Outlook – July 28, 2019

72 OUTLOOK 29 July 2019

T

HE Indian education sys-

tem is regimented and

autoc ratic—there are

more than 20 regulatory

authorities and thousands of

institutions close down every

year. While access to educa-

tion continues to be an issue,

millions of graduates remain

unemployed. There is an

unprecedented scramble for

government jobs. In 2018,

93,000 candidates, including

3,700 PhD holders, 28,000

post-graduates

and 50,000 grad-

uates, applied for

62 peon openings

in Uttar Pradesh.

These issues

stem from the fact

that education is

over-regulated

and under-super-

vised. Take the

case of a well-rec-

ognised university

which was prohib-

ited from com-

missioning a

teacher’s training pro-

gramme, that too in a tribal

district. Though it had com-

plied with all the parameters

of the National Council for

Teacher Education Act, the

government did everything

in its capacity to delay the

launching of the programme

by seven years. It was even-

tually withdrawn. At the

same time, the government

launched around 20 tea cher-

training programmes in vio-

lation of the act.

A notification in December

2013 laid out an implemen-

tation plan for the National

Skill Qualification

Framework (NSQF) and

made it mandatory for all

educational and training

programmes to comply with

it. However, more than five

years later, there has been

no serious effort to imple-

ment it. It is disheartening

that such an excellent frame-

work, which was accepted by

all ministries, has not led to

the National Assessment

and Accreditation Council

(NAAC) adopting NSQF-

compliance as part of its

accreditation criteria.

We are excellent in drafting

and notifying policies and

lackadaisical about imple-

mentation. I call this

‘policy illusion and imple-

mentation delusion’.

Another example of this is

the latest push to restructure

the education system in

India—the draft

National Edu-

cation Policy

(NEP). While it

is under review

in every state, the

MHRD has already

finalised a five-year

vision plan called

Education Quality

Upgradation and

Inclusion Prog-

ramme (EQUIP).

Thus, two major

reform initiatives

are being under-

taken simultaneously for no

clear reason.

Additionally, there are dis-

sonances between EQUIP

and NEP. While the former

has a goal of “doubling gross

enrollment ratio (GER) in

five years, i.e. 2024”, NEP

aims for a “GER of 50 per

cent by 2035”. It is 25.8 per

cent at present. There is

a gap of 11 years in the most

significant milestone

between the two documents.

I cannot comprehend

another goal of EQUIP—

upgrade quality of education

to global standards. It is hard

to quantify “global stand-

ards”. Instead, we should say,

“robust and achievable

national standards”, which

could be distilled from com-

parable experiences across

the world. In this focus on

global parameters, we ignore

the process of evolution and

assume it will leap-frog

towards whatever goal

we arbitrarily set.

Equally problematic has

been the Choice Based

Credit System (CBCS).

Introduced by the University

Grants Commission (UGC),

it has entirely fallen short

of its desired intent. Most

universities introduced

CBCS just for the sake

of compliance without

proper execution.

While NEP and EQUIP are

being debated, the most

important institution for

universities continues to

be NAAC. The ranking and

accreditation process in its

current form incentivises

providing education as a

purely commercial service,

while compromising on its

social purpose. Irrespective

of the nature of the univer-

sity, NAAC has 250 points for

research, which is mostly

linked to quantity—number

of articles and references—

rather than their impact or

relevance. The World Bank

allocates 25 per cent of its

budget for “country services”

toward knowledge products

(i.e. high quality research

reports), but a policy rese-

arch working paper in 2014

revealed that 87 per cent of

its reports were never cited

and 31 per cent never down-

loaded. If research at the

World Bank has such out-

comes, one can imagine the

fate of the millions of rese-

Mukti Kanta Mishra

The author is the

president of

Centurion University

of Technology &

Management

SKILL DEVELOPMENT

UNIVERSITY

SPECIAL

Beyond Resea rch