all the state governments in India. Unlike the previous NEP in 1986, which had emerged following extensive consultations with the states, the NEP 2020 was the result of a handpicked committee of the central government. Inviting feedback online on the English and Hindi versions of the draft NEP 2020 on the education ministry website hardly counts as adequate public consultation.
In NEP 2020, a section titled, “The vision of this Policy” begins thus: “This National Education Policy envisions an education system rooted in Indian ethos that contributes directly to transforming India, that is Bharat, sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high-quality education to all, and thereby making India a global knowledge superpower.”
Since viewing education as a power game between countries is truly alien to the Indian ethos, the claim of building an education system “rooted in the Indian ethos” invites concern about how this ethos is being viewed by the makers of the NEP. The NEP does not spell out anywhere what its view of Indian ethos is.
The GoK is therefore justified in its caution about how an education system rooted in an unspecified idea will be implemented. Will it become a pretext for pushing the culture of the dominant community through the education system? Will it become an exercise for showing how several religious, sectarian, caste and tribal communities have shaped the making of the Indian ethos? In the absence of a clear spelling out, it is essential to put in place safeguards against the imposition of a majoritarian culture in the education system.
This aim will not seem an overreaction when seen alongside a sentence like this in the NEP: “Sanskrit will be mainstreamed with strong offerings in school -- including as one of the language options in the three-language formula -- as well as in higher education.” No one can doubt the value of Sanskrit for a proper understanding of India’s philosophical and literary culture, but the wish to “mainstream” it through a three-language formula sets off justified fears about what that seeks to achieve.
Other reasons also shore up the scepticism towards the NEP. Apart from a mechanical repetition of the long-held goal that 6% of India’s GDP be spent on education, it does not offer a clear commitment anywhere to safeguarding the public education system in the country. Indeed, its suggestion that government-run educational institutions reach out to private philanthropy for support amplifies the suspicion.
Listed among “the fundamental principles that will guide both the education system at large…”, the aim of fostering “creativity and critical thinking to encourage logical decision-making and innovation” can be meaningfully pursued only when the government is committed to protecting intellectual freedom on school and university campuses. In the absence of a clear government commitment, regardless of which party is running it, to protect the freedom of thought and discussion, such an aim hangs helplessly in the NEP.
Practical difficulties of transitioning to a new system abound. For instance: How are credits of students transferring across educational institutions to be judged when there is so much unevenness between institutions with respect to their training methods and quality of teaching?
The NEP has shown sensitivity to the needs of differently-abled students and to the value of education in Indian languages and to evolve curricula that do not alienate tribal communities, to name a few of its laudable aims. It has also shown a welcome keenness in offering flexibility in the choice of courses in colleges and in enriching the learning experience through novel pedagogic methods. In the absence of accompanying foundational safeguards pertaining to the pluralistic and democratic traditions of India, however, it is amazing that the NEP expected to run unnoticed in a living federal democracy.