NEP 2020 and Language

As we ponder and implement NEP 2020, the question of identity, culture, ethnicity, language, education and time-tested and research-based shreds of evidence formulates one aspect clear that teaching students in their mother tongue makes them much more comfortable and sharp than teaching them in any other language. however, UNESCO data confirms that around 40% of worldwide learners are educated in a language other than their mother tongue.

This leads to numerous problems. Students face setbacks and other social and educational hiccups. To address this issue, the government of India, through NEP 2020 took the revolutionary decision of giving education in the mother tongue. So Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) ordering to use the mother tongue for teaching is a needed and admirable move.

Singapore, Thailand, China, Israel, China, Taiwan, Japan etc got independence almost with India. However, their education system is much better than the Indian education system. One of the most important reasons for this high standard is teaching in mother tongues. 

Thomas Macaulay loathed India and the Indian education system and created a new English education system to produce a class to help the British govern and control India and the Indians. This was Indian in colour and blood but British in morals, opinions, taste and style. They were more British and less Indian. That was the metamorphosis, the English language brought into the lives of Indians.

Noticing this fall, Gandhiji and some other nationalist leaders expressed their deep distress over English education. Not only this, they realised that the English language is creating a deep divide and inequality between English-educated and non-English-educated people. This English has crippled the educated class mentally prejudiced and wounded, morally clumsy and disconnected from their land, society, culture and families. In other words, they are less patriotic and ready to leave their motherland, kith and kin at the first opportunity.

Nationalist leaders like Purshottam Das Tandon, C. Rajagopalachari, Govind Ballabh Pant, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Annie Besant, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, etc understood the negative impact of English on Indians. These leaders and freedom fighters not only have a brilliant understanding of the people and culture of India but also its fabulous spiritual and literary heritage. They supported early education in Hindi or their tongue and English as a second language.

Interestedly leaders like Nehru, Ambedkar, Seth Govind Das, Abul Kalam Azad, T.T. Krishnamachari, and E.V. Ramaswamy (Periyar), advocated English. Now, it is a well-known fact that education in the mother tongue is highly beneficial for children. UNESCO, through its Global Monitoring Education report, has supported early education in the mother tongue. Mother tongue-based bilingual schooling is much more useful than any other language for pedagogical grounds.

There is a big delusion in India, that without good English, one cannot get a good job. They are made to believe that education in the mother tongue deprives students of a good career. However, researchers have different opinions. Students with their mother tongue at the schooling medium found it very easy to master English later. When students learn English or any other second language later in their career, the skills learnt while being trained in their mother tongue can be used.

Research at the University of Ontario and on Latin American-origin learners found that proficiency in English is directly related to the teachings of English at the school level. The students who have early education in their mother tongue were found better in English than those who have been introduced to English at the school level.

In India, school education has given birth to many educational and social problems. Education in a language other than the mother tongue has dropped the literacy rate by 18% to 20%. The college dropout rate is increased by 20% to 22%. It is high time that policymakers must renounce the idea that English education is essential for the career growth and progress of the nation.   

English-educated people in India are seen as very self-centred. Getting and chance, Convent educated and English medium learners are always ready to leave their families and the nation. They also found lacking in nationalism and family ties. Senior citizens can be seen living alone and their children settled abroad. This is the biggest reward of English medium education.

Apart from benefits, education in the mother tongue is a fundamental right of every child. Teachings in the mother tongue also lead to the upliftment of cultural, spiritual and value systems. Such education can strengthen society and the nation. So the NEP and CBSE policymakers should follow up on admissions, teacher recruitment, curriculum expansion and development and teaching material to cater for the need of Indian language students.

The Indian Education system is hijacked by English Education. Those methods represented in the past the value, culture and ethos are to be recaptured to enable students to focus towards free-thinking, rational approach, nationalism culture and value system. The nasty ghost of Maucauly went so deep into the psyche of Indian Elites and the policymakers that they could not visualize that the soul of their country has been mortgaged with the mortal and suicidal darkness. 

Aimless rush for degrees and certificates

Schools, colleges, universities, parents, students, governments etc all are busy in strange manipulation and rush- to distribute certificates and degrees. This is also a well-known reality that almost 90% of these certificates and degrees holders never get anything from these certificates and degrees. Now, the HRD ministry and other educational experts should guide honestly to stop undue rush for the certificates and degrees in the country. They should face the truth, howsoever unattractive it may appear, which is uncommon in education system building rounds, but it is a very important and very necessary first stair in the reform of employment and livelihood goals.

Although such advice may disturb the current school and college goers, it is very correct to leave the mad chase of certificates and degrees analytically casing all levels of learning and chasing the large scale pressure and artificial collection of certificates and degrees without knowledge and skills by artificial methods in the exams, which boosts a pretence of attainment and success rate.

Now, it is a well-known fact that exams and evaluations are just a formality. Even, very poor students are high achievers in the exams and evaluations. These fake achievements give artificial pride to ignorant learners. There are examples that at many exam centres, not a single case of unfair means in exams is caught and reported for decades. This seems to be very unreal in a country where almost honesty is an endangered thing. Teachers and evaluators either help or ignore the cheaters.

Second, boards and universities inexplicably inflate the marks and arbitrarily inflate the percentage or grades. In some universities and boards, parents and students sit in ‘dharna’ (sit-ins) and all the students were prompted to appease them. Similarly, minority institutions are very liberal to their community students in granting marks. All this manipulation and inflation of marks and grades must be stopped to foster trust in the certificates and degrees. Now, certificates and degrees have lost all shin and relevance.

Examinations and evaluations are superb junctures to improve the quality of education in the country and filter away weak students from the campuses and make institutions and teachers accountable. The authorities must make it mandatory for every teacher to catch and report at least one case of cheating in the exam or evaluation each semester to get an annual salary increment and future promotions. This method will stop cheating in exams and evaluations. This will ensure the quality of the certificates and degrees. Parents can also be helped and counselled to shift their wards to some skill training or self-work if he is found lacking in studies. The boards and the universities can be commended for holding the decisive idea that sharing real worth will empower parents to understand the level of their ward.

Providing parents with information on the ward’s standard is an important plank of education documents in most of the educationally higher nations. However, in India, this system is missing or inefficient. Here, institutions simply publish the annual marks/grades based on the fakery of exams and evaluation. In the absence of such institutional feedback about actual and honest student performance, parents have no idea to judge the standard of their ward based on gossip and physical but unreal report card which are inadequate and misleading indicators of student standards.

Sharing actual information with parents about the academic standard of their ward in the school/college introduces an element of reality about the ward, guiding the parents about future options.  Unless it is in the parents’ knowledge how their ward is performing, they have many options to think about his learning-employment career.

The feedback by the teachers contains much valuable hidden information for the parents too, and it can be utilised to identify – low-performing students, their weaknesses, their interest, and pressures, for remedial initiatives for specific students. Examinations are not real indicators due to manipulations.

Many countries have very effective and useful parent-teacher meetings. With NEP, exam reforms are also very important and very necessary. But, this aspect has been ignored. Due to the non-seriousness of the teachers and authorities, almost 100% of students pass and exam results are no more real reflectors of the performance of any student. However, from the beginning of the 21st century onwards, the Indian government’s education department’s emphasis was to pass the students and not on quality education. 

The official initiative was not good for the nation and was not nationally welcomed and the government initiated a draconian No-Detention-System. But a couple of years later, the performance of the students fell drastically. Even though all were high achievers, they were not employable. Several studies indicate that reforms were responsible for growing cases of suicides, depression, stress, mental illness, dejection, hopelessness etc. Even the pass-outs of the best of the institutions like IITs, IIMs, AIIMSs, DU etc are still completely dependent on government jobs only. They have neither any skills nor courage to start any self-work. Educational institutes should produce leaders and not job beggars. 

The main resistance comes from teacher unions, who instigate the people and argue in the name of social justice that socio-economic backgrounds are responsible for poor performance. However, institutional rankings do not benefit the students. Academic rankings do not help the students in any manner. On so many parameters such as learner satisfaction levels, honesty in exams and evaluations, faculty appointments, promotions, salary levels, employability of the degrees and students etc there is total silence. 

The ranking published by some government institutions and magazines is compiled on the observation by a sample of principals, teachers, students and parents who have nothing to with the real and practical parameters like learner satisfaction levels, honesty in exams and evaluations, faculty appointments, promotions, salary levels, employability of the degrees and students etc. However, all the rankings ignore the perception-based ‘academic reputation’ scores and the actual and honest academic performance of students.   

Therefore education policymakers and exam and evaluation boards need to consider the actual performance of the students in external and internal exams to assist the parents and the employers to prepare them for open competition, control cheating in exams and evaluation and thus improve the level of students.

Need for discipline in the university

The nation needs discipline and peace in the university campuses. It can only flourish with dedicated academicians and meritorious learners. Universities have been established to impart knowledge. Their role is most important in making the nation and society- wise and well-informed. 

However, in the name of freedom of expression and autonomy, their most important aim of knowledge has weakened. Now, academicians, as well as the learners, want that the government should finance them fully and leave them free of any government guideline and regulation. They must have complete autonomy about all the matters.

So many shoddy forums and institutes have come-up to misguide or instigate the teachers and learners about the so-called academic freedom and autonomy. One such institute the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI) has established The Academic Freedom Index that described that academic autonomy and freedom has been under attack in universities in many nations. Here, it would be in the fitness of things the famous comment by Albert Einstein, “By academic freedom, I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right also implies a duty: One must not conceal any part of what one has recognised to be true.”

All want liberal financial support by the government, certificate and degrees with high grades, good hostel facilities, flexible time frame, quotas, scholarships, government jobs with high perks and no work and whatnot but nobody wants any duty, restrictions, discipline and rule of law.

During the last few years, vested interests have turned the university into a place only for freebies, strikes, dharnas, demonstrations, the boycott of classes and exams and shut down. Their only aim is to de-stabilize the system. These elements want their complete say right from admissions to the appointment of the Vice-chancellor and professors. They only want academic freedom and institutional autonomy but no to regulatory strictness. They involve politicians, media, caste and communal leaders, NGOs, professional activists in the name of academic freedom and public debate.

The nation needs to understand this deep conspiracy, which will disturb the workings and future of Indian universities in India and across the world. At the very outset, it should be clear to all that if academicians and learners want academic freedom as fundamental and the most important issue, then they should also arrange their financial resources. They should not look at the taxpayers’ money to fill their coffers for their enjoyment. They should understand their duties as teachers and students. There was a time when the nation took pride in its universities and educational institutions. However, this excellence has been ruined in the name of freedom of speech and autonomy.

It is good to enjoy the freedom of expression but it must be free from ideological manipulations. Stakeholders must understand their duty with discipline in a democracy promoting knowledge and morals. As educators should understand their complex role as a guide to society. They should not be swayed by the ideological pressures: favouring one or disfavouring the other. They should design academic freedom within the academic context. They should not follow the historical, social, political and economical aspects blindly.

For this, recruitment should be done by the faculty. Appraisal and assessment of faculty and staff ought to be done by regular and senior faculty within the university. They must be seniority cum performance-based, following their contribution to teaching and the institution. The authority for decision and policy-making must be vested in the college or university’s senior-most faculty, which includes the VC, principals, deans and professors appointed based on seniority.  Outsiders, including politicians, bureaucrats, donors, and faculty on long leave should be excluded from this process.  Internal governance of a college and university have to be led by the regular teaching faculty and not anybody from outside the university. Even faculty on long leave in the name of projects, research, visiting fellows etc should be denied all the promotions and offices.

Internal and senior faculty members should be appointed as Vice-chancellors, principals, deans, professors and head of the departments permanently. They will be better equipped to tackle and solve the problems of the universities and colleges in a much better way.  

Preparation of programmes, courses, curriculum, teaching methods, and administration of colleges/departments ought to be within the university administration as per recognized system, rules and regulations of the university with all powers of decision-making controlled by the faculty and staff of the university. Internal evaluation system and internal assessment system should be discouraged and discontinued. All the decisions are taken following the laws, rules, regulations and guidelines given by the government and regulatory bodies. Nobody from outside the university system is encouraged to exercise control or influence decisions and workings.

The emphasis should be on teaching. Research and project work should not be encouraged at the cost of teaching and classes. In such matters, the head of the department’s ought to have full freedom and academic autonomy. Those faculty members who’re involved in projects, academic research ought to be treated as junior to those who are involved in teaching and institutional work. There should be separate institutions for research work and publications. It is commonly seen that incompetent teachers hide their incompetency behind research, projects and publication.

With academic freedom, the university system should give meaningful importance to higher regulatory bodies. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has visualized substantive regulatory reforms to empower Indian universities. Multiple stakeholders for governance should be reduced. Multiple stakeholders just create confusion, corruption and delays and achieve nothing.

No university can function in an honestly autonomous manner without the support of the government. NEP 2020 is very clear about this. There will be a regulatory framework to ensure integrity, efficiency, transparency and resource generation. For research, innovation and new ideas separate research institutions are envisaged in NEP 2020.  

However, for decision-making one has to give acceptance and legitimacy to the seniority and commitment to teaching and institution should be the hallmark. Politics, strikes, nepotism, boycott and favouritism  and disagreements lead to acrimonious engagements that can vitiate the academic and intellectual and academic ecosystem, and universities and colleges must be cautious against that.

The vision and imagination of NEP 2020, if implemented honestly, will enable Indian universities to endow with world-class education, while promoting excellence and contributing to nation-building. ‘Atmanirbharta’, for the society and nation, institutions, especially educational institutions and universities, is tangled with the fundamental principles of freedom, excellence, autonomy and governance and India will be ‘Vishvaguru’ once again.