Tamil Nadu constituting a committee to draft its own State education policy may be construed as a challenge to the national education policy, though it may actually do good for States to draft their education policy. It may guide them to give effect to the national educational policy in a considered, well thought out manner. State, district, block and even village level policies could enable a more meaningful implementation of the national policy as it may lead to a policy stack that serves the goals of national growth grounded in the local contexts. The aspirational districts programmes show the possibilities of local meshing with the whole.
What is disquieting here is the intention to evolve a counter education policy for the State. The concerns raised by the States, often strident, could be many: insistence on a third language, elitist tilt devoid of concerns for the weaker and downtrodden sections, imposed by the Centre sans regard to their needs and misgivings. Even though the NEP 2020 is claimed to be a culmination of the largest public consultation in policy history, the process of consultation and curating the mass contributions, being new, lacked clear articulation of outcomes and evolution of the policy.
The grouse became graver because the final draft of the policy wasn’t discussed and deliberated in the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). Chaired by the Union Education Minister and with Ministers of Education of all the States and educationists as its members, it provides an effective way for the key stakeholders to express their views, particularly if the need is to evolve a national education policy rather than that of the central government alone. CABE consultation has been deemed essential to building purpose and context-led policies, and deeper policy engagement, and thus ensure alignment along the policy pile from the grassroots to the idealists.
Supplementing each other
There will inevitably be differences between the education policies devised for the nation, for a State, for a district and that of a school since each level has a distinct purpose. There will always be regional priorities and constraints compelling the States to serve education in a different way. This only means that the national and State policies need to supplement each other.
Education being in the concurrent list since 1976, is a joint and shared responsibility of the Union and the State governments. Coordination and maintenance of standards may vest in the Union government, but it applies to higher education only. Education policy, on the other hand, deals with all levels of education.
Alarming changes
Many a change in the education system, particularly in higher education, introduced before and after the policy may have alarmed the States. The given impression that the common university entrance test (CUET) is the first step towards a ‘one nation, one examination’ system as envisaged by the policy even though the text of the policy clearly declared that it should be up to the individual universities to use CUET scores or not, is the latest example.
Making the undergraduate national eligibility test (NEET UG) mandatory for admission to all medical colleges is yet another example. States like Tamil Nadu feel that the centralised admission test caused monetary burden and inconvenience for students.
Data lends credence to their concerns that the national level tests favour students coming from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). In 2021, the percentage of students qualifying the UG NEET was as high as 73.9 percent for CBSE students, whereas only 33.2, 37.1, 44.8, 44.4 and 47.5 percentage from M.P., U.P., Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Boards respectively could qualify. So has been the case with the IIT JEE exams. Close to 59% of the shortlisted students were from CBSE Board alone.
These statistics are often used to berate them for the poor quality of their school education. A closer look, however, suggests that this may be due to the differences in the syllabus and examination methods of the State boards and the CBSE. Indeed no one could argue that the State boards must make their syllabus completely compatible with the CBSE, for it would tantamount to suggesting that there should only be a single school board for the whole country, ‘one nation one school examination’.
Policy engagement is an essential part of its implementation. It may be wise to mitigate the trust deficit, made evident by recent statements, between the Union and the States on key areas such as education. If some States feel they are falling behind, this is an opportunity to move forward for better quality education.
(Furqan Qamar is Professor at Jamia Millia Islamia and a former Adviser (Education) in the Planning Commission. Meeta Sengupta is a writer, speaker and adviser on education and skills)
