NEP 2020: The devil lies in the details of implementation strategy

 

The National Education Policy 2020 could dare to recommend some fundamental changes in the very idea and approach of Indian education as many of those who prepared the NEP document thankfully, had no faith in the earlier system of education. However, many of those who have now the responsibility to implement the policy, are products of the same earlier education system. Those who believe in the earlier system, have never been trained or encouraged to think out of box and to explore innovative ideas. NEP 2020 has very efficiently pointed out the deficiencies in our earlier education system and consequently prescribed the remedies. But to achieve the same, the most important issue is to design and develop the implementation strategies. Such strategic issues were not a part of the document since these are bound to be different at different places. It was therefore most judiciously left to the ability of the implementers to decide these concerns.

The fact that our earlier education system was incapable of producing visionaries, thinkers and innovators have got exposed in this process by those who had the responsibility to affect the changes and implement NEP. The earlier education system was such that most of the innovators were necessarily rejects of the system. The human resource product of our earlier education system always looked for decisions and instructions in all the documents that were to be followed but was not explicitly written in the policy. NEP has no such set of instructions but it only mentions the targets. But most unfortunately, academic administrators kept on trying to find instructions in the same even in this case. They were used to finding out instructions in all such documents and therefore searched for the same even in this case. They tried to decipher some kind of instructions from their discussion with the higher authorities who could never be logically expected to have adequate understanding of the exact local status and institutional environment throughout the length and breadth of this huge country.

Many clever academic administrators used this opportunity in getting their vested interest satisfied. As a classic case, I have no hesitation in stating that our the then Head of the Department of Physics of Delhi University misused this opportunity in cutting down the practical lab component in the undergraduate physics course. His famous claim that teachers don’t take practical labs seriously and that is why this aspect must be done away with as far as possible. Imagine how did he arrive at this conclusion from the document of NEP that talks of increasing the hands-on practical approach throughout the document.

Another statement of a similar academic administrator that they are least concerned about the workload of the teaching faculty only highlights that they were very poor in understanding and foreseeing the problems and thereby suggesting a tailor made solution in that particular environment. This is clearly an escapist’s approach and these administrators were able product of our earlier education that was designed primarily to produce escapists. 

Due to this the administrators tried to race through its implementation, while it should have been a slow and consolidating process. The administrators that were product of our earlier system just wanted to showcase their efficiency to their seniors by making all changes in one go which could have never been advisable just because the change this time was not a routine one.

Those who would attempt to go through the NEP document and would look for the need of VAC and SEC courses will be convinced that VAC (Value Added Courses) should have been primarily aimed for school going students and SEC (Skill Enhancement Courses) should have basically targeted students of higher education. But in the race and scoring points, VAC courses were introduced in a big way even in the higher education with an intensity similar to SEC. 

To accommodate VAC and SEC courses and that too without compromising on the core courses led to a situation wherein the attention on core courses have got diluted to undesirable levels. Papers that required 4 to 5 lectures per week are given only 2-3 lectures now. Due to this, for example in University of Delhi, the number of papers to be studied by the undergraduate students jumped from 4 to 7 in each semester. Such an increase can never be balanced by reducing the credits and lectures in each paper since the burden of number of papers itself became too much for the students to absorb. To ease themselves, students started opting for courses not to gain skills or values but to somehow manage them. Courses like ‘Fit India’ & ‘NCC’ became so much sought after that the university had to notify a rule that only those students who were engaged in such activities in their schools will be able to take these courses. Increase in the number of papers to such a level increased the number of events of making assessments at the cost of their time that could have gone in studies. The result is that students are passing out having little skills and that is just opposite to what the NEP 2020 had been prescribed for. Students will pass out having neither the skill of following instructions and nor the skill of carrying out innovations.

If the trend is not arrested, I am afraid, those who wanted this excellent well-meaning NEP policy document to fail, will have the last laugh.