Prakash Kumar

You must question why government choose to stir the hornet nest and do educational reforms in bulk when all ministries instead should be better assigned to one task & that is to have eagle eye focus to help its hapless citizens brave the pandemic. The priorities however appears highly misplaced.

Conspiracy theory will be thoroughly justified in suggesting that administration is possibly suppressing wide spread dissent to its “new education policy” (NEP) maneuvers because of prevailing situation when it is not safe to assemble in public and complain.

If NEP does have merits, which author believes it has few, let normalcy return first and institutions open up before we let the cat of the bag. Let’s also follow established parliamentary procedures and put NEP up for debate in houses of Parliament and deliberate its merit & deficiencies threadbare. It is especially important to iron out its deficiencies through consensus first before going for implementation. It however appears that administration is in haste to implement NEP.

Pan India Implementation of NEP in current form will lead to confusion and chaos. In a Country as big a size of India, big changes can only happen through small steps. One at a time. If we rush implementation w/out fixing its shortcoming we are looking at a possible nightmare situation.

My take on NEP strictly in terms of context is that at the onset, it appears progressive and is likely a step in right direction. It does however throw several challenges in terms of its viability and application to an Indian educational eco-system. Most of the facets of NEP appears to be taken directly from a western (mostly US) education system, which has established credentials but not all of them can be lift and shift migrated to India.

Regardless of details execution will be the key in a Country as big as size of India & unless every State (especially non-BJP run State) were consulted in framing up this policy which appears unlikely, this change will be highly disruptive.

On the sensitive topic of autonomous status of Institution which must be protected at all cost, administration must come up clean or else we are looking at a nation wide protest regarding ownership, funding and accountability leading to logjam & possibly arson. One thing worth welcome is ~4x jump in State funding. Thus suggest that administration is serious on educational reforms.

Launching the change from primary to university level all at once will have its unpleasant surprises (consequences) and it will be extremely hazardous to say the least. Personally, I would say that it would have made better sense to do small incremental changes and possibly launch a pilot for some choosen boards (or State) and check the pulse.

BJP however is a party which has a propensity to go for pompous big launches would have probably like to play with this fire and just see how it pan out for them. This approach might back fire on them.

Pilot launch would have given the necessary flexibility to parents and students to opt out of NEP and stayed with the existing system, if they had unsettled grievances or if they are not yet convinced regarding merits of the NEP in first place.

Result of pilot implementation (if successful) should be used to propagate the reach of NEP to additional States and boards. Any shortcoming discovered during pilot launch should get timely attention to remediate and eradicate before pursuing next steps.

A pan India adaptation of NEP all things considered should atleast be a 4-5 year marathon than a 100m dash to finish line. If implemented this way, it would present NEP with its best chance of success. A success which will be robust and lasting.

It however does appears this government loves wholesome overnight changes to fix something which, has its limitations but is not broken yet. The same system has generated abundant of talent which are serving the planet well. The good of the existing system must be protected.

Last but not the least, employability will be the key – as much as you want a major in Music and minor in Chemistry to go together as per interest and preferences of student, we have to ask ourselves whether there would be any material change to the way Industry hire its resources in India.

State and Industry would need to join hands and presents enough employment opportunity for students graduating with unheard of subject combinations and train them to be productive. It will be paramount to ensure such students get employment at dignified wage level. Existing system will need to move away its default setting of rewarding students of certain stream more than other.

Thought process was the easy part of NEP, the difficult process is the messaging. Government needs to be careful because if the messaging is not right or if the implementation is not done meticulously, it will alienate a good portion of society especially its young population and it will eventually take 2 minutes for this population to vote such government out of power! The beneficiary of such electoral due process will be the fraud Vadra’s party.

Opposition role is generally crucial in such large reforms and through dialogue and backdoor diplomacy of give and take it must be ensured that opposition doesn’t reset once they come to power because students won’t like it any bit and it will be a full blown catastrophe if such a scenario play out.

Based on the strained relationship between ruling and opposition party who are always at loggerheads doubt that opposition was even consulted. Opposition on their part are all hurdled right now to save a state government triggered through its own defections- so look out.

We might be yet too early in our celebration or rejection of this “big fat wild animal” left out of the cage to wander in free.