INDIA NEWS
EDITORIAL
Justifiably 21st cen. Ganga and Ma-Ganga: Rivers India dumps 20th stimulate cooperation T cen. educational model
Dr Uttam Kumar Sinha
www.indianews.com.au
Grading now includes self-assessment and peer assessment, progress in project-based and inquirybased learning, quizzes, role plays, group work, portfolios and teacher’s assessment. Artificial Intelligence-based software will generate specific feedback to student to help prepare and study in a ‘smart’ and focussed manner. Board exams will test primarily core capacities/competencies rather than months of coaching and memorization and class work will help grades in the corresponding subject in the Board exams. Special emphasis is being put on the recruitment standard and professional development of teachers and principals through leadership/ management workshops and online development opportunities. Teacher’s transfers will be checked to develop long term teacherstudent bonding and nonteaching tasks will also be minimised to help teachers focus on teaching. Provision have been also enshrined for hiring eminent persons or experts as ‘master instructors” and by 2030 the minimum education requirement for a teacher will be a four-year integrated B.Ed. Last, to improve India’s less than satisfactory international standing in higher education, NEP 2020 proposes to move educational institutions into large multidisciplinary universities enrolling at least 3,000 or more students. Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education including vocational education is a long running concern and needs to be raised from 26.3% (2018) to 50% by 2035. Undergraduate degrees will be of three or four-year duration with multiple exit options, yearly vocational and professional certifications or diploma after 2 years of study, but four-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programme will be preferred as a holistic and multidisciplinary education. Justifiably, NEP 2020 seeks to build international research collaboration, researcher/ faculty/practitioner exchanges to encourage increased foreign students’ enrolment in Indian institutions. Indeed, for a country of India’s size and increasing youth bulge the NEP 2020 was the long awaited document to make India’s youth future and job ready.
The former secretary-general of ASEAN and the foreign minister of Thailand, the late Surin Pitsuwan, a key initiator to the MGC and a great friend of India, had resolutely stood for social cohesion and democratic values in his long and distinguished career. In his visit to India in August 2017, he had strongly emphasised on these endearing values as he envisioned India and the South-east Asian countries as a shared cultural heritage. Few months later he passed away. The commonalities in terms of such values – the democratic, the social, the cultural and the political are strong drivers to the MGC. In the recent MGC ministerial meeting (August 2019) an action plan 2019-2022 was chalked out with water resources management as a key area of cooperation. India’s foreign minister observed, “The MGC is as much a celebration of our long and rich history of trade, cultural and people-to-people exchanges as it is a vehicle to advance modernday cooperation to bring progress and prosperity
to our peoples.” Cooperation on water resources essentially encompasses a host of activities including the efficient use of water, water harvesting, water data collection, flood and drought management and disaster reduction, groundwater management, water quality monitoring, etc. In the last two decades of the MGC, India’s involvement in water cooperation through Line of Credits in irrigation projects, storage dams and hydro-power projects in the lower Mekong region has been noticeable. Some have been completed and some are ongoing. India has now offered to conduct training programmes and workshops in water resource management and community farming. Future efforts on water cooperation between India and the South-east Asian countries will require building a stronger coordination mechanism. There is also a strategic significance to this which the MGC should not ignore. The Mekong like the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna is
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The idea of using riverine systems, and connecting people from the two river basins was an aspirational outcome that fitted well with India’s Look East Policy
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ndia’s New Education Policy (NEP) framework established in 1985 and modified in 1992 has seen the much-needed 2020 version, after three decades! Driven by the United Nations’ Goal 4 or 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and rapidly altering needs and worldview of the 21st century, NEP 2020 is aimed at making students job and future ready with a holistic knowledge, multi-skills and multidisciplinary awareness. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, to be renamed as Ministry of Education, deserves praise for accomplishing this mammoth exercise. NEP 2020 emphasizes on innovation, critical thinking, evidence-based learning, practical skills, hands-on or applied study and vocation skills, along with internships training provisions. 10+2 (similar to International Baccalaureate) system Grade 1 to 10 (aged 6-16) and Grade 11 to 12 (aged 16-18) transitions to 5+3+3+4 system — 5 years of foundational education (Primary to Grade 2) +3 years of preparatory education (Grade 3 to Grade 5) + 3 years of middle education (Grade 6 to Grade 8) + 4 years of secondary education (Grade 9 to 12). The Annual State of Education report 2018 shows that only 42.5% of the grade 5 students could read Grade 2 level text, and only 26.9% of Grade 3 students could recognise number till 9. Hence, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) now lays greater emphasis on literacy and numeracy skills, and delivery of education in mother tongue till Grade 5, and choice to pick another national language thereafter, in a bid to encouraging multilingualism amongst the future generation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls it “setting up of the foundation for 21st Century India or New India”. NEP 2020 creates multiple pathways from school to university, away from “stream-based education” and provides multidisciplinary subject options such as physics, geography and history altogether. This will help switch from one subject stream to another or enable reskilling or upskilling as interests of the students alter. Subjects such as music, physical education and vocational training will be brought at par with main academic subjects. As a part of ‘Bag-less’day, 10 days per year are set aside for vocation training or internship.
wo decades ago, the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) was initiated by India and the five ASEAN countries–Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Interestingly, Mekong means ‘Ma (mother) Ganga’. The idea of connecting the two civilizations’ rivers was expressed with confidence by the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as he stated, “We recognize the pragmatic logic of pursuing specific socioeconomic goals in the region through sub-regional groupings. We therefore, strongly support Mekong-Ganga Cooperation...” The two river basins present a unique and powerful platform committed to rejuvenating ties and as potential drivers towards a multi-dimensional and modern cooperative framework. The Ganga and Mekong were to facilitate and provide framework for activities broadly defined as the three Cs, namely culture, commerce and connectivity. The idea of using riverine systems, and connecting people from the two river basins was an aspirational outcome that fitted well with India’s Look East Policy, which now is referred to as the Act East Policy. We have often looked at rivers as marking boundaries and in relations to the historical and political landscape. But rivers are also rich spaces of potential integration bringing peace and prosperity and cultural fusion. Thus the civilization understanding is instructive in India’s strategic partnership today and the ASEAN region is no exception.
a lower riparian basin and the common upper riparian country is China. The Chinese upstream policies are bound to have an impact on downstream water uses. Evidences suggest that the drought conditions in the lower Mekong basin in 2019 was a result of Chinese upstream dams withholding water. Likewise the Chinese action on the Tsang-po that becomes the Brahmaputra in India is far from transparent. It is increasingly becoming clear that China uses rivers to leverage its political and strategic interest. Since China is a common concern it will be helpful to think about a lower riparian coalition of countries on these rivers so as to harmonize water policies, develop legal and regulatory water regimes and where possible put diplomatic pressure on upstream China for new set of dialogues and cooperation on water issues. The nearest to a lower riparian coalition is the existence of a global 13-member delta coalition of countries of which Vietnam, Myanmar and Bangladesh are a
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part. Many of the world’s deltas are now facing an existential crisis. Deltas are formed from sediments carried downstream by rivers as it meets the sea. The continuous flow of rivers is critical to maintaining the delta surface and helps in keeping the delta surface above sea level. Apart from the various water cooperation that have been listed in the MGC, cooperation on the delta are equally important. The Mekong has a vast delta and the Sunderban is the world’s largest delta system formed by the great rivers of South Asia. These deltas are critical hotspots of food production. Vietnam’s Mekong delta alone supplies almost 20 per cent of the world’s rice and accounts for Vietnam being the second largest producer of coffee in the world. On the other hand, the Sunderban delta is a unique ecosystem and has the largest mangrove forest in the world. Both these are fast becoming impacted by socioeconomic development and climate change-induced sea level rise as well as flood pulse changes due to upstream water diversion by China. A thorough understanding of the river delta’s long-term dynamic is therefore crucial for an informed management of water resources. It is of significance that the Mekong-Ganga regions exchange knowledge on the deltas and attract international attention to its vulnerability. Rivers are now a key driver to India’s strategic partnership. For example, the Ganga-Volga dialogue is a new space of engagement between India and Russia. Similarly, Ganga-Danube can become an important symbol to drive water cooperation between EU-India. The leadership in India is receptive to rivers and water engagement that can help in building a sound edifice of mutual confidence and open further areas for cooperation on commerce, connectivity, culture and climate change. Dr Uttam Kumar Sinha works at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, a think-tank of the Government of India’s Ministry of Defence.
AUGUST 2020
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