G Srinivasan
There are apprehensions that NEP could rob the achievements of a few educational institutions they had led in the inclusion of students from downtrodden background
Higher education in the country now appears on the cusp of changes that would be either cathartic or destructive to the existing ecosystem particularly as the New Education Policy of 2020 of the Modi sarkar gets under way by degrees. The hullaballoo that ensued the year-end notification of the University Grants Commission (UGC) warning universities across the country in persisting with MPhil courses any longer as its sell by date has elapsed revealed the apprehensions of those already had this degree and those who were pursuing the course or those varsities keeping the course still running!
As MPhil course was putatively salutary to academics with pedagogic bent after post-graduation, the clarification from the UGC that “the Regulation No.14 of the UGC (Minimum Standards for Award of PhD Degree) Regulations 2022” confirming that “higher educational institutions shall not offer any MPhil programme” did not make any tangible impact. This is even though for the last two or three academic sessions, many central and State universities have discontinued the MPhil programme. In fact, the UGC’s stern warning aside, many universities of States as also private varsities were continuing the programme on the economics logic that “supply creates its own demand”.
As education is in the concurrent list with both the Union and the States enacting laws on the subject of common interest, there is some sneaking sense of monopoly from both as a result of which regulators like the UGC, albeit being a watchdog with multiple other academic remits, is unable to get its writ run. This gets muddied further when most of the regional political parties run private educational institutions with politicos or elected representatives heading even higher education colleges either in a benami fashion or after demitting legislative offices, the governance of these institutions is becoming intractable in recent years! A few Southern States are notorious in this game, with the fancy catching pan-India. It would be informative to note that India prides on as many as 55,000 higher education institutions. As per the UGC list, 432 State Private Universities were functioning in the country as on end-March 2023. In a written response to a query in the Rajya Sabha on April 5, 2023, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Education Dr. Subhas Sarkar conceded that after inclusion of the names of State Private Universities under Section 2(f) of UGC Act, 1956, they are inspected by UGC to assess fulfillment of criteria in terms of faculty, infrastructure facility or other aligned amenities. The Universities which do not fulfil the standards of infrastructure and faculty are required to submit a compliance report which is uploaded on the UGC website, the Minister added.
But an eye-opener in this response is that the Minister further noted that “since the private universities are established by Act of respective State government, the compliant, if any, received against any private university for not having buildings and teachers, as per standards, is forwarded to the concerned State government and concerned university for appropriate action at their end”. It is where the Centre abnegates its power to penalize non-complainants, passing the buck to States which have no major motive in demotivating their own private universities or colleges that they approved of either to supplement additional seats for students or to avoid embarrassment to their own party loyalists who run such institutions! Who cares for the victims (the students who graduate from these ramshackle educational citadels) as long as both these institutions are not touched by the long arm of the law! What the country now needs is an Enforcement Directorate in the education field where umpteen malpractices could be uprooted with the fear of raids constantly bedeviling the private and both Central and State universities so that quality education can be feasible.
It is common knowledge that the Kasturi Rangan report on which the NEP 2022 was unfurled was woven around five pillars ranging from access, equity, quality, affordability to accountability.
Already, apprehensions are aloud that NEP could rob the achievements of a few educational institutions they had led in the inclusion of students from downtrodden background. This in no way seems to have deterred as the twenty-year plan of NEP makes a strong case for a quantum leap of more than 70 million students enrolled in higher education by 2035, shifting a 27 percent gross enrollment rate (GER) of people aged 18-23 to 50 percent GER to take due advantage of the country’s demographic dividend. Is it anyway practical to nearly double the percentage of students enrolled in higher education, relative to the general populace of young people aged 18-23, in the next dozen years, if we go with the rife business-as-usual approach?
In a nation with 22 official lingos and more than 120 spoken languages, the medium of teaching in higher education invariably in the link language English in a continental country like ours meant the aims of inclusivity and equity are lost as opportunities would be sorely denied to the countless aspirants for higher education. Even entry tests to higher education would be expensive for numerous students hailing from the hinterlands as their parents do not have the wherewithal to enable their children to undertake such a trip for tests!
The preparatory cost for facing the test such as tutorial from private institutions cannot be discounted in this fiercely competitive world, save by a few philanthropists! Merit has no reservation or reserved seats! This is tantamount to not only a denial but also a sorely missed chance to equip oneself with higher education to rise in the social ladder. The NEP can set forth laudable objectives but how the citizens could be enabled to benefit or achieve the fruits of education when no sensible support is extended to them by the State—either the Central or the State governments is quite unforgivable and utterly unconscionable!
So, the way out for the Union and the State government is not light or tight touch regulations on higher education but active involvement in the basic or primary/ secondary education through purposive direction and transfer of funds to beef up the foundational strengths. No doubt, the NEP 2022 unfurled a few realisable goals ranging from redesigning regulations to render the higher education institutions (HEIs) student-centric, making skill development an integral part of the curriculum, building digital infrastructure to bridging the gap between education and industry needs as part of its “Five-Year Plans” to morph India into a global education hub.
But this cannot be done upfront of the two-decades plan because the country’s foremost priority and focus is to be on upgrading and in reinforcing the rickety basic/primary/secondary levels, leaving the tertiary education to be run with the extant arrangements till such time when the systemic reforms and regulations are made effective with cognate punitive steps supplemented by supportive measures in place so that the gaping holes are closed, leaving no daring chances for the reckless political class or profiteering private bodies in capturing and domineering the higher education universe.
The government which is long on ambitions on the NEP is but brazenly turning short on implementation even after the passage of three precious years. The least one of Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) to subsume all lofty intentions is still in the drawing board and its role of regulation, accreditation and setting professional standards remains in suspended animation! In fact, NEP plumbed for dismantling of the UGC and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). India’s excellence in engineering, medical and legal education owed mostly to what the system churned out in the past that needs to be duly safeguarded with modern guardrails before any pie-in-the-sky one is fancied or worked out, going forward.
(The writer is a senior economic journalist based in New Delhi)
