New NPE urgently required

Ex facie, India’s education system has grown impressively in the post independence period in terms of expansion in the number of schools, colleges and universities, teachers, enrollments, budget allocations, literacy etc. Add to this India’s contributions and achievements in the fields of science and technology with the latest feat being a mission to Mars! And not to forget the pride of place the country’s young scientists and entrepreneurs have earned for themselves in NASA and Silicon Valley.

Nevertheless within academia and among knowledgeable monitors of Indian education, there is unanimity that the system requires serious scrutiny, revaluation and reform. The last National Policy on Education was formulated in 1986 (NPE-1986), and revised in 1992. During the past two decades since then, the tempo of change in education in terms of awareness of the importance of education and near-universal enrollment in primary education has been impressive. But now academics and parents are becoming seriously concerned about the quality of education being dispensed across the spectrum, in the country’s schools, colleges and universities. In particular, the intelligentsia is alarmed about the erosion of values and commitment within the system.

India grudgingly hosts every sixth child in the world. How grudgingly is indicated by the grim statistic that every second child in India suffers moderate to severe malnu-trition. This is not a new discovery, it’s been a reality for several decades. Over 120 million children are receiving free mid-day meals in their schools. But it’s an open secret — except in government — that the world’s largest free mid-day meals scheme suffers bureaucratic apathy, corruption and misman-agement. With 79 percent children in the six-35 months age group suffering from anaemia, it’s no surprise that 40 percent of them drop out of the school system.

Even as highly respected NGOs such as Pratham and CRY routinely confirm these grim statistics and highlight poor student learning outcomes, official response is tepid. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2013 which tracks the learning outcomes of rural primary schools in 567 districts (of India’s 640 districts) indicates that the proportion of class III children in government primaries who can read a class I text has dropped from 46 percent in 2008 to 30 percent last year, and the proportion of class III children who can recognise numbers up to 100 has plunged from 70 to 30 percent.

The latest CRY annual report (2011) states that only 54 percent of India’s children receive full immunisation, and seven of every 1,000 die within one year of birth while education planners turn a blind eye to the reality that 11.8 percent of India’s 480 million children are employed as child labour. In particular, the children of construction workers who migrate from villages with entire families have neither safety nor any provision for schooling, let alone creches and child care centres.

The no-detention policy until class IX — which has back- fired and is under review — mandated by the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009, has compounded the mess in school education. There’s belated awareness within the HRD ministry that it can be implemented only if the teacher-pupil ratio is as per prescribed norms, and teachers are fully and professionally trained. With an estimated 700,000 teacher vacancies countrywide and almost an equal number of para teachers taking classes, attaining the goals of the RTE Act which came into force on April 1, 2010 and is supposed to be fully implemented within three years, has proved impossible.

The situation in higher education is no better. the system of guest lectures and employment of teachers on an ad hoc payment basis has become institutionalised. Most of the country’s 659 universities are reporting 40-60 percent faculty vacancies. Of the 933,000 teachers in higher education, 40 percent are temporary appointments and many of them lack prescribed qualifications. Ill-paid and suffering job insecurity, most of them supplement their low pay by offering private tuition and working in coaching institutions whose number is multiplying. In the circumstances, it is utopian to expect them to conduct research, create knowledge and initiate innovations.

Even in the country’s Central universities, 38 percent of 16,324 sanctioned academic positions are vacant. Little wonder that not one Indian university is ranked within the world’s Top 200 surveyed by QS and Times Higher Education. Further, how can universities excel academically if vice chancellors are political appointees? University autonomy — necessary for academic excellence — is a myth, surviving only on paper.

The list of education issues which require intelligent policy decisions is long. Therefore preparations to set up a National Education Commission must begin in right earnest with its report ready to implement a new NPE, immediately after the 2014 general election. It’s surprising — indeed shocking — that successive administrations at the Centre have consistently neglected the issue of quality education for the world’s largest child and youth population. It brooks no further delay.

(J.S. Rajput is former director of National Council of Educational Research & Training and National Council for Teacher Education)