It’s a telling commentary of how child-centric is Indian society that the new National Policy on Education 2016 (NPE aka NEP) is being formulated after a hiatus of almost three decades. The last NEP formulated for the world’s largest child population was in 1986 and touched up in 1992. Quite obviously, if the pathetic condition of Indian KG-Ph D education is an indicator, it made zero impact. The plain unvarnished truth is that since 1986/92, learning outcomes in pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher education have plumbed new depths.
It’s against this dismal backdrop that a detailed and comprehensive 217-page Report of the Committee for the Evolution of the New Education Policy (2016), commissioned by the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry a year ago and chaired by former Union cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian, was submitted to the HRD ministry on May 28. The Subramanian Committee’s report is commendably child-centric, forthright, and identifies the pain-points and infirmities of the country’s crumbling education system across the spectrum.
Perhaps most important, it reiterates the plea made in the NEPs of 1968 and 1986 to raise the annual outlay (Centre plus states) for education to 6 percent of GDP, as recommended way back in 1966 by the high-powered Kothari Commission. Will the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, which is heavily influenced by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — BJP’s ideological mentor organisation which runs over 17,000 schools countrywide and has its own antiquated education and cultural agenda — accept the liberal, constructive and overdue recommendations of the Subramanian Committee to overhaul and modernise Indian education? That’s the subject matter of the cover story of our 17th Anniversary issue.
To celebrate this important milestone of this sui generis publication, our editorial team has pulled out all the stops. Therefore, the special report feature conceptualised by our managing editor Summiya Yasmeen beams a spotlight on eight novel pedagogies being tried, tested and implemented by pioneer educationists to improve children’s real learning outcomes. In this celebratory issue, we also present an inspiring Eyewitness report and six intelligent essays specially written for the occasion.
Seventeen years ago, we launched this publication with the mission “to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”. As we celebrate 17 years of continuous and uninterrupted publishing, we renew our call to all right-thinking citizens to join the growing national debate and speak up for a substantially better deal for the world’s largest — and arguably most neglected — community of children.
