NEP 2020: The New Old

Context: Predecessors of NEP 2020 have attempted to consolidate and build on all the earlier efforts, whereas new NEP is keen to establish a different regime.

Issues in NEP-2020

• Policy enlists problems faced by higher education: without suggesting the diagnosis of the underlying maladies.
• The vision for higher education: is quite wordy and repetitive.
• For instance, the term “multidisciplinary” comes up repeatedly without clearly stating its meaning.
• Rise in a number of new multidisciplinary HEIs by 2040: without amending existing structural and governance flaws.
• Illusionary rise in Gross Enrolment Ratio: in HEIs by 2035 can be attributed to larger student strength in each HEIs and a large number of new HEIs.
• No clear roadmap is laid out: for overhauling and re-energising the higher education system.
• Fails to recognise and eliminate existing flaws in the education system: low standard teaching, lesser emphasis on research, suboptimal governance and leadership, and ineffective regulatory system.
• Reinforces a culture of mistrust and control: that in turn establishes mediocrity in the education system.
• Policy envisages independent self-governing institutions with considerable autonomy for teachers.
• Disorganized attention to centralisation and imposition of a uniform template: is paradoxical given India’s size, population, diversity and constitutional federalism. 
• The “light but tight” approach in the regulatory processes is mostly subverted by the bureaucratic culture.

Way Forward

• Need of the rhizomatic model: i.e recognize that institutions have their histories and rooted firmly in, and engaging dynamically with, specific social and cultural contexts. 
• Drawing lessons from ancient universities: Nalanda and Vallabhi did not comply with fiats that sought to prescribe their curricula and regulate their scholarship.

• Creation of a new ecosystem cannot be engineered through top-down fiats. 
• They were unique and were not cast in the same mould. 
• They themselves determined their scholarly pursuits and teaching methodology.

Conclusion: Establish a culture of trust and freedom in education and regulatory system for ensuring sustainable implementation of NEP.