The State has formally commenced its consultative process to generate inputs for the draft National Education Policy, 2019 released by the Union Ministry of Human Resources and Development.
Various aspects of the document were discussed threadbare at a national conference organised by the Kerala State Higher Education Council here on Saturday.
Prabhat Patnaik, Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the report failed as it did not take cognisance of the effect of the socio-economic arrangement that prevailed in the field of education. It attempted to impose “bourgeois notions of excellence” upon educational institutions which, he said, were set within a more complex and intricate scenario that involved caste and other such exclusions.
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He said though the draft report ensured prominence for the Swachch Bharat initiative, it did not include any reference to the regressive practices of caste oppression and untouchability which were part of the Indian heritage. Though the report talks of encouraging philanthropic institutions in place of business-minded ones in the education sector, no mechanism had been suggested for controlling such institutions. On the contrary, such institutions were allowed to fix their own fees with no limits.
“The policy is questionable not only because it does not address the socio-economic pressures which have brought education to its sorry state. It views education in instrumentalist terms, as an aid to the creation of a knowledge economy,” Prof. Patnaik said.
Higher Education Minister K.T. Jaleel, whose inaugural speech was read out in absentia, said that while the draft report raised several promising recommendations, it remained to be assessed whether destabilising the existing education system to implement them was the right way forward. He also expressed doubts on how the steps that had been proposed to centralise the decision-making process would impact accessibility in the higher education sector. Besides, the report elaborated on the need to develop institutions of excellence in each district, but did not examine the practicability of the proposal.
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Visiting professor at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, G. Haragopal lamented that the report hardly made any mention of rural India and the marginalised sections. It also avoided the usage of the term ‘secularism’ even while it stressed on democratic principles, he said.
While pointing out that the report remained ‘very idealistic,’ Principal Secretary (Higher Education) Usha Titus said the recommendations were not entirely rooted in reality.
Kerala State Higher Education Council vice chairman P.M. Rajan Gurukkal presided over the inaugural session.
Kerala State Planning Board member B. Ekbal and council member secretary Rajan Varughese spoke on the occasion.