Education Policy

Brief Chronology/Events in Education Policy in India ( under construction)

adapted from: Mamta Kohli. cosmos of education. ASPBEA,2003.

Education Policy

The 1986 National Policy on Education (NPE) stated as its goal that universal primary education, i.e., up to class V, shall be achieved by 1990 and Universalisation of Elementary Education by 1995. Neither the target of the year 1990 nor that of 1995 was realized. 

Almost 7 years later, the Ministry of Human Resource Development released a document in 1993 on the Education for All (EFA) which strikes a pessimistic note that EFA by 2000 AD seems to be a 'daunting task'. These varying declarations emanating from the Central Government's Ministry of HRD are most confusing! A radical re-construction of the educational system has been too often emphasised.  In 1992, The Committee for Review of  NPE - 1986 elaborated this and viewed education in the overall context of social, economic, regional and gender-based disparities. Similar views were expressed by the Yashpal Committee (1993), which felt education could not be altered without altering a lot of things in our social set-up. 

In the context of the proposal to make free and compulsory education a Fundamental Right upto the age of 14 years, a committee of State Education Ministers was constituted by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development in 1996. This committee wanted the State Governments to start primary schools within a distance of 1 to 1.5 km., from rural habitations provided that there is a population of 250 in the area. Similarly middle schools shall be established within a distance of 3 km., from rural habitations with a population of 500 in the area. However, in the case of starting schools in hilly desert, tribal and inaccessible areas these norms may be relaxed. Other recommendations of the Committee included free supply of textbooks, essential stationery and school uniforms to all children in primary schools. The Committee also recommended incentives like cash awards and scholarships, provision of teachers' training, quality textbooks, Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) and continuance of Mid-day Meals Scheme. Further, minimum infrastructure and teachers as envisaged under Operation Blackboard should be provided in all primary and middle schools. Other recommendations of the committee were the promotion of special schemes for the education of girls, SCs and STs and may should be supported by the Central Financial Assistance. The Union and State Governments should earmark 50 per cent of the education budget to elementary education .

An expert Committee in the Planning Commission has recently recommended a hike in education expenditure. In fact three decades before, the Kothari Commission had suggested an increase in the expenditure on education to six per cent of the GDP. The failure to achieve this target may be attributed to lack of a firm political commitment to the social sector in general and education in particular. The expert committee has urged that India should reach the six per cent mark by 2007 while the states were required to target spending six per cent of their SDP. Noted laurate Amartya Sen has quite often suggested a cut by five per cent a year of the military expenditure of India over the next five years could release about $ twenty two billion, which would easily exceed four times the required amount to achieve the goal of universal primary education within the next five years . But no Government is prepared to slash down military expenditure. The restructuring of allocation priorities within educational budget is an  oft-repeated idea. There has been a persistent demand to allocate over seventy per cent of education budget in favour of primary education. However, with political power vested in the upper-caste, upper-class coterie, would there be political will to attempt this drastic demand?- School Education in Tamil Nadu Problems and Prospects, M.K. Subramanian, 01/10/2002, Social Action, /eldoc/n00_/01oct02SOA2.pdf

Basic Documents on Education policy

National Policy on Education 1986 - Programme of Action 1992, Government of India, [R.N00.33]

National Policy on Education 1986 (As modified in 1992) National Policy on Education, 1968, Government of India, 1998. [R.N00.34]

Implementation Report on the National Policy on Education, 1986, Department of Education, New Frontiers in Education, 01/04/1988, R.N00.2

Education Policies in India, K Sudha Rao Ed, 2002, Rs 600 NIEPA

Education-Policy - National Policy Of Education 1985: A Framework, Aggarwal J.C., Doba House, 01/01/1985, B.N00.A2

The Gap between policies & programmes

The Gap between policy and programmes results from different reality situations - most important are balancing demands of mainstream economic growth as well as political exigencies.  

In line with the theme of the 11^th plan, “Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth”, the approach paper sees two major challenges related to education:

(a)             Providing Essential Public Services for the Poor

(d )            Developing Human Resources 

each pulling resources in different directions.

The issue of allocation of funds and priorities to primary, and secondary education  on the one hand for the majority of the people and the need to provide large resources,  to elite institutions like the IIMs and IITs  and development of ICTs, as compared to basic functional and elementary education on the other hand.. Thus while making the right noises, in the approach to the draft 11th Plan, it remains to be seen how much committment is actually made to priority sectors.. and more importantly, how much of it is actually spent. 

- Policies to programmes, AMRIK SINGH, Deccan Herald, 16/07/1995, /eldoc/n00_/16jul95dch1.pdf

Hence, the brainwave decrease tuition at the elite graduate schools like the Indi-an Institutes of Management (IIMs) so that ordinary poor folks can also attend and benefit from progress. Surely, this policy is likely to ensure vic-tory for BJP in the forthcoming election. The poor of India would want to vote for the party which has substantially decreased tuition fees at elite schools. The poor will correctly see that in the future, they will be able to afford (and attend) the elite man-agement schools and thereby become rich.  There is a minor hitch in Mr Joshi's logic. One needs to graduate from college in order to attend a graduate school. So fees in colleges should be low.
Here, Mr Joshi has done his homework. The socialists in the Congress party of yes-teryear made sure that the poor would be able to afford college education so they made it free.
So where is the hitch? Well, one needs to graduate from high school to get into college, and one needs to graduate from middle school.... This is where the poor lose out, in India and everywhere else that humans live. They obtain lower quality ed-ucation, and being poor, need to work to supplement family earnings. Hence, drop-out rates are higher than average. So in a typical college going cohort, the rich (top 20 per cent of the population) constitute over 80 per cent of the college entrants; in graduate school (like the IIMs) children of the top 5 per cent constitute more than 80 per cent of the students. This hitch means that Joshi's pig is like-ly to crash on take-off. The elite of India are not looking to learn Sanskrit, or as-trology, and are desirous of obtaining international quality level education. The re-duction of fees in IIMs will only increase the control of government in education, something that is likely to plummet the quality of education, and with it the prospect of India shining graduates. No votes here for Mr Joshi, especially not from the BJP
... What also needs to be changed is the monopoly that the state sector has in providing college education this should be opened up to all providers.... The education minister should recommend that "market clearing" fees be charged at all levels of education, and students made to pay on the basis of a "means" test. And students should be allowed to enter a school or college of their choice (via modern voucher systems). But what about the poor student? The money earned by charging fees from the rich should go towards a two-tier voucher system for the poor scholarship for the fees and living expenses. Finally, for girl students, at all levels, the scholarship is higher.- India shining has Mr Joshi worried India will shine with a sensible, anti-rich, non- Joshi education policy, Business Standard, 21/02/2005, N20 /eldoc/n20_/21feb05bsb1.pdf
 

NOW that the Karnataka Government has decided to keep the State professional college admissions exclusively for the students of this State, it has been asked why conduct an entrance test at all? Whoever has passed Class XII could be selected. Even here, the students who have done so through any examin ination other than the Karnataka PUC will be eliminated. Which leaves the coast clear of competition. The State Government has already promised that 70 per cent of such admissions will again be for rural students who did not en-joy educational facilities earlier. - A merry-go-round to nowhere, VATSALA VEDANTAM, Deccan Herald, 20/05/1995, /eldoc/n00_/20may95dch1.pdf

Reforming school education: Issues in Policy Planning and Implementation, YP Agarwal, Kusum Premi, 1998, Rs. 490, NIEPA

Governance of School Education in India, Marmar Mukhopadhyay, 2001, Rs. 500 NIEPA

State of Education in India

The Anatomy of Indian Education, K. V. Narayan Reddy, , September 1996, B.N20.R61 1. The educational situation in India  2. Indian education and the challenge of the times 3. Indian education in retrospect

Other Readings

A change for the better, KALYAN CHAUDHRI, Frontline, 10/02/1995, /eldoc/n00_/10feb95frn1.pdf

NEGLECTED CAMPUSES, ATMA RAM, Statesman, 11/07/2002, /eldoc/n22_/11jul02s1.pdf

The challenge to quality of education in the age of globalisation, Prof. Anil Sadgopal, Avehi Abacus, 01/06/2000,

Websites: 

http://www.indiatogether.org/education/policy.htm
http://goidirectory.nic.in/delhi.htm
http://education.nic.in/
http://www.niepaonline.org/
http://ncert.nic.in/