Death by degrees

Before our Prime Minister became Prime Minister, he was a bureaucrat. But before he became a bureaucrat, he was a teacher. Perhaps, it is the embers of that long extinct fire which have been now fanned into a flicker of concern — one doesn’t know. But whatever the reason, the news that he has assured a bunch of MPs that he will examine the concerns raised by them over Delhi University’s move to switch from a three-year to a four-year degree programme is the first positive sign in what has been an otherwise unremittingly bleak scenario on the education front.

It may, unfortunately, be already too late. Even as one writes this, Delhi University’s academic council would have managed to complete the gargantuan task of ‘approving’ the syllabi for as many as 58 courses, including several new, and hitherto unheard of ones like the integration of ‘mind, body and soul’, in the record time of just two days. And with the academic calendar being what it is, and with the future of millions of students at stake, we would undoubtedly end up with this ill-thought out and ill-advised move to marry Delhi to Detroit becoming a fait accompli .

Systematic attacks

That would be typical of the way this government in particular has approached things. Consensus, and even constructive confrontation — the hallmarks of our Parliamentary democracy — have gone out of the window. Instead, using a combination of its mindless majority, as well as the apathy and ineffectiveness of the Opposition, the Government will, as it has in the past, simply muscle its way through to get what it wants.

In the process, yet another pillar of excellence in our educational system — all too few to start with — would have suffered a body blow.

Make no mistakes about it. Under the UPA Government’s watch, more demolition of the already shaky framework of our education system has been accomplished than at any period in the past. Now, while any civic planner will tell you that some constructive demolition has to lie at the core of any redevelopment initiative, demolition without reconstruction or replacement will only lead to destruction.

Over the past four years, a systematic series of attacks have shaken not just the few globally recognised centres of excellence that we have — the IITs and the IIMs — but also undermined the very foundation on which all such centres of higher learning stand — the school and examination system.

It began with the IIMs. It took industry leaders of the stature of N. R. Narayana Murthy to stand up and protest before the Government agreed to muzzle some of its attack dogs. But the damage has already been done. The independence and academic integrity of the IIMs have already been compromised. A couple of the newer — and therefore, weaker — IIMs have already knuckled under. And it will not be long before Murthy and the others will tire of a fight which is not of their making, and not of direct concern to them anyway. ‘Victory’ would have been achieved, at the staggering price of permanently weakening an outstanding institution.

Tinkering with selection

The IITs have not been spared either. Right or wrong — and there were many things wrong with the earlier system of selection of candidates for IITs, as many IIT professors themselves had pointed out — the system nevertheless ensured that somehow or the other, the cream got separated from the whey, and one ended up producing engineers who could walk into a job anywhere in the world on the strength of their engineering degree with the ‘IIT’ tag.

The value of that tag has now been weakened. Under political pressure, the Government has caved in and opened a plethora of IITs — without the kind of investment in infrastructure and teaching staff required to merit the tag. Simply dubbing a bunch of concrete buildings does not make an IIT, but this basic truism appears to have escaped the powerful decision-makers who ram-rodded this through.

As if that was not enough, the IIT selection process has been tinkered with, with weightage being given to the discredited school board system’s marks.

Is this the way to ensure that better candidates get into the IITs? I do not know. But while I will unashamedly confess my ignorance, or my inability to decide on the issue, the Government has not told anyone why its way is better.

Schools not spared

Let us turn to schools. Two decisions have fundamentally altered the school landscape for ever. The first was the widely welcomed decision to do away with a board examination at the 1oth Standard level. There were many things wrong with the Indian school examination system, not the least of which was the incredible pressure it brought down on young children, as well as parents and teachers.

So, doing away with a single, make-or-break exam is a good thing in itself. But then, why hang on to the 12th Standard exam, then? How is one board exam bad, and needs to be done away with, but another, identical but even more pressuring exam, necessary? Why not do away with that, and use some kind of aptitude-based selection test, like the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) used in the US? After all, as this government has made it all too clear, it considers the US system as the ideal to aspire to!

Yes, there were many things wrong with the board examination system. But with all its deficiencies, the system managed to instill at least rote learning skills in students. The better and brighter ones added their innate intelligence to this and took off, so much so that Indian engineers, IT professionals, doctors and managers are sought after in the world today. If we are doing away with rote learning, are we replacing it with genuine learning?

Right and responsibility

Then came the Right To Education Act. The right to free and compulsory elementary education has been made a constitutional right. Which, again, is a good thing. Any society which cannot guarantee basic education to its children has no right to call itself civilized, let alone developed. But, with rights come responsibilities. The Government used its right to legislate to create this right, but what about the responsibility to deliver? Where has it constitutionally committed itself to spending the kind of money that needs to be spent to ensure that this right is translated into reality? Wasn’t the need to create this right created by the Government’s inability to deliver universal basic education in the first place? Why, in the name of equality, end up eroding even the few centres of excellence in school education that you do have, in the name of doing away with ‘elitism’?

At every step, the government has demonstrated its ability to use the sledgehammer of power with impunity. But, as Spiderman taught us, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

It could start by paying heed to what one of India’s foremost educationists, one of its founding fathers and its former President, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, said: “The aim of education is not the acquisition of information, although important, or acquisition of technical skills, though essential in modern society, but the development of that bent of mind, that attitude of reason, that spirit of democracy which will make us responsible citizens.”

It is time the government behaved as a responsible citizen first.

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