NEP 2020- Aiming for the skies, but flying without wings?
For a 17-year-old, Suraj leads an extremely busy life- After school ends in the afternoon, he heads to a local NGO to work as a Youth Leader, following which he heads to his father’s shop to help around for a few hours in the evening. By the time he gets home, he struggles to complete his home-work and is worried that he may not have the time to prepare for his grade 12 exams next year, which can have life-altering consequences. When I spoke to him last in July, Suraj was also anxious to tell his parents that he isn’t interested in relocating to their village in Bihar next year as was the family plan because he wants to further pursue his BA in Lucknow and sees no real academic opportunities in his village.
The NEP (National Education Policy) 2020 that was the object of much attention only a few weeks ago, will be an important policy for someone like Suraj who is representative of the bulk of the student population in India. They migrate for better access to educational infrastructure, have to balance their studies with some form of labour in order to supplement their family income and feel an immense burden of performing well academically in the existing extremely competitive exam set-up that determines the worth of students across the country.
Firstly, it needs to be clarified that the NEP 2020 is no way binding as a law that has to be imposed across the country after a particular date. Rather, it acts as broad set of reforms that set out the vision of transforming the purpose of education in India, which can only be successfully implemented in collaboration with different State governments. As a result, several key elements that you would expect from a policy report, such as specific funding budgets for specific outcomes, are missing from the NEP 2020.
Moving from ‘what to learn’ to ‘how to learn’- Pedagogical transformation
The reforms aim at a complete over-haul of the learning process for students, re-orienting education to focus on learning objectives, rather than learning outcomes. We all have stressful memories of having to rote-learn copious amounts of notes that we either fail to understand or cannot relate to, especially in the lead-up to important exams. The NEP wishes to change this results-oriented attitude most students and parents have towards schooling, in two ways. Firstly, by reducing curriculum content to allow more space for both teachers and students to engage in critical and creative approaches towards learning. For many students, this enables them to develop other interests and hobbies in a more holistic manner and most importantly, shifts their entire self-worth away from academic results.
Secondly, the policy acknowledges the toxic impact of coaching class culture on students who are preparing for different types of exams across the country. By introducing more ‘formative-style’ assessments that would be spread out at various points rather than just after the 10th and 12th grades, students are allowed to learn in a less pressurised environment (this would be introduced under the new 5+3+3+4 model). If we consider students like Suraj, who struggle to find time to study, let alone afford often expensive coaching classes that give others an edge, these reforms make the school system a lot more of an equal level playing-field.
Focusing on Diversity and Inclusion
The NEP dedicates an entire chapter towards improving the accessibility of education for those coming from Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs), which builds on its vision to make schools more inclusive and diverse than they currently are, despite over 50 years of different forms of reservations for those from marginalised communities. To address the lack of adequate progress in this area, State governments are encouraged to identify regions where enrolment rates are extremely low and create ‘Special Education Zones’ (SEZs), where schools have to identify special needs of the population. This is a welcome move towards more specialised focus on the needs of marginalised communities which can increase their access to skills and capital that is so necessary for social mobility.
Girls struggle to stay enrolled in schools due to various social factors, despite many schemes aimed at easing the financial burden that may deter them from continuing their schooling. The NEP recognises these large gaps and introduced a Gender Inclusion Fund for States to improve infrastructure that is currently lacking and thus preventing both girls and transgender students from accessing schooling. This involves very simple yet practical suggestions, such as providing bicycles and building toilets so that these students feel safer while exercising their fundamental right to being educated. In regions where a lack of transportation could be the dominant fear that hinders parents from continuing the education of their daughters, such inexpensive steps can reap huge benefits in the long-run.
Building on schools for improved curriculum
Another larger goal that the NEP envisions is universal education through the investment in physical infrastructure. Most government schools are unsafe for students to study in due to weak structures, lack of toilets, unhygienic learning spaces, etc. In addition, there are simply too many schools that crop up regularly with an inadequate number of students and severely understaffed. In fact, the primary school Suraj studied in while in Lucknow, had only 40 students across 5 grades and 2 teachers to cover a range of subjects! These poor learning environments can hinder children’s interest in attending school despite having the most committed educators around. The NEP suggests the creation of ’school complexes’ to address this dual problem of poor physical infrastructure and a multitude of such schools not serving their purpose in close proximity to one another. A school complex will enable sharing of resources amongst smaller schools in a locality, especially for subjects such as arts or sports, which are not a priority in poorly funded schools anyway. The document shows a commitment to invest more in improving the most basic requirements to create a ‘safe’ learning environment, in the most literal sense of the term.
Is it all too good to be true?
When it comes to such large-scale and ambitious policy reforms, it’s easy to get quickly excited given how as a nation, our institutions are extremely slow to change. However, the most common worry that plagues experts in the field of education and its practitioners, is the lack of concrete timelines and funding proposals in several of the recommendations. This is a serious concern given that the policy has several progressive reforms, yet very little inputs on how States are expected to go about their implementation process.
Another glaring area of concern are the contradictions within the recommendations themselves, which sometimes gives the impression that the policy aims at appearing progressive without much thought to the practical dimensions of how to enable such drastic transformation. Reading the 66-page document at times lead to frustration- there are repeated references to phrases such as ‘multi-disciplinary, holistic, inclusive,’ as well as long lists of additional skills and subjects school teachers should integrate into their pedagogy, such as ‘Indian knowledge systems,’ yoga, Adivasi culture, 21st century life skills, etc.’ A lack of a concrete framework on how to expand the current focus of learning places the onus on teachers, most of whom are already struggling to complete existing syllabus and paying attention to those who are lagging behind in the classrooms. If the overall aim is to reduce content, these additional suggestions seem like mere replacements of subject matter which may not contribute to the expansion of knowledge for children, but rather become just another subject that children have to rote-learn for an exam.
While the over-arching mission of these reforms is to create more inclusive classrooms that address the needs of minority groups, certain recommendations seem tone-deaf in this aspect, although they may be well-intentioned. For instance, presenting vocational courses as a ‘fun choice’ for holiday internships, seem to be catering to those children coming from socio-economic groups where engaging in such trades can seem like a choice and not a social imposition or a means of supplementing family income. By aiming to introduce dignity of labour as a concept among children, it is easy to imagine how this recommendation can be misused to exclude children who are already disadvantaged from access to a holistic education, especially since the responsibility of execution rests on ‘States and local communities and as mapped by local skilling needs’. This could also risk further legitimising child labour within the guise of providing all-round development for students.
“Only vision, no rules”- What’s missing in the NEP?
Several state governments have voiced immense frustration in the lack of clarity in how to produce a safe learning environment with the basic infrastructure that is required to implement these ambitious reforms. The Minister of Education for the Delhi AAP government, Manish Sisodia commented that the NEP is a “poorly-funded” education model that is “only visions, no rules”.
This criticism arises from valid concern about how states are supposed to magically transform their education systems based on lofty recommendations. For instance, the NEP makes repeated references to introducing digital technology-based education, introducing AI- based report card systems through which parents can access their children’s progress online and encourages teachers to integrate digital technology into their classrooms. This appears to be mere pandering to current global trends in a country where the digital divide is rampant and most schools lack fundamental infrastructure to enable students to even learn in the traditional way. In this context, despite the establishment of a separate body (National Education Technology Forum) for monitoring the uses of education softwares and digital learning platforms, there is no information or practical incentives on how these can be beneficial to students at a pedagogical level. Once again, while the NEP elevates the levels of learning, it leaves many doubtful on how to bridge the gap.
In a similar vein, the reforms suggest more rigorous training and testing for teachers across their careers that will aid them in learning newer pedagogies themselves. This includes a 4-year B.Ed programme that will become the normalised route to a teaching job by the year 2030, which will include training aspiring educators on the basis of these reforms. However, there is no mention of who will sponsor this expensive exercise of training experienced educators on how to adapt their methods of teaching to fit the new standards of testing or teaching. There is also no mention about the dismal student-teacher ratio that needs to be addressed, without which no amount of improved learning material is affective if the teachers are burdened already.
Implementation is key
The NEP is impressively ambitious and forward-looking, to say the least- it aims at introducing an entire paradigm shift in the way children and students are taught in this country. In this attempt, it also has several grey areas and education practitioners worry that it could be counter-productive by potentially creating a more exclusionary learning environment. The underlying flaws of our education system have been identified and alternatives that are urgently required have been suggested, what is most evidently missing are the routes to make these transitions.
However, while giving it the benefit of the doubt, certain proposals need to be celebrated in a highly-flawed and outdated system that leaves behind millions of Indians at a chance of socio-economic mobility. The way forward is to be cautious and hopeful, while also holding the Central and State government accountable to deliver on these promises.