86 PARLIAMENTARIAN l juLy 2019
emotional skills, rather than of a
mere knowledge-giver,” she remarks.
The draft doesn’t talk about
reforming the pre-service and in-
service teacher training to develop
socio-emotional competence in
teachers and hence it leaves a
conspicuous gap in the teacher
education framework.
Even though policy draft sets a
target of achieving 100% GER across
all school stages, it offers only
superficial recommendations to
bring out-of-school children in the
mainstream education.
TAP India works for the out-of-
school children and school dropouts
in Gurugram. Its CEO, Rita Mishra,
comments, “It feels as if millions of
out-of-school children have been
cheated by the new policy draft
because it doesn’t offer any credible
solution to get them back to schools.
In a nearly 500-page long document,
school dropouts could manage only
7 pages worth of attention of
committee members”. The draft
mentions that ‘in absolute numbers,
an estimated 6.2 crore children of
school age (between 6 and 18 years)
were out of school in 2015.’political draft
The draft is surprisingly silent on
some of the major contemporary
issues of our education system. It isalmost as if the committee members
have got their message from what
happened to Subramanian
Committee report. It is completely
silent about the political interference
in higher education institutions.
A cursory look of the policy will
tell a reader about the significantly
higher levels of centralisation
through the proposed framework for
higher education – Rashtriya Shiksha
Aayog which is to be chaired by the
Prime Minister.
Anita Rampal, erstwhile Professor
from Delhi University says, “The
draft’s highly centralising agenda
also comes to the fore. Both the
government-controlled Rashtriya
Shiksha Ayog and the well-funded
National Research Foundation, with
links with the industry to “ensure
that most urgent national issues are
researched” merit discussion.”
Recently, the Rajasthan
government revised its textbooks to
get rid of the so-called saffronisation
which was induced by the previous
BJP governments. Off late, textbook
revisions have become a political tool
to brainwash an entire cohort
through our school education.
Surprisingly, the policy draft
doesn’t acknowledge this growing
menace and doesn’t provide any
space to talk about this issue. This
clearly means that such revisions willalways be under political control and
our children will continue to suffer.
As visionary and ambitious one
would expect the policy draft to be,
it ignores the perils of caste and class
dynamics on the education system.
Even in the chapter on inclusive
education, it simply parrots the
already known facts and repeats the
age-old recommendations to build
inclusive schools. The committee had
a golden chance to be bold and
courageous to talk about some of the
issues that matter in contemporary
India, but it chose silence and
conformity over speaking truth to
the power.
In one of his articles, Anil Swarup,
former secretary for school education
and literacy, laments, “Government
doesn’t require an education policy;
it requires a clear-cut action plan
because that is missing on the
ground”.
He can’t be truer. In a country like
ours, where policy implementation
gap has almost been institutionalised
with bureaucratic indifference and
lack of political will, we needed much
more than a lofty policy document.
As of now, Sunaina and millions of
our children will have to probably
just wait for many more years for the
inclusive, equitable and
excellent education to become a
reality in India.The drafT is surprisingly silenT on some
of The major conTemporary issues of our
educaTion sysTem. iT is almosT as if The
commiTTee memBers have goT Their message
from whaT happened To suBramanian
commiTTee reporT. iT is compleTely silenT
aBouT The poliTical inTerference in higher
educaTion insTiTuTionseducation|draft policy