• Dr. Aditya Narayan Misra

Union government’s hasty push for imposing New Education Policy-NEP2020, during the time of the pandemic, raises more questions than answers. Despite the significance of the move for the future generations in the country and for the overall education sector, the government did not deem it fit to consult the concerned sections of academia and unilaterally decided on the matter of such national importance. The Parliament too has been bypassed on this issue, which will have debilitating effect on its legitimacy. After reading the government documents of NEP 2020 carefully, we get a clear picture of how it is a larger assault on the public-funded higher education unleashed by the present government. Therefore, it becomes pertinent to discuss the adverse effects of NEP on the higher education in India.

In many ways, NEP is in continuation to the present government’s policy of selling public institutions such created and nurtured by the successive Congress Governments such as Indian Railway, ONGC, LIC, etc. to the private hands. When youth in India needs extensive infrastructure in public funded higher education, NEP seeks to withdraw already available avenues from them. In its present form, the NEP will pave the way for several disastrous consequences for the students coming from middle and poorer sections of the society and take away their right to education and make it a privilege of the few. It would also have a devastating effect on the teachers and their working conditions.

The irony of policymaking in ‘man kibaat’ era of India is that it never consults and discusses the policy with the section of society who is supposed to get affected by the policy design the most. New Education Policy (NPE) 2020 of the government is not any exception in this. The government claimed that they got more than two lakh feedbacks on the draft of the New Education Policy (2019) which they included in the final draft of NEP 2020. However, it is not clear who were the people who gave these feedbacks. Did the government discuss the policy with several important stockholders of the education system such as teachers’ associations or constitutional bodies of universities like the academic and executive councils? Opinion of Teachers and Students of a particular organization does not represent the entire opinion of academia.

NEP 2020 sounds very high on symbolism using suitable jargons here and there, but substantive lacunae expose the hollowness to be exploited for the ideological propaganda on the one hand and by the private players for profiteering on the other hand. For instance, NEP seeks to double the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in merely fourteen years, but the budget expenditure on the education has been declining in the real terms during BJP/NDA government. In the union budget 2018 allocation of UGC declined from 4923cr in 2017 to 4723cr in 2018-19. In this budget the government has further strengthened the privatisation of Higher education especially after the proposal to launch ‘Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022’ with a total investment of Rs. 1,00,000 crores in next four years. This is a kind of investment to generate profitable return from the higher education sector.

The Union Budget 2018 further mentioned that the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) would be suitably structured for funding the RISE initiative. This shows the resolve of the BJP government to move from grant based to loan based higher education, which will shift the financial burden to the people.

The way online education is being promoted in the name of lockdowns, the scenario starts emerging which will be high on statistics and low on substance. GER will be shown to be achieved through a non-contact, non- interactive online teaching programme where quality and rigour are highly compromised. The online programmes as add ons are helpful to those who are already educated in their fields. This would result in a loss of the value of degrees and their demands.

UGC Draft Regulations for Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) is a very concrete step towards privatisation and contractualisation as envisaged in NEP 2020.The inbuilt floating workload arising from multiple entry/exit with credit points and imposing online courses, MOOCs-SWYAM-V-Lab are design to make faculty-free, i.e. shikshak-mukt University and colleges. The provision for Bachelor of Liberal Education with 100% credit in ODL mode can dispense degrees, and not the education. The hiring of Guest faculty as recently seen in case of Allahabad University will become a norm in days to come.ACB will help the private players to pocket the profit and shifting the burden to public universities. The Institution opted for ABC scheme would be punished by its withdrawal if they could not retain A grade in NAAC accreditation.

As a part of NEP 2020, The UGC public notice dated May 20, 2021, wherein “ it was decided that HEI’s should be allowed to teach up to 40% of the syllabus of each course other than SWAYAM through the online mode...”, will result in 40% of the existing course reduction and will further result in making 40% of the existing workload as surplus and ouster of 40% of the teaching strength. The UPA government opened the gates of higher education institutions for socially and economically weaker sections of the students under the OBC expansion plan, but this blended mode will provide them a sub-standard education.

The call for increase in hands on and practical education does not go well with the emphasis on virtual labs through online platforms. It’s like learning swimming in a virtual lab to save someone’s life by jumping into a river or sea where the online educated swimmer may lose his own life. Which industry or hospital would employ such an online educated lot? They are bound to be a part of the GER statistics and nothing else because the govt. has also declared not to publish the data of unemployment.

Rule of BOGs is road to Privatisation and Profit-making NEP 2020 provides that a Board of Governors (BoG) shall be established for each HEI after receiving the appropriate accreditations. The document uses high sounding phrases like ‘consisting of a group of highly qualified, competent, and dedicated individuals having proven capabilities and a strong sense of commitment to the institution’ but makes it a nominated body. On the basis of the experience with the present government, it can be said that basis of nominations will be partisan extra-academic considerations. New members of the Board shall be identified by an expert committee appointed by the Board; and the selection of new members shall be carried out by the BoG itself. Equity considerations have found very generic mention without giving specific details. All HEIs will be incentivized, supported, and mentored during this process, and shall aim to become autonomous and have such an empowered BoG by 2035.

NEP claims that the BoG of each institution will be empowered to govern the institution free of any political or external interference, which will be very difficult with nominated members without any statutory basis. How can such a body be impartial in making all appointments including that of head of the institution, and taking decisions regarding governance? The statutory bases of the present-day public universities will be replaced by an overarching legislation providing for constitution, appointment, modalities of functioning, rules & regulations and the roles and responsibilities of the BoG. Further, this BoG will frame the rules for tenure track appointments, long probation period, fast track promotion and variable Salary.

BoG is a ploy to hand over the public funded higher education institutions to private players in the garb of autonomy. Autocracy of govt. /party representatives is sought to be projected as autonomy of all-powerful, self-perpetuating BOGs which can fix the fees at will, hire, fire or promote or demote without any accountability to the elected components of the academia or civil society. The emerging scenario under NEP is extending Gujarat model over entire nation in which the privatisation of public sector higher education will be done by granting Graded Autonomy with Board of Governors imparting online education and ODL programmes.

It is quite alarming for a society like ours, which aspires to become a knowledge society. Freedom will be replaced by the dictates of the ruling party and financial sharks. A ground is being prepared to outsource the education for the masses to private industrial houses and third rate foreign academic bodies, where (among masses) a class divide is visible between those who can pay and who can’t pay. The ones who can’t pay will go for cheaper online courses to fall in the trap of unemployability. While middle-class would shuttle between the two, only to realise that it has fallen into a twenty to thirty years debt-trap in its pursuit of quality education.

The sure casualties of this regressive NEP are going to be girl students, socially and economically weaker sections across the length and breadth of our vast country. This education policy is really new because in its enthusiasm for a wholesale and primitive privatization, it has decided to take down the massive structure of our public-funded education through. The future generations would remember its depriving impact as the withdrawal of public funding would also collaterally push the entire country into a downward spiral of debt and deprivation.

Thus, NEP with twin pillars of privatization and contractualisation is ready to eat away the very basic character of our education system, which evolved as per the vision of Gandhi-Nehru to bring social change and ensure social justice. It is at great variance with the values which the freedom struggle and our founding fathers have bestowed on us. The government propaganda around NEP must be exposed by taking the message to masses and channelizing the discontent against it across campuses.

(The author is the former President of Federation of Central Universities Teachers’ Association and Delhi University Teachers’ Association)