Page 46 - EW July 2024

Cover Story

greater autonomy from government to committees and authorities, few, if
education institutions, the K’Rangan any of them have been staffed and
Committee and its handmaiden NEP operationalised. The K’Rangan Com-
2020 recommends an elaborate gov- mittee recommended they should be
ernment-controlled superstructure to staffed by academics and officials of
administer and upgrade Indian edu- “unimpeachable integrity”. Yet as the
cation. huge NEET-UG scandal has proved,
In a detailed 13-page cover story such individuals of exemplary probity
titled ‘More government, more gov- are difficult, if not impossible, to find.
ernance’ (EW, July 2019) which Seven decades of socialist licence-
analysed the Kasturirangan Commit- permit-quota raj in Indian industry
tee’s 484-page NEP draft, your edi- and academia, has thoroughly cor-
tors highlighted that it recommended rupted the bureaucracy and official-
numerous committees and commis- dom. Despite this, the presumption
sions. These recommendations are of the Kasturirangan Committee that
wholly incorporated in NEP 2020 government appointed regulatory
(See EW cover story ‘Visionary Char- K'Rangan: elaborate superstructure committees are required for gover-
ter: Educracy Shadow’https://www. nance and supervision of the pre-
educationworld.in/national-educa- ment of Education in all states and school-class XII and higher educa-
tion-policy-2020-visionary-charter- Union territories for “overall moni- tion sectors has not been challenged
educracy-shadow/ ). toring and policymaking for continual by India’s academics, K-12 educators
F OR INSTANCE FOR im- system”. Operations and policy imple- Stockholm syndrome.
improvement of the public education
and media pundits — a clear case of
provement and upgrada-
Even a cursory reading of the
mentation falls within the purview of
tion of the country’s ossified
higher education system the Directorate of School Education, post-1947 history of Indian education
while an independent State School
dominated by dysfunctional govern-
which recklessly certifies millions of Standards Authority (SSSA) will set ment schools defined by crumbling
half-baked unemployable youth — standards for basic parameters (safe- buildings, pervasive lack of libraries,
none of India’s 1,026 universities is ty, security, infrastructure, teacher laboratories, toilets, digital equip-
ranked among the global Top 200 — adequacy, financial probity and sound ment, multigrade classrooms and
the new policy decrees establishment processes of governance). Moreover, chronic teacher absenteeism provides
of a Higher Education Commission of all schools are obliged to make full a mountain of evidence that govern-
India (HECI) as “an umbrella institu- disclosure of information as per the ment control and command which has
tion” with four verticals — National format prescribed by SSSA on their transformed into micro-management,
Higher Education Regulatory Council websites with SSSA empowered to is the problem — rather than solution
(NHERC), a “single point regulator for adjudicate “any complaints or griev- — of Indian education. Moreover, the
the higher education sector includ- ances” arising out of the information elaborate governance architecture
ing teacher education but excluding so posted. Academic matters “includ- prescribed by the K’rangan Commit-
medical and legal education”; a Na- ing academic standards and curricula tee and incorporated by NEP 2020,
tional Accreditation Council (NAC), in every state will be supervised by contradicts the institutional autono-
“a meta-accrediting body to certify existing State Councils of Educational my and self-regulation mandates of
HEIs primarily on basic norms, pub- Research & Training (SCERT) which NEP 2020.
lic self-disclosure, good governance will be “reinvigorated”. The proposition that schools and
and outcomes”; a Higher Education Four years after NEP 2020 decreed higher education institutions can be
Grants Council (HEGC) to “carry out these numerous education regulatory well-governed by highly educated and
funding and financing of higher edu- experienced principals, deans and vice
cation based on transparent criteria”; Instead of granting greater chancellors mindful of the reputation
a General Education Council (GEC), of institutions under their watch and
established to set learning outcome autonomy to education accountable to their stakeholders, is
benchmarks aka “graduate attributes” institutions, NEP 2020 beyond the imagination of establish-
for all study programmes offered by ment academics who constituted the
higher education institutions. mandates an elaborate K’Rangan Committee and the coun-
Similarly for school education, NEP government control try’s nit-picking career bureaucrats.
2020 recommends a muti-tier regu- What India’s beleaguered edu-
latory structure headed by a Depart- superstructure cation institutions urgently need is

46 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2024