Education Policy – A few questions to the PM’s address today

Today in India we are fatigued by the provocative, chest-beating, declaimed intention of political parties. All sounding noble and good samaritan. The draft New Education Policy is another addition to the long list, just in time for the coming August 15 Independence Day announcement.

Now that the BJP government failed to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, they needed something to show for the regular Independence Day speech. It is the intention to reform education in India. Before we join the cheer group over this long pending change, over 34 years, in Education consider the results of BJP’s other intentions and actions at the national level.

Forget the Rs 15 lakh each of us was promised, the Demonetisation of November 2016 proved completely futile to unearth black money or contain terrorism. All we have in hands now are Monopoly game type new currency notes and huge loss to economy in terms of jobs lost. Of course, BJP won the Uttar Pradesh elections. The new Goods and Service Tax implementation in July 2017 was so flawed owing to its multiple slabs that there were another round of business closing and job loss. Recently, the Finance Ministry has announced that owing to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Centre cannot even pay the states their dues.

Look at the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir almost one year back. The state was divided into Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, made into Union Territories, but peace has not returned. The siege of the Kashmir region led to huge spike in violence through people’s resistance and the Centre is nowhere close to a solution and China has intruded the LAC and taken over Indian territory.  It is the same with the famous Bullet Train, Swachh Bharat campaign, even the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak where after the first few long lockdowns that stalled the economy, now the cases are reaching 17 lakh, averaging about 700 deaths per day.

This failure of translating intention into real positive outcomes is glaring with BJP but even other parties suffer the same malady. In Punjab, during the election campaign Captain Amarinder Singh promised upon touching the Sikh Holy book – the Gutka – to head that he would: waive farm loans, break the back of the drug menace, and provide jobs to 40 lakh unemployed youth.

When the Congress won the elections, the farm loans miraculously decreased from Rs 72,000 crore to Rs 9,000 crore, half of them are still not waived after three and a half years in office; the drugs menace continues unabated, the only pause came because of the national lockdowns; and as per the government claim which are highly questionable, only 11 lakh youth have been employed to some extent.

Even if we take AAP, in Punjab they belied their promises even as they were running for elections. In Delhi, they belied their promises soon after winning the elections by betraying the Muslim community and mismanaging the COVID-19 outbreak.

That is why more than intention, the need is to demonstrate how a political party will fulfil its claims. The Prime Minister will address the nation on the NEP at 4.30 pm today. Do listen and keep these questions in mind to seek answers:

• Even on the face of it, the NEP needs at least 6 per cent of the budget allocated to Education. The reality is, in 2012-13, education expenditure was 3.1 per cent of the GDP; in 2014-15 it was 2.8 per cent. Since BJP came to power, in 2015-16 it was 2.4 per cent; last year it was 3 per cent or about 5.6 lakh crore. Where will the government get the funds to execute its intentions?

• What is giving a lot of cheer to people, especially advocates of mother tongue Punjabi, is the newly proposed 5 + 3 + 3 + 4 formula for schools replacing the earlier 10 + 2 + 3 year pattern. In this the primary education would be in mother tongue. In Punjab it would be Punjabi. This fulfils a long demand of language activists but also raises a question: is the state language necessarily the mother tongue for all Indians? Do spare a thought for mixed parent families, parents with transferable jobs, linguistic minorities in various states.

The real win would be if a Punjabi person can earn a living in Punjabi. Any language lives or dies when it is used or not used in the market. The real battle of learning the mother tongue is actually in markets. There are 11 crore Panjabi speakers in the world. It is the 9th biggest language group in the world. The need is to create a market of the Punjabi sub-culture across Punjab in India, Punjab in Pakistan, and the Punjabi Diaspora.

• The last point on the NEP for now is India is a signatory to the World Trade Organization. The General Agreement on Trade in Services mandates that member nations push towards liberalization which in education means greater privatisation in higher education. That is the paradox of the NEP. On the one hand it needs greater input from the government but the government itself has to move towards allowing private even foreign players in the field. That is how higher education will become farther away from the economically deprived classes. Will the government solve the issue?

Note: More on the NEP in coming editorials.