Education in India needs root and branch reform, not just tinkering from the top or ideological realignment
While there is a corybantic of collective, some would say orchestrated, praise hailing the all-round achievements of Modi@8, the education sector presents a slightly different picture. First of all, we must recognise that education is the key to a new and transformed India. Without leadership in education, India cannot hope to be globally competitive. Without widespread transformation in education, any hope of a real Indian renaissance will be dashed to the ground.
What has the Central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, done in this regard during its eight years in office? The answer to this question must take into account what Modi inherited and also the particular challenges that prevented any serious reform, let alone rewriting textbooks or changing school and college curricula, especially during the first five years of Modi’s tenure.
To start with the latter, can we doubt that there was an attempted anti-Modi-sarkar a country-wide youth movement, led by Left-leaning campuses? That Jawaharlal Nehru University was one of its flashpoints is amply evident in the Kanhaiya Kumar led JNU Students Union agitation. I was both a witness and, albeit unwillingly, a participant in this struggle, the lone voice batting for the stateside, so to speak. I will not go into this in greater detail here since I have written about it in my latest book, JNU: Nationalism and India’s Uncivil War (Rupa, 2022).
Suffice it to say that not only JNU, but University of Hyderabad (Central University), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Jadavpur University, Jamia Milia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), and several other campuses hosted what might be described as anti-BJP, anti-government, even if we don’t wish to tag them as anti-national, cells. These, led by committed operatives, mostly from the Left and Islamist disposition, with likely support from mainstream opposition parties, carried out a concerted campaign against the Modi-sarkar. That it failed, fortunately for India, is evidenced in the fate of some of its ringleaders, whom I shall not name — some are in jail, some have switched parties, and some are languishing in the political wilderness.
Apart from negative and inflammatory student politics, another inherited incapacity that shackles Indian education is the system of caste-based hereditary quotas. Despite some good that such reservations, unique to India and quite different from affirmative action anywhere else in the world, have done, they have also aggravated several deformations and distortions in addition to becoming deeply entrenched. No one can challenge them now, it seems. Now practically every seat in every publicly funded college or university in India is tied up with some caste or “backwardness” quota or the other. It would seem that the greatest qualification that one may have is some deprivation or the other for it is that which entitles one to an education or a job in the government sector.
This means that millions of youngsters have paid billions of dollars in the last decade to flee India in search not only of greener pastures but even for a decent education which they are willing to pay for and which, alas, is not available in their own country. Far from making India the world’s education hub, we are still driving our youth out of India, as our 60,000 medical students who went to Ukraine testify.
Complicated and endless quotas, minority institutions, colleges named and run by political bosses and land mafias, unregulated private institutions galore — all this means that we have made a mess of higher education in India. The main cause of this confusion is political interference, vote-bank politics, appeasement of special interests, favouritism and deal-making in the name of religion, caste, language, region, and ethnicity. All these and more have contributed to making most of our graduates unemployable, if not incompetent. Barring a few elite institutions, we are swimming in a vast sea of sanctioned and promoted incapacity, with mediocre leadership and administrative mismanagement.
Primary education is in an even greater disorder, with trillions of rupees wasted and our ordinary folks still relatively underserved and undereducated at taxpayers’ expense. The conditions of our government schools, again barring a few exceptions, are dismal. As a result that a plethora of private and exploitative operators have captured the market, offering “English-medium” education to the aspiring masses.
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Yes, a National Education Policy has been notified. It is, in its own way, a good document. But the constant boasting and promotion that surrounds it only show that we still adhere to the top-down approach. A policy will be declared from the top, then implemented all over the country by a gargantuan bureaucracy. Similarly, nationwide common entrance exams will, indeed, reduce fudging and sledging in admissions in central institutions. But will also reduce autonomy and creativity when everything is centralised and directed from the top. What we need is not a new policy but better governance in each and every government-funded institution. Who will ensure that?
To sum up, education in India needs root and branch reform, not just tinkering from the top or ideological realignment. Not just science and technology, but humanities and social studies need augmentation and encouragement. Deep cognition is not possible without heightened competence in multiple languages, texts, and traditions. We are doing little to ensure that critical thinking, excellence, and creativity are incentivised instead of quotas, patronage, or political connections. Mostly, we are anti-this or that, with little knowledge of either ourselves or the West which ruled us for so long. As to China or Russia or Brazil — to name some other important countries, we know next to nothing. Outside a small circle of elite services, there is no concerted attempt to understand the world or become better equipped to face it.
But the good news is that India is bursting with a new energy which will sweep everything aside as it inundates the land. Government interference or control over education will reduce as market forces play a greater role and international institutions are permitted to set up campuses in India. When real competence becomes rarer, it will also be much more in demand. The inevitable march of progress and development, championed by less corrupt and more patriotic politicians will also bring the fruits of prosperity to remote areas.
When it comes to our education sector, we may have missed precious years — even decades — in inertia, inactivity, and inability to change, but it is not too late. With over 30 million Indians in higher education and almost half a billion in school, skills development, and re-education, we are bound to prevail, with or without visionary leadership in this field. India will be a knowledge society once again, if not because then in spite of our political and bureaucratic class.
As to the latter, my only plea, nay demand, is unshackle Indian education! Deregulate, nor reregulate; ensure good governance and competence, not vainglorious posturing in the education sector. Reward competence, disincentivise mediocrity. The rest will happen on its own.
The author is a professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.
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