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NOW that the report of the committee for the evoloution of the National Policy of Education 2016 is finally in public domain, hopefully we will now see the start of reasoned debate rather than empty ideological posturing. For far too long public debates on education have remained trapped in a regurgitation of first principles, with each side reiterating their favoured policy prescriptions, unfortunately without making adequate use of the latest research to buttress their analyses.

Unlike what many, particularly in the left liberal circles feared, this report is unlikely to enthuse the hard-line BJP/Sangh Parivar faithful. It has deftly sidestepped controversies marking value-based education, preferring to foreground unexceptional values such as the need to promote equity, social justice, tolerance and national integration by focusing on satya (truth), dharma (righteous conduct), shanti (peace), ahimsa (nonviolence) and prem (love) without invoking either religion or the Vedic roots of our civilization. More significant is the stress on accepting, rather than merely tolerating, our rich diversity – religious/social/linguistic.

The NPE 2016 draft is more wide-ranging and indicative rather than prescriptive. Hopefully, its various recommendations will provoke debate among the various stakeholders, including political parties, before final adoption. This brief comment touches upon a few issues that, to this writer, appear significant. In dealing with the Right to Education Act, it proposes moving away from following somewhat rigid national norms to evolving and working with context specific local ones. Similarly, more than specifying input centred infrastructure requirements, it favours setting out norms for learning outcomes. It also recommends doing away with any distinction between government and private schools in the applicability of norms and recourse to punitive action, creating parity among different providers.

More controversially, it favours the removal of exemption granted to private, unaided minority schools from reserving 25% of the seats for underprivileged children, as also amending the ‘no detention policy’ by limiting its applicability to the primary (class V) level as against the current elementary (class VIII) level. While the former is sure to be challenged as encroaching on minority rights, many educationists are likely to argue that diluting the no-detention provision will once again shift focus from helping the child to learn and enhance capability to an exam centred evaluation, pushing children branded as failures into dropping out.

Equally radical is the recommendation to shift the focus from physical expansion to a consolidation of the existing school system. It is not often realized that of the current 1.5 million schools (enrolment 260 million), over one-third have less than 50 students while as many as 54% have a strength of less than 100. An insistence on a primary school within one km of any hamlet so as to improve access has, over time, led to a preponderance of small, ill-equipped single teacher schools which are detrimental to improvement in teaching and learning. A merger of ‘unviable’ schools in a neighbourhood and setting up large, multi-grade composite schools with adequate teachers and facilities will thus not only help improve quality but also streamline school/teacher management. The fear is that critics will see this as a backdoor route to closing down schools and retrenching teachers, both reducing access and helping governments evade constitutional duties.

Unfortunately, inadequate research into what works and what does not, combined with ideological posturing, ensures that our educational management finds it difficult to respond to shifts in conditions, availability of new technologies, and changing aspirations and expectations. It is here that the Subramanium Committee’s recommendations break new ground. The setting up of a standing Education Commission as also creation of an Indian Education Service should improve overall management. More specifically, at the school level, a radical redesigning of B.Ed. programmes, enhanced in-service training and strengthening of SCERTs and DIETs to give greater support to teachers, alongside streamlining cadre management – hiring, promotion, transfers and dispute resolution mechanisms should improve teacher morale. Equally critical are the recommendations on the use of ICT to improve research and data management to enable speedier inputs into decision-making.

More a management oriented than a philosophical report, few educationists are likely to be happy with this report. Alternatively, this might actually turn out to be its real strength, since crafting consensus in our sharply divided polity on core issues is likely to be a nonstarter. And so, even as the more abstract debate on the meaning of education must continue, and be strengthened, this must not serve as an excuse to delay action on much needed reforms.

Harsh Sethi