People's Democracy

Education: One Year of UPA

Nalini Taneja

FORMER HRD minister, Murli Manohar Joshi rightly claimed for himself that of all ministers he was one who stood first in fulfilling the RSS agenda. We are still receiving reports of the enormous damage that Joshi had done to our prestigious institutions of learning, and the definitive regressive turn he had given to the education policy. These reports are of great importance, because despite teams of alert academics and journalists, full information-particularly of the kind that lay buried in government files was-not really available for public scrutiny. It is going to take a lot of effort for the new HRD minister, Arjun Singh, to reverse even part of it, given the enormity of the tasks involved.

Rather than listing what remains ‘unfinished’, it is more important to critically evaluate the direction of the UPA policies with regard to education, and the priorities it has set for itself. The problem is not that much remains unfinished the problem is that its priorities are different from what Indian people would want from our educational system.

This is a coalitional Congress at the helm of affairs, and while it is dependent on the Left parties for remaining in government, its coalition partners are more varied. What can be termed a national consensus is far more right wing than it was when it last held the government. Its education policy can therefore hardly be contrary to its economic policies.

The new education policy, if we remember, preceded the new economic policy, with which it is inseparably linked, both in terms of how education is organized and its content. A reversal of the BJP’s policy on education is, therefore, simply not on the cards. Just as in the larger field of politics the Congress would like to ensure that there are no genocides of the kind that were perpetrated in Gujarat, but is not much concerned with what the Hindutva forces are doing in the BJP ruled states, in the field of education it is opposed only to the blatant communalisation of the CBSE syllabus and in ensuring that the prestigious research institutions are not dominated by RSS linked men and women.

The Congress led UPA government has shown no commitment to reverse the direction of education policy.

DETOXIFICATION

Detoxification has obviously received much attention in the media. What does it mean from the Left’s point of view? Officially it has been termed-by those put at the helm of educational affairs since the change in government-as “neither saffron nor left”. In practice it has meant that the NCERT headed by Krishna Kumar permitted the old BJP sponsored texts to continue in schools for a year, on the grounds that new revised texts need to be prepared (neither saffron, nor left?). Since then innumerable meetings have been held, and scores of committees formed, to determine what and how our children should learn, but the newly constituted NCERT has not stood by the pre-BJP secular textbooks, even with the qualification of asking the authors to revise/update them.

A few points need to be made: One, from media reports it appears that a new National Curriculum Framework has been prepared to replace the BJP sponsored document. It may have been discussed endlessly in the relevant committees, but in the good old tradition of the BJP has not been put in the public domain. The new textbooks will obviously conform to this new document. Two, not a single historian associated with the old secular NCERT textbooks has even been consulted on the new books, for which committees have already been formed. Third, for this coming year alone the old secular pre-BJP texts are being retained, funnily with new prefaces in the form of publishers’ notes which say they are to be read as part of the National Curriculum Framework 2000 (BJP sponsored curriculum document). Fourth, the BJP’s emphasis on ‘reducing the burden of history’ continues. The earlier class 10 history syllabus is still remains divided into two parts to fit the general social studies syllabus for two years, and in the bargain students who do not opt for history in class 11 and 12, will finish their schooling without knowing anything about the world between industrial revolution and the second world war, a crucial period for the formation of our societies as we know them today.

And if what has actually been published by the Delhi government is an indication, the new books in the pipeline are not likely to match the old NCERT books. The Delhi government undertook its own ‘revision’ and ‘rewriting’ of history textbooks, headed by Krishna Kumar himself, and the involvement of many who subscribe to neither saffron nor left establishment (!) theory. The history textbook brought out on Modern India is anti-establishment only in the sense of giving voice to the familiar Lohiavadi (socialist) right wing critique of the Congress. Bipan Chandra’s old books, Modern India and Freedom Struggle are far more academically sound, progressive and enjoyable.

Syllabus and reading material of the National Open School continues to be what it was during the BJP regime, and the Ekal Vidyalayas run by the RSS have continued to receive government funds through this year.

The Vidya Bharti educational enterprise continues to enjoy an independence and autonomy that hardly any institution can claim to in this country despite the fact that the education it gives infringes important clauses of the Constitution.

PRIVATISATION

The government needs to recognise that communalisation of education cannot be reversed within an educational framework geared to privatisation and withdrawal of the state from the educational process. By far the largest private player, most well equipped to replace the government in school education today is the RSS, barring the elite options for public schools. The government on its part has shown no inclination to respond to the criticisms to the Bill concerning the fundamental right to elementary education, and the drive towards privatisation of school education continues. The two per cent cess on education is yet to find its way into investment in primary education, and from all indications the new government remains as committed to the non formalisation of the educational system as the BJP government. There have been no moves to fill in the lakhs of vacancies of school teachers, or to do away with the pernicious system of para-teaching.

In short the educational policy of this government has not in the least conformed to the needs of the Common Minimum Programme that it is committed to.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Higher education continues to be geared in the direction demanded by the WTO-GATS regime, and while there is talk of regulating the entry of foreign universities into the country, not much has been achieved in real terms. The government s determined on privatisation and commercialisation, particularly in the areas of professional and technical education. A self reliant India needs an emphasis on liberal education and social sciences and humanities at all levels of education. The UPA government has, however, not only maintained the freeze on grants and teaching posts in the universities, it has for all practical purposes continued to follow the guidelines of the Birla-Ambani report adopted by the BJP government as its policy on higher education. There is no move towards democratisation of the governance of the university system

The notorious courses on astrology, karmakand etc still continue within the university system, as do many history and archaeology projects in research institutions.

The entire emphasis on distance learning needs to be re-thought in terms of the Indian situation. It needs to be remembered that what is cheaper for the government may not, as experience and fee structures have shown, be cheaper for the student. Those who go in for distance education are mainly from weaker and disadvantaged sections of society, and government policy of using these institutions to raise revenues goes against all norms of social justice where the disadvantaged have to pay the costs for the benefits of those who are privileged. The UPA government has not given a thought to this at all.

An assessment/critique of the UPA government’s achievements in education must therefore focus on these continuations in policy, rather than simply go by the media hype on changes in personnel in this or that institution linked with the MHRD.