The Na­tional Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­icy (NEP) of 2020, which re­placed the NEP of 1986, is set to rad­i­cally change the In­dian ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, start­ing with im­prov­ing the Gross En­roll­ment Ra­tio to 50% from the pre­sent 28%. NEP-2020 tries to bring in the US model of ed­u­ca­tion. Kar­nataka be­came the first state to im­ple­ment it at the Higher Ed­u­ca­tion level, but with­out re­ally work­ing out a roadmap for it. The ideal process would have been to start im­ple­men­ta­tion from the Pri­mary Ed­u­ca­tion level. Hu­man rights ac­tivist and Prin­ci­pal, St Joseph’s Evening Col­lege, Ben­galuru Dr Paul New­man pre­sents the fault­lines of the Na­tional Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­icy and its im­ple­men­ta­tion in Kar­nataka. This has lessons for all -es­pe­cially au­tonomous col­leges and mi­nor­ity in­sti­tu­tions in Pun­jab too. The fact that Pun­jab ed­u­ca­tion­ists, ex­cept a hand­ful, are nei­ther talk­ing nor de­bat­ing about it, is an­other mat­ter.

MANY AU­TONOMOUS COL­LEGES had be­gun their ad­mis­sion process by March 2021 and started classes in July. On Au­gust 25, the gov­ern­ment an­nounced the launch of the New Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­icy. Au­tonomous col­leges had con­ducted their Board of Stud­ies to up­date and re­vamp their syl­labi be­fore the open­ing of the first-year de­gree pro­grammes as per re­quire­ments.

In a hur­ried man­ner, the Kar­nataka State Higher Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil (KSHEC), tasked with im­ple­ment­ing the NEP, formed a ‘task force’ with no rep­re­sen­ta­tion to mem­bers of the Chris­t­ian mi­nor­ity group who run a num­ber of top-class ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions.

The Sub­ject Ex­pert Com­mit­tees were formed and given a pe­riod of just 15 days to frame mul­ti­ple sets of sub­ject pa­pers, and many were of the opin­ion that they could not do jus­tice in that time­frame as it is a se­ri­ous in­tel­lec­tual task. I am a mem­ber of the Board of Stud­ies (BoS) of the De­part­ment of His­tory of Ben­galuru City Uni­ver­sity. The Sub­ject Ex­perts Com­mit­tee in His­tory had framed three Kar­nataka His­tory pa­pers out of four, for First Year BA. In the pre-NEP set-up, stu­dents of His­tory had to study only one Kar­nataka His­tory pa­per out of eight.

In the au­tonomous in­sti­tu­tions as well as at a few top af­fil­i­ated col­leges, we get many non-Kar­nataka stu­dents who join our col­leges with a dream to pur­sue civil ser­vices. They would not mind study­ing a pa­per on Kar­nataka his­tory as it is im­por­tant for them to study some­thing about the state in which they have cho­sen to con­tinue their higher ed­u­ca­tion. But Kar­nataka his­tory is not part of the All-In­dia civil ser­vices ex­ams. Kar­nataka aims to be an ed­u­ca­tional hub and can­not af­ford to re­strict it­self to one spe­cial­i­sa­tion.

The vice-chair­man of the KSHEC ini­tially stated that the au­tonomous col­leges will have no is­sues with fram­ing their own syl­labi as it had done so far but later in­sisted on a uni­form syl­labus to be fol­lowed through­out Kar­nataka. The syl­labi of the au­tonomous in­sti­tu­tions are of a higher level and the syl­labi of the af­fil­i­ated col­leges are de­signed keep­ing in mind the stu­dents of semi-ur­ban, rural and re­mote ar­eas where the in­fra­struc­ture they re­quire is want­ing.

The syl­labi of the au­tonomous in­sti­tu­tions are of a higher level and the syl­labi of the af­fil­i­ated col­leges are de­signed keep­ing in mind the stu­dents of semi-ur­ban, rural and re­mote ar­eas where the in­fra­struc­ture they re­quire is want­ing.

Im­pos­ing a uni­form syl­labus is a di­rect in­fringe­ment on the whole au­tonomous struc­ture even as the NEP speaks of grant­ing more au­ton­omy to col­leges. The UGC Guide­lines of 2018 are very clear on the fram­ing of the syl­labus.

The state gov­ern­ment is se­lec­tively im­ple­ment­ing the NEP. The full im­ple­men­ta­tion of the NEP in let­ter and spirit would have been the ideal way of go­ing about it, rather than pack­ag­ing it in bits and pieces as there are grey ar­eas – such as non-im­ple­men­ta­tion of the sta­tus of de­gree-grant­ing au­thor­ity to the au­tonomous col­leges, the ques­tion of Aca­d­e­mic Bank of Cred­its, wherein as of to­day, a stu­dent has no op­tion to change to a col­lege of their choice out­side the state, to cite a few ex­am­ples.

Im­pos­ing a uni­form syl­labus is a di­rect in­fringe­ment on the whole au­tonomous struc­ture even as the NEP speaks of grant­ing more au­ton­omy to col­leges. 

The KSHEC also in­sisted that the ad­mis­sions to the first-year un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree pro­gramme have to be done through the Uni­fied Uni­ver­sity and Col­lege Man­age­ment sys­tem (UUCMS) ini­ti­ated by the Gov­ern­ment of Kar­nataka. As the ad­mis­sions had al­ready been done by the au­tonomous col­leges, the gov­ern­ment stated that for this year they would ac­cept the ad­mis­sions but from next year on­wards, the col­leges would have to com­ply with the UUCMS.

The UUCMS takes away the rights of the col­leges to se­lect stu­dents of their choice as every col­lege has its own aims, ob­jec­tives, vi­sion and mis­sion, and se­lec­tion is based on the in­sti­tu­tion’s re­quire­ments. Fur­ther, it in­fringes on the rights of the mi­nor­ity in­sti­tu­tions as per Ar­ti­cle 30(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion as ob­served by an 11-mem­ber bench of the Supreme Court in TMA Pai vs State of Kar­nataka to es­tab­lish, de­ter­mine pro­ce­dure and method of ad­mis­sion and se­lec­tion of stu­dents as well as ad­min­is­ter ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions of their choice.

The Uni­fied Uni­ver­sity and Col­lege Man­age­ment Sys­tem rules in­fringe on the rights of the mi­nor­ity in­sti­tu­tions as per Ar­ti­cle 30(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion as ob­served by an 11-mem­ber bench of the Supreme Court in TMA Pai vs State of Kar­nataka to es­tab­lish, de­ter­mine pro­ce­dure and method of ad­mis­sion and se­lec­tion of stu­dents as well as ad­min­is­ter ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions of their choice.

The NEP’s pro­posal to clus­ter col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties with a strength less than 3,000 is also not a step in the right di­rec­tion, keep­ing in view the am­bi­tious pro­ject to in­crease the GER to 50%. Again, in­sti­tu­tions run by mi­nori­ties will be af­fected and it once again dis­cards Ar­ti­cle 30(1). The im­ple­ment­ing states should note that re­sources of the mi­nor­ity in­sti­tu­tions are scarce and har­nessed for the well­be­ing of the down­trod­den over many years and they should not be in­fringed upon.

The NEP model, which of­fers a four-year pro­gramme, has an ‘Exit and En­try’ op­tion where a stu­dent can com­plete a full year’s class and quit with a cer­tifi­cate af­ter one year, a diploma af­ter two years, a de­gree af­ter three years and an Ho­n­ours de­gree af­ter four years. This could cre­ate a lot of un­cer­tainty in the plan­ning of courses, work­load of staff mem­bers, re­quire­ment of ad­min­is­tra­tive and sup­port staff.

Many of our mi­nor­ity stu­dents may exit the sys­tem with­out com­plet­ing the de­gree for lack of funds or for the glam­our of pos­sess­ing a cer­tifi­cate/​diploma which was not avail­able ear­lier and is now made avail­able un­der NEP.

Many of our mi­nor­ity stu­dents may exit the sys­tem with­out com­plet­ing the de­gree for lack of funds or for the glam­our of pos­sess­ing a cer­tifi­cate/​diploma which was not avail­able ear­lier and is now made avail­able un­der NEP.

It is not late for the KSHEC to re­view the im­ple­men­ta­tion process of the NEP, ac­cept the con­cerns of ed­u­ca­tion­ists and other stake­hold­ers, and in­cor­po­rate them to make Higher Ed­u­ca­tion broad and uni­ver­sally ac­cept­able to all sec­tions of so­ci­ety, to make ed­u­ca­tion joy­ful, ro­bust and a happy learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for stu­dents of all sec­tions of so­ci­ety, to make In­dia a vi­brant con­sti­tu­tional democ­racy with sec­u­lar val­ues that would usher in the de­vel­op­ment of the whole coun­try with­out any dis­par­ity.

Dr Paul New­man, Prin­ci­pal of St. Joseph’s Evening Col­lege, is an ex­pert spe­cial­is­ing in con­flict res­o­lu­tion, right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, refugee stud­ies and hu­man rights is­sues. He was one of the four pub­lic speak­ers at the Per­ma­nent Peo­ple’s Tri­bunal on Sri Lanka at Dublin. He at­tends the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil at Geneva cham­pi­on­ing the cause of Na­tions fight­ing for Self De­ter­mi­na­tion. In Au­gust 2018 he ad­dressed the 1st Yazidi Geno­cide Con­fer­ence.

This ar­ti­cle first ap­peared in The Dec­can Her­ald, Ben­galuru.