Shaping an education system for tomorrow
The problem with our education policy is not
just of funding, standards, and more. It’s one of a severe identity crisis
The national policy on education, since
independence, has gone through various acts of commission and omission. Indeed,
for anything to be called a ‘policy’, it has to be formally so stated by an
agency which is charged with the responsibility of framing the document. There
can be no policy by default.
This is not the best place to get into a
chronological narrative of the approach of the Parliament or indeed the Indian
Government towards an ‘education policy’. Education is something on which many
people have some opinion. Therefore, it is not surprising that so many
committees and commissions have been appointed on this subject.
Further, like in many domains, in the field
of education too, post-independence institutions have had a huge shadow of the
British legacy. To begin with, we created a University Grants Commission (UGC),
perhaps for no better reason than that Britain had such an entity. Imitation is
the best form of flattery. But it’s dangerous when it happens blindly in the
domain of knowledge management.
The result of this kind of institutional
framework is not only worrisome, but also pernicious. The distribution of funds
for education have got hugely eschewed. It will be useful to remind ourselves
that education is a concurrent subject. However, the business of granting
recognition for the so-called ‘maintenance of standards’ made the UGC almost
the sole arbiter of the fate of higher education.
When this was put on a base of higher
secondary and secondary education on which the Centre had much less say, the
fit did not quite work out. The response was not clear, though, through some
quirk, the Central Board of Secondary Education finally emerged.
The result is there for all to see.
Examination after examination, sometimes mutually exclusive if not competitive,
dominates the scene. This is besides the competitive entrance tests from
everything — medicine to engineering. Parents are confused, children are
bewildered, and employers at a loss to make sense of all this.
The result is that several employers have
begun installing there own competitive examinations. The series appears
endless. The truth of the matter is that the escape route came — as it always
does — for the resourceful and those who were networked.
Almost every two of three so-called
influential families have their wards studying outside India. Indeed, this
decision had lent them a huge status in many ways: From marriage to employment.
The dream of every Indian mother continues to
be to get a son-in-law or a daughter-in-law who is either placed abroad or is
at least an NRI. From a Government company to a multinational firm operating in
India, a clear pattern of recruitment is discernible.
The effective career path is to float in at a
lateral level with foreign credentials. Well might one ask: To whom does this
country belong? Is it just a pasture for those from outside India?
However, to continue with the narrative on
education, it is not only a problem of funding, standards, intake, focus on
output and more, but one of a severe identity crisis. This is a terrible story
to narrate as few ever seem to attempt a way through it with the political and
the social will it requires.
Hopefully, the national policy on education
should be a canvas to clear much of this confusion. The truth of the matter is:
Every attempt to do a national policy on education has an overlay of a
confusion which is best stated as framed in the statement, ‘Eminence is not
omniscience’.
Somebody may be very distinguished in his
field, but it does not necessarily make him an expert in education too. In
fact, an analysis of the composition of the search committees of key
functionaries of educational bodies such as the All India Council for Technical
Education and others will show that, those who chaired these committees were
members who had little notion of the subject matter of the education domain, or
for that matter, even of the issues.
Casual familiarity with issues of education
cannot be a substitute for a deep scholastic insight into the subject matter.
That can only happen after decades of concentrated development of expertise.
That day is still awaited.
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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