One year of NEP2020

On July 29, 2020, the Union Cabinet approved the National Education Policy (NEP2020) ushering in a new chapter in education reforms in the country. Since the English Education Act of 1835, India has seen nearly 20 reports on education reforms including two post-independence education policies of 1968 and 1984. NEP2020 is special for it discards an incremental approach and envisions a complete transformation of Indian education system. It proposes a comprehensive framework for education sector with an aim to make India a global knowledge centre by 2040.

The main feature of NEP2020 is that it recognises the strong connection between education and economic growth, and emphasises on capacity building for 21st century. This is not surprising since the policy has come into force when India has entered the period of demographic dividend, which is going to last until 2055. Such periods are marked by rapid economic development as was experienced by Japan, China, South Korea and Singapore. Consequently, the policy makes a strong pitch for skill development, quality education, employability, entrepreneurship, development of disruptive technologies and global benchmarks.

The big picture developed in the policy has several layers of reforms. Integration of vocational education across the education system and demanding at least 50% learners to have vocational education is a significant intervention. The policy also acknowledges the importance of Indian arts and crafts in vocational training. This inclusion provides opportunities for the preservation of indigenous skills and development of local entrepreneurship. Establishment of National Research Foundation for initiating and expanding research in disruptive technologies is a big ticket idea. Re-imagining agricultural education through skilled graduates, technicians, research, market based extension linked technologies and agro-parks is a way forward to enhance the contribution of agriculture to GDP. The other layers described in the policy such as internship with industry and research organisations, greater industry-academia interaction, skill labs, incubation and technology development centres have been talked about for over two decades, but have not yielded significant results. It is now time for the education sector to engage purposefully in these endeavours. Paul Romer, the Economics 2018 Nobel Laureate, said, “At the basic level an economy grows whenever people take resources and rearrange them in a way that makes them more valuable.” We need to engage our students with the real world and empower them with skills to ‘rearrange’ the available resources.

The key is a multidisciplinary education which includes exposure to aspects such as environment, humanities and art; and tailored to individual needs as far as possible. The policy advocates imaginative and flexible curricular structure with creative combinations of disciplines with quality benchmarks. It further makes a case for moving away from high-stakes examinations to continuous and comprehensive evaluation. These reforms are crucial and should be taken on board at the earliest. The rigid and compartmentalised structure and thinking of our education system has caused significant damage to the learning outcomes over the years. Albert Einstein had said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

NEP2020 has proposed a fast-paced action plan for realising these intents. It is now time to assess the outcomes of the policy in one year since its commencement. The progress achieved in the higher education sector is taken here for case study. In this context, it is worth mentioning the efforts of IIT-Bombay in restructuring course structure of engineering programmes. This reformation is based on four pillars:

Engineering courses with contemporary relevance, Elective courses to empower students to choose a career path, Courses in humanities, arts, economics, management, entrepreneurship and design for better understanding of societal needs, and Global benchmarking with emphasis on Indian context. The courses will have a mix of analysis and synthesis, and the learning outcome will be assessed based on end product in the form of design, product or at least a term paper.

Mention may also be made to the Grassroots Innovation Programme of IIT Delhi, which is aimed at student’s projects on finding novel solutions to the societal problems. IIT Kanpur has launched technology innovation hub for cutting edge technology in cyber security. Very recently, Department of Science & Technology and GE India have entered into a collaboration for advanced technology research in areas of energy, healthcare and aviation. This initiative will build synergy between academic institutes, national labs and industry. The NPTEL programme mentored by IITS and IISc now offers over 500 online courses and the recent additions have been areas of electrical vehicles and renewable energy, IoT and business & sustainable development.

While the IIT system is rapidly moving in the direction outlined in NEP2020, the pace of change in the university system is rather slow. The policy recommendations are best suited for unitary higher education system, rather than for affiliating university system. Consequently, the policy advocates dismantling of the affiliating structure in a phased out manner to create independent multidisciplinary institutes and degree awarding colleges. This is going to be a difficult transition for university systems and without which the reforms of NEP2020 cannot be fully implemented. The framework for this transition is based on the accreditation benchmarks and autonomy. A survey carried out by the author shows that even in the progressive state of Maharashtra, <30% colleges are NAAC accredited and <10% have secured A grade or above. Only the A-grade colleges can be granted autonomy and further developed into multidisciplinary unitary institutes. It is a mammoth task ahead for the university system.

It must also be recognised that the implementation of NEP2020 is fairly obvious for technical and professional institutes. In India, the enrolment of students in various BA courses is disproportionately high. For example, in the academic year 2019-20, nearly 20.2 lakh students passed with BA degree. In order to bring such degrees under the fold of skill education, a large number of skill based and job ready courses will be needed. Some pertinent skill courses listed in NEP2020 are programmes in translation, interpretation, and art and museum administration. This basket needs to be expanded many fold to integrate a large section of students in the socioeconomic development.

The learning community based change force relies on shared core principles, ideals and goals regarding teaching and learning, and a strong commitment to put these into practice for the common good. The principal requirement for this force is a critical mass of like-minded committed teachers. Today, we need to invoke this learning community based change force for long lasting changes in our education system, as anticipated by NEP2020.

At the end of the day, education is all about teachers.

THE BIG PICTURE DEVELOPED IN THE POLICY HAS SEVERAL LAYERS OF REFORMS

The author, B.N. Jagatap, is a senior professor at Indian

Institute of Technology, Bombay and co-author of the book, ‘Reengineering Higher Education in Maharashtra’ (2019)