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History of Education Policymaking in India, 1947–2016

History of Education Policymaking in India, 1947–2016

. .

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in India by Oxford University Press

2/11 Ground Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002, India

© Oxford University Press 2017

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

First Edition published in 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

ePub ISBN-13: 978-0-19-909154-6

ePub ISBN-10: 0-19-909154-4

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro 11/13.5 by The Graphics Solution, New Delhi 110092

Printed in India by Rakmo Press, New Delhi 110 020

Contents

Preface

List of Abbreviations

1 The Early Years of Republic

2 The Kothari Saga (1965–85)

3 Making of National Policy on Education, 1986

4 Education Secretary Has No Time for Education

5 Tale of a Committee (Ramamurti Committee)

6 The Mikado and the Shogun (P.V. Narasimha Rao and Arjun Singh)

7 Revision of National Policy on Education, 1986

8 Revision of Programme of Action, 1986

9 The Present Is a Foreign Country (Global Trends)

10 Winds of Change Begin to Blow (Stints of Madhavrao Scindia and S.R. Bommai)

11 The Old Order Changeth, Yielding Place to the New (Murli Manohar Joshi’s Tenure)

12 The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away (Judicial Policymaking)

13 Restoration: The Shogun Reigns Again (Second Stint of Arjun Singh)

14 From Equity to Preferential Equity

15 Reform Impulses in a Bipolar Government

16 The Blitzkrieg That Turned into a Stalemate (Kapil Sibal’s Tenure)

17 The Last Flicker (Pallam Raju’s Stint)

18 The Show Goes On

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Preface

This book chronicles the history of education policymaking in India. The focus of the book is on the period from 1964 when the landmark Kothari Commission was constituted; however, to put the policy developments in this period into perspective the developments since Independence had been covered in some detail. Even some of the important policy developments during the Raj had been touched to some extent. All in all, this book provides a fairly good idea of policy developments since the Indian Education Commission (1882). Even in a book of this magnitude, it is impossible to cover every conceivable topic, and one cannot help being judiciously selective. Therefore, while this book does cover elementary and adult education it chooses to complement the narrative in the author’s previous book The Holy Grail: India’s Quest for Universal Elementary Education1 rather than cover everything as a standalone book would do. In addition, the book focussed on a few major themes of education policy. Those themes include the organization of education, the role of the State and private actors, the role of the Central and State Governments, financing of education and the policy levers for furthering policy objectives. A distinctiveness of the book is that comparative and historical perspectives are brought to bear on the narrative.

Another distinctiveness of this book lies in the attention it pays to the process and politics of policymaking and the larger setting—or to use jargon the political and policy environment—in which policies were made at different points of time. By and large, education policy discourse had confined itself to an abstract debate over what the policy ought to be simplistically assuming that if only it had political will Government could adopt and implement the best policy. Strange but true even the praxis of policy analysis is not anchored in policy analysis. There is often no realistic assessment of the problem which needs to be addressed, no realistic identification of the various alternatives, no rigorous evaluation of alternatives, and no roadmap offered for realization of the policy objectives. Policy discourse as well praxis often do not concern itself with how, how actually one could go about to realize what ought to be or whether what was proposed as something that ought to be done could indeed be done in the face of objective conditions. And further, education policy discourse often misses out the fact that major policy issues are not considered in isolation, and that politics and process have a vital bearing on policy development and adoption. Education policy discourse often misses out the ineluctable fact that Governments cannot address any major policy issue without regard to the possible linkages of that issue with issues in other policy areas, and further cannot disregard competing priorities and demands on limited resources

organizational and financial. To illustrate, public expenditure had been hovering around four per cent of the GDP half a century after the Kothari Commission recommended that that Central and State Governments should together expend at least six percent of the GDP on education. The failure to implement the Kothari Commission recommendation cannot be attributed to lack of political will, as often it is, for there had been Governments of different political hues over the last fifty years; one can understand the failure only through an analysis of the fiscal capacity of the Central and State Governments and the competing demands and priorities. Gross attributions like lack of political will, surrender to vested interests, and class background of the ruling class have a ring of truth, but they are often devoid of substance, and used as substitutes for a detailed analysis necessary to understand why what was expected or promised did not materialize, or why a particular policy and not others were chosen in a given context. And further a basic premise of educational discourse is that ‘politics’ ought not to intrude in the hallowed area of education. This premise is unexceptionable with politics in the sense of partisan activities aimed at securing undue advantage for the ruling party or conferring an undue advantage on some. However, such politics is not the be all and end of politics. People have different, conflicting views about how the polity, the society the economy should be organized, and these differences impact on policy issues in all area including education. An example is the organization and financing of higher education. Should private universities be allowed or not? Should they be allowed to recover the cost of providing education through fees or should they not be? These are not solely questions of education but of politics and economics as well, or more accurately of political and economic beliefs. By its very nature, any policy entails costs for some and benefits for some others; all those who gain do not necessarily gain to the same extent, and vice versa. Therefore, no policy can be disassociated from politics, whose classical definition is who gets what, when, and how. The French word politique connotes policy as well as politics, and captures the cardinal truth that policymaking is not just a technical exercise but is as well as a matter of politics. For any major policy to come into being it is necessary to resolve conflicting views and interests, and in a democracy it is the political system and process that resolves conflicts of views and interests. Suffice to say, to think educational policymaking can be made solely based on expert advice or that education should be left to educationists is to live in cloud cuckoo-land. It is imperative to always bear in mind the sagacious remark of J.P. Naik regarding the relationship between education and politics.

When the Education Commission was appointed, Mr. M.C. Chagla boasted that it consisted only of academics and that he had not appointed a single politician on it. But this isolation makes educationists blind too many aspects of the educational reality … (many issues) cannot be solved except jointly by politicians and educationists … educationists desire full political support without any political interference (which is their concept of autonomy) …. A situation of this type does immense harm.2

In addition to politics educational discourse also ignores the fact that the process of policy development and adoption has a decisive influence on whether a policy comes into being and if so what are its contours. To take a trivial example, driving in a city like Bangalore or Hyderabad is anything but a smooth process; when you arrive at the destination and in what shape very much depends upon the path along which you drive, what you encounter along the path and how you drive; on a day when a mammoth rally is expected on the path one has to travel, one may as well stay at home and give up altogether the idea of going out. And further a policy which requires approval by the Parliament is bound to have a longer process than that which requires approval by the executive, and whether it secures passage or not depends upon the strength of the Government in the Parliament. Suffice to say the political standing of the Government, the configuration of forces for and against the policy, and the deftness with which the Government manages the policy development and approval process are decisive factors in policymaking. Educational development is actually a series of untidy and overlapping episodes in which a variety of people and organizations with diverse perspectives are involved— politically and technically—in the processes through which the policy is developed and implemented. Hence, education policymaking is not a mere rational technical exercise, and the how and when of policymaking are as important as the what of policy 3 This book breaks a new path by dealing with the real world of policymaking instead of treating policymaking as a technical exercise.

Yet another distinction of the book is its attempt to subject regulation of education to a systematic analysis the way regulation of utilities or business or environment had been. Regulation of education is a vast area with many dimensions and there is no study which explores that regulation in its entirety and in depth. That being so, it would be expedient to study regulation starting from first principles exploring answers for the questions like what is regulation? Why regulate? Whom to regulate? How to regulate? What to regulate? Who is to regulate? What are the alternatives? What are the criteria to choose among the alternatives? This book attempts to place the regulation of education in a proper perspective, outline the evolution of the regulation of higher education, changes in the thinking on regulation of education, evaluate the functioning of regulatory organizations like the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), describe the failed attempt of the UPA-II Government to put in place a new regulatory architecture for higher education in place and do away with established organizations like the UGC and AICTE, and outline the proposals of the Modi Government to revamp the regulatory architecture. Discussion of regulation, or for that matter any major policy is incomplete without an examination of the role of judicial review and case law. In fact, ‘the courts have tended to move from the byways onto the highways of policy making’ as a result of the replacement of the black letter law tradition by a judicial philosophy and interpretational activism which sanctify discerning the purpose underlying a constitutional provision and applying the purpose so discovered to rectify failures of public policy and governance as well as to correct wrongs of all types. No wonder that the exercise of the power of judicial review in Yash Pal and

Another v State of Chhattisgarh and others [(2005) 5 SCC 42] had led to the metamorphosis of the UGC from an ineffective regulatory organization into a powerful organization whose regulations bind even State Legislatures and State Governments, not to speak of universities; a New UGC was born which is a species different from that created by the Parliamentary statute. A Madras High Court judgement said it all when it observed that ‘today, Albert Einstein cannot be appointed as the Vice Chancellor of any university unless he fulfils the qualifications prescribed by UGC’.4 True to the saying ‘ The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away’ judicial review virtually demolished the power of the AICTE to regulate degree-granting technical education institutions and universities, and curtailed the power of State Governments to regulate the admission of private selffinancing colleges. Suffice to say a policy discourse without judicial policymaking is like Hamlet without Prince of Denmark. This book breaks a new path by integrating judicial policymaking with the making and implementation of education policies. This book would not have been written but for an attempt to reflect on my experiences and to that end place them in context. I was inspired by the counsel I received from Chitra Naik, eminent educationist and better half of the legendary J.P. Naik, and from S.V. Giri, Union Education Secretary with whom I was privileged to work. While presenting me a copy of Naik’s The Education Commission and After, Chitra Naik inscribed on the book ‘with compliments, for continuing the dialogue’. And Giri advised me on many occasions to write about the political economy of education. Anil Bordia, Giri’s predecessor, from whom I learnt what education was about and who encouraged me to study the history of education, often used to pose the question ‘what would Naik sahib say (about this issue)?’—a legitimate question for ‘in his person he [J.P. Naik] is the quintessence of educational India … he carries in his head not only facts and their history but also the whys and wherefores of each educational event which he is able to conceptualize and build into a systematic and integrated theory’.5 Without the illumination provided by the Past one cannot grasp the Present, cannot grasp when had changed and what continues. Study of the Past helps us to understand ‘how we got here’ which is as interesting as understanding how different is the Present from the Past. The study of history dispels the facile belief of many decision-makers that ‘the world was new, all problems fresh’, and controls the tendency ‘to offer quick fixes for complex problems’.6 Quite a few of the contemporaneous educational challenges were also addressed in the Past by great minds and statesmen, and their thoughts and actions are of great value in understanding the nature of contemporaneous challenges. The lessons of history help identify promising avenues and blind alleys, and cure one of solipsism and hubris. While the Past is a useful guide to address some of the present challenges, one should be discerning enough to recognise that some of the changes are discontinuities which call from a departure from Past beliefs and policy approaches. A good example is higher education; going by the well-known schema of Martin Trow,7 with Gross Enrolment Ratio crossing 15 per cent in 2011–12 the Indian higher education system had transited from the elite to ‘massified’ stage. The United

States made that transition in 1949–50, and countries of Western Europe, United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea in the 1980s and 1990s. World over, that transition was associated with systemic changes, the most important of which is the extraordinary diversification of the purpose of higher education, financing, student body, and content and process of higher education. Old beliefs and nostalgia for the Past would be grave impediments to address the challenges of massification and post-massification. The experience and policy developments of countries which made the transition earlier would be valuable in identifying policy options. And very importantly, apart from trying to look at the ‘Present’ from the perspective of the ‘Past’ I also attempted the converse of it, namely look at the ‘Past’ from the perspective of the ‘Present’.

Naik’s historical writings cover educational developments during the British era and post-Independent period till 1979. For the period subsequent to 1979, there have been articles—may be a book or two—on some aspects of these developments individually; however, there is no comprehensive narrative that covers developments as a whole and place them against the backdrop of national and global political, economic and educational developments. As one who was a witness to many of the developments, and associated with quite a few, I felt it was incumbent on me to act on the advice of Chitra Naik and Giri, and document the developments so that the Great Conversation could go one uninterrupted. This book meticulously documents the course of education policymaking from 1964 onwards. Such documentation had a special value in a country like ours in which in spite of legal provisions public records do not reach archives as they ought to, a fact of which I have experiential knowledge from my stint as Secretary, Culture, Government of India whose remit includes supervision of the National Archives.

This book is the narrative of a participant-observer During 1988–97, I was intensely associated with many of the policy and programme initiatives at the State, national, and international levels. Each of these experiences was valuable, and my experiential knowledge would have been incomplete without anyone of them. Experience of working as State Education Secretary gave me the opportunity to understand the challenges of implementing national policies in the field, and to gain experience of formulating State-specific policies, of universalizing elementary education, of vocationalizing secondary education, of managing the trade-off between expansion of access and maintenance of quality and standards, of the heavy burden of administering and regulating a vast education system, of setting up the country’s first State Council of Higher Education, and of managing the delicate interface between the Government and the universities. That experience also helped me grapple some of the questions in the development and regulation of higher education which loomed large later in my career, and continue to do so. What is a university? Is a language university an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms? Should an institution encompass almost all significant branches of knowledge, combine teaching, and research, and be engaged in the creation of knowledge if it were to be called a university? Can a university established with the objective of promoting Telugu language and literature should also discharge the functions of the Sahitya,

Sangeet Natak, and Lalit Kala Akademies? How is a woman’s university different? What could be the State-level mechanism for regulation of and coordination among universities? Given the acute scarcity of budgetary resources how should private participation in the expansion of access be encouraged? What should be the policy towards minority education institutions? Later in the Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), as head of the policy planning division and then Additional Secretary, I had the privilege of being closely associated with every major education policy development during the period 1990–7 including revision in 1992 of the National Policy on Education, 1986 and its Programme of Education, changes in the financing of IITs, IIMs, and Indian Institute of Science, and the development of District Primary Education Programme which along with its progeny Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan was responsible for bringing the nation to the current stage of the long march towards universal elementary education. I was also the pointsman for managing the interface between the Union Department of Education and external agencies including SIDA and agencies administering British, Dutch and German development assistance, European Commission, UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank. During 1995–7, I was one of the six members of the External Advisory Panel, appointed by the World Bank President to advise him on education, a member of the High Level Committee appointed by the Director General, UNESCO to consider setting up the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, and Chairman of a committee appointed by ESCAP to review the Jakarta Plan of Action for human resource development. The opportunity to interact with external agencies and their functionaries acquainted me with the international trends in the thinking on education policy, the organizational dynamics of major agencies as well as of country-agency relationships, and of interactions among agencies. By happenstance, even after retirement, I was associated with the Oversight Committee appointed by the Central Government (2006) to introduce reservation for Other Backward Classes in Central Government educational institutions and with the task force appointed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (2009) to draw up a bill for establishing a National Commission for Human Resources for Health. These associations helped me to update myself with the developments in the areas of higher and professional education. I also led Missions to review the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (National Secondary Education Mission). I was one of the select educationists in the world invited by the East West Centre, Honolulu, to a workshop on ‘New educational paradigms and leadership programs’, at the University of Hong Kong (2003). I was invited by the World Bank to be a key note speaker at workshops of African countries on capacity building for educational development at Cape Town (July 2007) and Tunis (December 2007), and by the European Union at a retreat of its functionaries in social sectors at Hanoi (October 2007). All in all, these associations helped me understand key issues of education policy, the contested terrains and the praxis of policymaking to a degree which no amount of reading would have helped. After all, there is a certain element of truth in the

assertion of the eminent historiographer Giambattista Vico that those who make or create something can understand it as mere observers of it cannot.

In writing this narrative as participant observer I tried to be as objective and selfcritical as a human being could be However, I am conscious of the fact that being human and only all too human I did not succeed in totally eschewing my personal preferences and prejudices, and what follows is not so much history as his-story. Yet I think this narrative has merit by virtue of the fact that when dust settles down and a historian could write of this period as an outsider and not as one lived through by him he needs sources. Suffice to say this his-story would serve as a source for future historians of Indian education.

I am grateful to Professor N. S. Gopalakrishnan and Dr P.S. Seema, Law Faculty, Cochin Technological University, for invaluable assistance in locating the case law, and vetting some of the chapters. However, I am fully responsible for any errors which remain.

I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, R. V. Venkataramana Ayyar and R. V. Seshambal, who have contributed so much to my Being and Becoming. This book would not have been possible without the encouragement and forbearance of my wife Seetha Vaidyanathan. For years I had been and continue to be engrossed in writing; such engrossment is burdensome for a spouse at a stage of life when loneliness is an ineluctable existential condition. I would also like to thank the editorial team at Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

1 R.V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar, The Holy Grail: India’s Quest for Universal Elementary Education, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016.

2 J.P. Naik, The Education Commission and After, New Delhi: A.B.H. Publishing Corporation, 2nd edition, 1997, pp. 238–9.

3 For a full exposition of policy process and politics see R.V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar, Public Policymaking in India, New Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2009; also see Wadi D. Haddad with the assistance of Terri Demsky, The Dynamics of Education Policymaking: Case Studies of Burkina Faso, Jordan, Peru and Thailand, Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1994.

4 K.Y. Jeyaraj and Another v. State of Tamil Nadu and Others, MANU/TN/0879/2014.

5 M. Adiseshiah, ‘Foreword’ to J.P. Naik, The Education Commission and After, p. viii.

6 Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History in Decision-making, New York: The Free Press, 1985, p. xi.

7 Martin Trow, ‘Reflections on the Transition for Elite to Mass to Universal Access: Forms and Phases of Higher Education in Modern Societies since World War II’, Daedalus, Volume 90, Number 1, 1970, pp. 1–42.

Abbreviations

ABVP Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad

AEC Atomic Energy Commission

AEIF Australian Education International Foundation

AICTE All India Council of Technical Education

AIDMK All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

AIIMS All India Institute of Medical Sciences

AIU Association of Indian Universities

AMU Aligarh Muslim University

APECL Andhra Pradesh Electronic Corporation Limited

APPEP Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project

ASER Annual Status of Education Report

ASSOCHAM The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India

B.Ed Bachelor of Education

BCI Bar Council of India

BEP Bihar Education Project

BHU Benares Hindu University

BITS Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences

BJP Bharatiya Janata Party

BKD Bharatiya Kranti Dal

BRIC Brazil, Russia, India, and China

CABE Central Advisory Board of Education

CBSE Central Board of Secondary Education

CBSE-I Central Board Secondary Education (International)

CCE Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation

CII Confederation of Indian Industry

CLASS Computer Literacy and Studies in Schools

CMP Common Minimum Programme

CPM Communist Party of India (Marxist)

CSIR Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

CSS Centrally Sponsored Scheme

DCI Dental Council of India

DEC Distance Education Council

DFID Department for International Development

DGTD Director General of Technical Development

DIET District Institute of Education and Training

DISE District Information System for Education

DMK Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

DOE Department of Education

DPEP District Primary Education Programme

ECCE Early Childhood Care and Education

ECE Early Childhood Education

EdCIL Educational Consultants India Limited

EFA Education for All

EFA-9

EFA Summit of Nine High Population Countries (New Delhi, December 1993)

EPSI Education Promotion Society of India

EU European Union

FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry

GATS General Agreement on Trade in Services

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GER Gross Enrolment Ratio

GNP Gross National Product

GO Government Order

GoI Government of India

GoMs Group of Ministers

HEFCEs Higher Education Funding Councils

HPS Hyderabad Public School

HR Human Resources

IAS Indian Administrative Service

IB International Baccalaureate

ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural Education and Research

ICCR Indian Council of Cultural Relations

ICDS Integrated Child Development Services

ICHR Indian Council of Historical Research

ICS Indian Civil Service

ICSSR Indian Council of Social Science Research

ICT Information and Communication Technologies

ICU Indian Council of Universities

IES Indian Education Service

IGNOU Indira Gandhi National Open University

IHC Indian Historical Congress

IIM Indian Institute of Management

IIT Indian Institute of Technology

IMA Indian Medical Association

IPS Institute of Professional Studies

IRAHE Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education

CISCE Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations

ISCE Indian School Certificate Examinations

ISRO Indian Space Research Organisation

ITI Industrial Training Institute

JCVE Joint Council of Vocational Education

JRM Joint Review Mission

KSSP Kerala Sastra Sahitya Praishad

KVR K.V. Ramanthan

LKA Lalit Kala Academi

MAHE Manipal Academy of Higher Education

MBA Master of Business Administration

MCA Master of Computer Applications

MCI Medical Council of India

MEA Ministry of External Affairs

MHFW Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

MHRD Ministry of Human Resource Development

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIU Manipal International University

MLL Minimum Levels of Education

MNC Multinational Corporation

MOCCs Mass Open Online Courses

MOS Minister of State

MoU Memorandum of Understanding

MP Member of the Parliament

MSDE Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

NAAC National Assessment and Accreditation Council

NARA National Accreditation Regulatory Authority

NBA National Board of Accreditation

NCERT National Council of Educational Research and Training

NCF National Curricular Framework for School Education

NCHER National Commission for Higher Education and Research

NCHRH National Council for Human Resource in Health

NCMEI National Commission for Minority Education Institutions

NCTE National Council of Teacher Education

NDA National Democratic Alliance

NDC National Development Council

NEET National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test

NGO Non-Governmental Organization

NIEPA National Institute of Educational Planning

NKC National Knowledge Commission

NLM National Literacy Mission

NPE National Policy on Education

NRI Non-resident Indian

NSDA National Skill Development Agency

NSDC National Skills Development Corporation

NSQF National Skills Qualification Framework

NSSO National Sample Survey Office

NSU National Science University

NTR N. T. Rama Rao

NUEPA National University of Educational Planning and Administration

ODA Overseas Development Administration

ODL Open and Distance Learning

OECD Organization for European Cooperation and Development

PAC Public Accounts Committee

PIL Public Interest Litigation

PISA Programme for International Student Assessment

PLCE Post-literacy and Continuing Education

PMO Prime Minister’s Office

POA Programme of Action

PV P. V. Narasimha Rao

QAA Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education

REC Regional Engineering College

RMSA Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan

RSS Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh

RTE Act The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009

RTE Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education

RUSA Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan

SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

SAHMAT Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust

SCHE State Council of Higher Education

SCVE State Council of Vocational Education

SIET State Institute of Education Technology

SSP Samyukta Socialist Party

TLC Total Literacy Campaign

TRIPs Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Rights

TVET Technical Vocational Education and training

UAE United Arabs Emirate

UEE Universal Elementary Education

UGC University Grants Commission

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

UPA United Progressive Alliance

UPE Universal Primary Education

UT Union Territory

UWC United World Colleges

VEC Village Education Committee

Vyapam

Vyavsayik

Pariksha

Mandali (Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board)

WTO World Trade Organization

WUN World Universities Network

CHAPTER 1

The Early Years of Republic

The transition from the Raj to Independent India was marked by change as well as continuity. It is unhistorical and unfair to characterize the Raj as a nightwatchman State with little concern for the welfare of its subjects. The pronouncement of the Educational Despatch of 1854 that ‘it is one of our most sacred duties, to be the means, as far as in us lies, of conferring upon the natives of India those vast moral and material blessings which flow from the general diffusion of useful knowledge’ (Education Despatch 1854, cited in Naik and Nurullah 1974) was not mere empty rhetoric. Curzon’s efforts to bring about an all-round improvement in education was not something to be scoffed at. It is not for nothing that the eminent educationist and historian of Indian education J.P. Naik observed that Curzon ‘touched almost every aspect of education and touched nothing that he did not reform’, and is ‘the author of the great movement for educational reconstruction’ which started in the beginning of the twentieth century.1 Yet, development of India and welfare of its people was not the paramount objective but preservation of the Empire was. All in all, an independent nation free to make or mar its destiny is a species different from a colony. However, Independence did not mark a total break from the past; the system, administrative structures, policies, and to some extent even the value systems were adapted by Independent India rather than being jettisoned outright. A good example is the encouragement of private effort for expanding secondary and collegiate education by offering grant-in-aid. The Indian Education Commission of 1882 differentiated between primary education and schooling and collegiate education, and held that it was the duty of the State to provide primary education. At other stages of education private effort was to be encouraged through a system of grant-inaid. The grant-in-aid system is reminiscent of the modish New Public Management prescription of private provision and public funding, and performance-linked challenging grants. After Independence, State Governments were more willing than during the British Raj to set up schools of their own; however, the grant-in-aid policy continued to be relied upon to expand secondary education and collegiate education. The result was that higher the stage of a school, higher was the proportion of private-aided schools. Thus even in 1986–7, private-aided schools accounted for 66.77 per cent of the higher secondary schools, 52.65 per cent of secondary schools, 23 per cent of upper primary schools, and 7.60 per cent of the primary schools.

Apart from structures and policies, one finds continuity even in the educational discourse on grand themes such as free and compulsory education, the interse priorities among different stages of education, the imperative of the Central Government assisting the States for the attainment of universal primary education, the essentiality of the Central Government coordinating the educational policies of States, equalization of education opportunities, the dilemma of expanding access without compromising quality, the unemployability of most college graduates, and wasteful chasing of degrees and diplomas in the hope that prospects of employment would thereby improve. A good example is the discourse on compulsory primary education. While the nationalist opinion was of the strong view that Government was obligated to expand access adequately and ensure compulsory primary education, the official position was that while Government was committed to expanding primary education and accord, priority to it in public spending on education, it could not accept the principle of compulsory primary education for financial and administrative reasons. A similar dialogue surfaced in the run-up to the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009.

MACAULAY’S GHOST

Even now, over 175 years later, it is not unusual for educational discourse in India to begin with a ritualistic execration of the infamous minute of Macaulay as being the fountainhead of all that is wrong with Indian education. Thus the Perspective Paper brought out by the Ramamurti Committee gave a clarion call to ‘give up forever the legacy of Macaulay tradition, and start afresh;’2 so does the contemporaneous Hindutva discourse on education. Shorn of the context, some of the assertions in Macaulay’s Minute seem outrageous. It is difficult for an Indian not to revolt against a goal of education that seeks ‘to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’ (Macaulay 1920). Nor can one fail to be offended by the wholesale condemnation of Indian civilization that oozes in the assertion that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia, or that oriental languages like Sanskrit and Arabic were ‘barren in useful knowledge’. Using Government funds to teach them would be to teach false history, false astronomy, and false medicine, which were in the company of a false religion. However, with the passage of time and the Raj ceasing to be a personal experience for most Indians, it is possible and desirable to objectively evaluate the educational policies of the Raj without nostalgia or revulsion. The course of events culminating in Macaulay’s minute and its adoption as official policy by Governor-General Bentinck was meticulously studied by Indian historians, historians of education such as Naik and Nurullah, and historians of science with ‘innate love of historical studies’ like Prafulla Chandra Ray, eminent patriot and scientific pioneer who introduced in our country systematic and sustained research in chemistry, and a true Renaissance Man who could wield the

pen with as much facility as a test tube. What unambiguously comes out from all these studies is the fact that exigencies of administration and commercial intercourse forced Indians, particularly in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, to cultivate the knowledge of English in the eighteenth century. The demand for promoting English education was led by educated Bengalis, particularly the Hindus, who understood the nature and importance of the distinctive culture of Englishmen with whom they came into contact, and realized the necessity of imbibing its spirit through the knowledge of English.3 Ray contended that English education was in a manner forced upon the Government: It did not spontaneously originate it and that Macaulay was not ‘the prime mover, that his intervention was late and that the forces which he represented would probably have been successful even without his singularly tactless and blundering championship’ might be nearer to the truth.4 Notwithstanding the criticism of the education introduced after Macaulay’s infamous minute, the demand for establishment of more and more high schools and colleges was unremitting. Every statesman who had been suspected of diverting sums from higher education to elementary education evoked a storm of unpopularity. A case in point was the odium incurred by Sir George Campbel, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who declared in 1871 that primary education was the chief object of his administration and assigned a sum of Rs 400,000 for development of schools.5 Likewise Curzon’s attempt to give priority to improvement of quality over establishment of new institutions was very unpopular with nationalists. The often repeated accusation that English education was introduced by the British rulers with the sole object of turning out clerks is not borne out by historical analysis. However, the nationalist criticism that English education was far too literal and of little practical use is absolutely valid. This was a point made again and again by British administrators and educationists themselves.

Raja Rammohan Roy’s plea to Lord Amherst, unequivocally requesting English education to be introduced, is well known but its context is not. Higher education— both among Hindus and the Muslims—followed a stereotyped course during the half-millennium ending in 1800 .. After dazzling the world with its scientific and mathematical achievements, from the thirteenth century, India stopped growing intellectually and more particularly scientifically. Needham questions why countries like China and India which were scientifically ahead of Europe till the seventeenth century failed to give rise to a distinctively modern science, or to put it more colourfully ‘how Galilean science could come to birth in Pisa but not in Patna or Peking’ (Needham 1971 cited in Narasimha 2002) had been explored extensively, and a number of reasons had been adduced for India failing to stop growing scientifically after dazzling the world with its achievements. The most important reason was the intellectual self-sufficiency of the Hindus noted by incisive observers like Al-Biruni, and a social rigidity which ensured that philosophers remained philosophers and artisans thereby inhibiting cross-fertilization of ideas. The essence of the modern scientific method pioneered by Francis Bacon in the early seventeenth century is rejection of the use of mere logical reasoning to investigate nature, and insistence on the use of inductive reasoning, which proceeds from facts ascertained

through observation and experimentation to axiom and physical laws. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was among the first Indians to clearly realize that ‘the rapid expansion and consolidation of British power by early 19th century was not the isolated success of one more plundering raider from across the borders, but that it represented the advent of a new cultural force based on novel knowledge systems’.6 He was deeply concerned about the poor state of ‘mechanical arts’, and strongly believed that Indian society needed to be transformed, that such transformation could be effected only through induction of new knowledge ‘embracing mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, with other useful sciences … which the natives of Europe have carried to a degree of perfection that has raised them above the inhabitants of other parts of the world’, and that such knowledge could be inducted only by promoting ‘liberal and enlightened system of instruction’. For him Sanskrit education was akin to medieval scholasticism which would keep the country in darkness; ‘it would only lead the minds of youth to grammatical studies and metaphysical distinctions of little or no practical use to the possessors or to society’ (Roy 1920); he strongly believed that Sanskrit education ought to be displaced by English education which would disseminate the Baconian philosophy. Many other educated Indians looked upon English education as a means to enable them to take part in the administration of the country and participate in public activities for the benefit of the people. Many Indians who lived through the freedom struggle were not unaware of the merits of English education, and believed that English education was for a living and for understanding political freedom while Sanskrit education was for spiritual upliftment. One need not agree with all that Marx said about British rule in India; yet it cannot be gainsaid that British rule unleashed a ‘social revolution in Hindostan’; that revolution gained momentum after Independence and the onset of electoral politics. It is difficult to disagree with the assessment of the eminent historian, R.C. Mazumdar

India awoke from the slumbers of ages as a result of the impact [of English education]. Rationalism took the place of blind faith, individualism supplanted the tyranny of dogma and traditional beliefs and authorities … the achievements of the Europeans in arts and science … infused new ideas and generated fresh vigour among men who had hitherto been content to leave everything to fate, to look back upon the past rather than the future, and turn the searchlight inwards rather than outwards over the wide world one of its most precious gifts was the birth of nationalism in India.7

Suffice to say, whatever might be the motives of the British rulers, introduction of English education did the country a great deal of good; but for the introduction of English education the country would have remained trapped in the medieval era for a long time. The prospect of an India at the advent of Independence with few persons who received ‘modern’ education as in Congo and some other African countries is nightmarish. It would be fair to say that the perception that English education offered a passport to a secure government job as well as the disdain of the educated Indians for manual work is attributed more to the prevailing values of the Indian society than to English education. The best answer to the criticism that

Macaulay casts a heavy, dark shadow on the Indian education system is provided by a brilliant, on the spur of the moment reply by Arjun Singh in a parliamentary debate, that to continue to blame Macaulay is to ignore the post-Independent contribution of Indian educators like Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain, and D.C. Kothari. Ironically, Dalit activists have come to ‘creatively appropriate’: Macaulay’s views on Indian Civilization and English education for ‘selfempowerment’. It is time that Macaulay’s ghost be deeply interred rather than allowed to haunt Indian educational discourse, and as was said in the context of the abuse of the term ‘neo-liberal’ Macaulay education is used ‘as a footloose linguistic device which can be invoked whenever one wishes to say something forceful and critical without being analytical’.8

NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION

Apart from the education system, administrative structures, and policies inherited from the Raj, Independent India was also the legatee of a grand vision of education that went by the name of national system of education. The expression ‘national system’ entered the vocabulary of educational discourse during the agitation against the bifurcation of Bengal by Viceroy Curzon in 1905. That agitation is a historic landmark in that it radicalized nationalist politics, and spectacularly altered nationalist perception about many aspects of British rule including the education introduced by the British. In pursuance of orders issued by the Government prohibiting students from participating in political meetings and demonstrations, several students were rusticated during the Anti-Partition agitation for participating in political activities. This action of the authorities led to a movement among the students to boycott the Calcutta University which they described as golamkhana (house for manufacturing slaves). Eminent citizens of Bengal felt that it was their patriotic duty to provide for the education of students who had suffered. They established a National Council of Education, Bengal for organizing a system of education on national lines under 1906, the Indian National Congress adopted a resolution that the time had arrived for the people all over the country to earnestly take up the question of national education for both boys and girls and ‘organize a system of literary, scientific, and technical education suited to the requirements of the country, on national lines under national control and directed towards the realization of national destiny’. Hirendranath Datta described Swaraj as a threeheaded Goddess—one head being political, the second industrial, and the third educational. The National Council of Education established twenty-five secondary, about 300 primary national schools, as well as the Bengal National College headed by Sri Aurobindo as principal. A rival body, the Society for the Promotion of Technical Education, established the Bengal Institute of Technology which evolved into the Jadavpur University In 1910, this Society was amalgamated with the National Council of Education. Once the Partition of Bengal was annulled and the anti-Partition movement died out, the national schools faded away National educational institutions once again got a boost in the wake of the Non-cooperation

Movement (1920–2), and the response of students to the call of Mahatma Gandhi to boycott schools, colleges, and other institutions set up by the Raj. Unlike the antiPartition struggle of 1905, the Non-cooperation Movement encompassed the whole country; consequently national education institutions were set up all over the country, and these included universities like Jamia Millia Islamia and the Bihar, Gujarat, and Kashi Vidyapiths. The idea of asking students to boycott Government and Government-aided educational institutions and of providing a parallel system of institutions was based on the belief that Swaraj would be won in a year. Once it became clear that the freedom struggle would be long-drawn-out, the concept of running a parallel education system was given up. Lala Lajpat Rai voiced the new consensus that a national system of education could be established only after freedom when a national state would come into being. Consequently, after the Noncooperation Movement, nationalist efforts were focussed on managing a few institutions on an experimental basis rather than on expanding the network of national educational institutions. Nationalists were one in condemning the system of education introduced by the British as failing to inculcate the love of motherland, fostering servile imitation of England and English values, laying far too much emphasis on English language to the detriment of the Indian languages, and neglecting vocational education. However, when it came to defining precisely what the national system of education was nationalist thinking was divergent.9 As Sri Aurobindo wrote ‘a purely negative argument … does not carry us very far; it does not tell us what in principle or practice we desire or ought to in its place’.10

Thinking on education by savants like Sri Aurobindo, Annie Besant, Mahatma Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore was nuanced and did not seek a rejection lock, stock, and barrel of the education introduced by the British.

If the national system of education is not a wholesale rejection of the education that the British introduced, the question that arises is what it is then. Conceptualization of a national system of education acquired greater salience after Independence. It was Naik who sought to give a coherent answer to that question. From his study of education during the British Raj and of the freedom struggle, Naik visualized that the national system of education had five essential elements of which the first is ‘the provision of seven years of basic education to every child (age group 7–14)’. The second is ‘liquidation of mass illiteracy which Mahatma Gandhi described as the sin and national shame of India, and the development of a programme of adult education which must include political education’. The third is ‘the reduction of the over-importance attached to English; the development of Hindi as the link language for the country … and the use of regional languages as the media of instruction at all stages’. The fourth is working with the hands, and social or national service being an integral part of all education with a view to creating a work-based culture and to minimizing the large traditional gap between the intelligentsia and the people. The fifth one is ‘relating education to India’s great cultural traditions of the past and her present needs and future aspirations so that Indian education comes into its own, ceases to be a servile imitation of Britain, and aims at creating, not a lesser England, but a greater India’.11

As Naik was Member-Secretary of the Kothari Commission, his visualization of a national system of education influenced the report of that commission. The visualization presented no problem except the conceptualization of language policy, for the consensus on language which prevailed among nationalists during the freedom struggle evaporated by the time the Constitution was being drafted, and official language came to be the most bitter and divisive issue. Some of the key questions were: Should India have a national language? What should be the link language between the Union and States and among the States? Could any of the Indian languages be given precedence over others? If so, which? If it were Hindi, should be it be Sanskritized Hindi or Hindustani (spoken language understood in most of north India and an amalgam of Hindi and Urdu)? If Hindi were to be given precedence what would be the status of other major Indian languages? What would be the position of English and Sanskrit? It was a veritable mission impossible to resolve the status of Hindi vis-à-vis other Indian languages in a way which satisfied the Hindi enthusiasts and at the same time allayed the apprehension of non-Hindi speakers that the status sought by Hindi enthusiasts would not diminish the importance of other India languages and reduce non-Hindi speakers to the status of second-rate citizens. Eventually Constitution-makers opted for a ‘half-hearted compromise’ which papered over the unbridgeable differences.12 Hindi was adopted not as the national language but only as an official language, and a grace period of fifteen years was provided for English to be used as an official language along with Hindi. Even with that compromise the House was sharply polarized and Hindi was approved as official language with just a majority of one vote. Fifteen years after the Constitution came into effect, when the grace period for English lapsed and Hindi became the sole official language, anti-Hindi riots erupted in Tamil Nadu, the lasting legacy of which is that English has come to be one of the two official languages of India, more or less permanently. It is apposite to mention that even now in Tamil Nadu, Hindi is not taught in Government schools and that state is the only state in the country which does not have Navodaya Vidayalayas where Hindi is one of the subjects. Over years, the importance of English has been growing more and more, and did not decline as nationalists fervently hoped. Upset by the opposition to Hindi, Acharya Kriplani sarcastically observed that ‘Even Indian babies do not say Amma or Appa, but mummy and papa …’; ‘We talk to our dogs in English … In England (English) may disappear, (but) in India it will not’.13 What was said as a riposte came to be a verity. The controversy over official language was and continues to resonate in the field of education, and the nationalist visualization of the place of languages in education appears quaint.

ROLE OF UNION AND STATES DURING RAJ

A centralized education system with a single authority to lay down polices was incompatible with a vast country with so much diversity. It was in recognition of this ineluctable fact that in 1871 the unitary system of administration was abandoned; prior to that shift all executive, financial, and legislative authority was exclusively

vested in the Government of India (GoI) and the Provinces merely acted as its agents.14 During the period 1871 to 1919, education was what is now called a Concurrent Subject. In addition to augmenting the resources of the Provinces for educational development, the GoI also played a predominant role in (a) reviewing the progress of education and publishing the Quinquennial Reviews, (b) appointing commissions like the Indian Education Commission (1882), the University Commission (1902), and Calcutta University Commission (1917), (c) laying down equivalents of National Policy on Education (NPE) such as the Government Resolutions on Educational Policy issued in 1904 and 1913 which covered almost every aspect of education, (d) and establishment of administrative structures like the creation of a separate education department in the GoI in 1910 and the establishment of a Central Bureau of Education in 1915. Following the GoI Act 1919, and introduction of the scheme of dyarchy, most of education was transferred to Indian Ministers in the Provinces. That Act 1919 reserved to the Central Government the powers relating to the establishment, constitution, and functioning of new universities; however, those powers were never exercised.

Before the enactment of the GoI Act 1919, GoI accepted the recommendation of the Calcutta University Commission (1917) on the role of the GoI. That Commission visualized that GoI can perform an invaluable function by: defining the general aims of educational policies, by giving active advice and assistance to local Governments and universities, by acting as an impartial arbiter in cases of dispute, by protecting disregarded interests, by supplying organised information as to the development of educational ideas in various Provinces, and also elsewhere than in India, by helping to obtain the services of scholars from other countries, by coordinating the work of various universities, and by guarding against needless duplication and overlapping in the provision of the more costly forms of education.15

This visualization is indeed so invaluable that ‘age can neither wither’ not ‘custom stale’. The partnership between the Centre and States which NPE 1986 postulated is very similar to that of the visualization by the Calcutta University Commission. While few would dispute the fact that GoI should play the roles visualized by the Calcutta University Commission or later by the NPE 1986, disagreements arise on the modalities to be used: should it be through persuasion and incentives or should it be through coercion backed by law.

In pursuance of the recommendation of the Calcutta University Commission the Inter-University Board of India was accordingly formed in 1925. Though styled a board, it was in effect an Association of Indian Universities (AIU), and that was the name it adopted in 1973. In 1967, the Board acquired a legal status by getting itself registered as a Society. The main function of the AIU has been the establishment of the equivalence of degrees, diplomas, and examinations of universities, Indian as well as foreign.

The question as to how after the GoI Act, 1919 the GoI could discharge the role expected from it in the absence of the requisite legal mandate was examined by The Secretariat Procedure Committee set up to implement the GoI Act, 1919. That

Committee recommended that the authority of GoI should mainly be exercised through moral persuasion and that, ‘in place of giving executive orders, it should tend more and more to become a centre for best information, research, and advice’ (GoI 1960: 165). As suggested by the Committee, the GoI set up in 1920 a Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) to advise the Central and State Governments to conduct occasional reports and conduct educational surveys. Interestingly those days CABE had executive functions also such as visitation of universities on behalf of the Governor-General as Visitor and conduct of examinations which might be entrusted to it. The CABE hardly lasted a year; due to a financial crisis necessitating what in contemporaneous terms is called ‘downsizing’ of Government, the CABE, the DOE, and central grants to the Provinces for educational development were all abolished in 1924. Thereafter, the role of GoI was limited to publishing the annual and quinquennial reviews of the progress of education in India. While the nationalist and provincial leaders welcomed downsizing of the role of GoI, educationists were unhappy with the ‘divorce’ of GoI from education. The unhappiness of the educationists was eloquently articulated by the Hartog Committee (1928):

GoI should serve as a means of coordinating the educational experience of the different Provinces. But we regard the duties of Central Government as going beyond that. We cannot accept the view that it should be entirely relieved of all responsibility for the attainment of universal primary education. It may be that some of the Provinces in spite of all efforts will be unable to provide the funds necessary for that purpose, and the GoI should, therefore be constitutionally enabled to make good such financial deficiencies in the interests of India as a whole.16

This divergence in perception of academics and provincial leaders is a hardy perennial which surfaced later again and again. Thus when the Constitution was being formulated, while educationists and the Ministry of Education were particular that education should be in the Union or Concurrent List, the Premiers of Provinces were against curtailment of their remit. The adoption of the Constitution did not settle the matter and a long campaign by many members of the academic for shifting education to the Concurrent List culminated in the 42nd amendment to the constitution during the Emergency in 1976. It surfaced again in 1992 when the States sought to divest the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) of its statutory power to license the establishment and expansion of technical education institutions. It surfaced again in 2012 when the Central Government sought to establish a National Council of Higher Education and Research (NCHER) with overarching powers to regulate higher education in its entirety.

The opinion of educationists notwithstanding the GoI Act 1935 did not provide for a much greater role for the Centre in educational development than the GoI Act 1919 as the overriding consideration which prevailed in the ‘Home’ Government was encouraging the Congress and other parties to join the new federal scheme, and to that end transfer more and more subjects to the Provinces. However, the CABE was revived in 1935 ‘almost entirely due to the efforts of Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai’,17 a celebrated Indian member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) who was

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