National Education Policy 2020: What is needed is a new kind of thinking

Written by Shyam Menon
One thing struck me as a major difference between the new National Education Policy and its predecessor. The previous policy, National Policy on Education 1986/1992, presented itself as an attempt to consolidate and build on all the earlier efforts, particularly NPE 1968. The new policy, NEP 2020, on the other hand, is very keen to establish that it is different (even in its name!) from everything of the past.

Nowhere in the policy does this attitude come across as starkly as it does in the section on higher education, which begins with a credo that “this policy envisions a complete overhaul and re-energising of the higher education system…” (p. 34). The policy starts with listing the problems currently faced by India’s higher education. The listing may be comprehensive, but there is no diagnosis of the underlying maladies. It is as though there is nothing to understand about what has made it possible, historically, for some of the current institutions, arrangements and practices to succeed even within the general gloom, and some successful ones of the past to have regressed into mediocrity.

The vision for higher education itself is quite wordy, and at places somewhat repetitive (for instance, the term “multidisciplinary” comes up repeatedly in the document and despite so much articulation on the subject, one is still left wondering what it is really all about), but comes across fairly clearly about how the higher education ecosystem will be by 2040. By that time, if the policy has its way, the Indian higher education ecosystem will be populated with higher education institutions (HEIs) comprising universities and colleges, public as well as private, all of which will be “multidisciplinary” and each populated by more than 3,000 students, at least one “in or near every district” (p. 35).

Universities will do research as well as postgraduate and undergraduate teaching, some research intensive and others teaching intensive, while colleges will be largely teaching at the undergraduate level, a number of them having “medium of instruction in local/Indian languages or bilingually” (p. 35). The colleges may manifest in clusters around universities as constituent colleges, or may be stand-alone autonomous ones. Ideally, all HEIs will eventually become “independent self-governing institutions” (p. 49) with considerable “faculty and institutional autonomy” (p. 34), having complied with a series of regulatory exercises that are “light but tight” (pp. 34, 47) operated by a large number of private accreditors overseen by a new set of regulatory institutions at the national level. By 2035, India’s higher education system will have doubled the Gross Enrolment Ratio to 50 per cent. The doubling of enrolment will be made possible by larger student strength in each HEI, a large number of new HEIs mostly in the private sector, by a refurbished Open and Distance Learning system and through the use of technologies including online modes.

While the vision is laid out pretty elaborately, the fact that we are starting not with a tabula rasa, but with existing imperfect institutions, both HEIs as well as the regulatory structures, the policy does not clarify how we will get there in two decades, indeed how we will accomplish the promised “complete overhaul and re-energising of the higher education system.” What the policy envisages is to build the edifice of an entirely new ecosystem of independent self-governing institutions with considerable autonomy for teachers from the debris of a “fragmented ecosystem” of “low standard teaching,” “lesser emphasis on research,” “suboptimal governance and leadership” and “ineffective regulatory system” (p. 33). No clear roadmap is laid out in the policy for this complete makeover.

The problem, as I see it, is that much of the mediocrity in the system that the policy rightly identifies stems out of a culture of mistrust and control, the seeds of which are in the very DNA of our larger system, not confined to higher education. So, it is a bit disappointing that the policy employs structures and mechanisms that are built out of the same genetic material to engineer the structural transformation of the entire ecosystem of higher education that it envisions.

When the policy envisages a set of national level regulatory institutions, it is willy-nilly giving in to centralisation and imposition of a uniform template. In fact, the NEP 2020 itself is an exercise of imposing uniformity and standardisation along a single axis of control and power, which is paradoxical given India’s size, population, diversity and constitutional federalism. The “light but tight” approach (whatever that means) in the regulatory processes is obviously well intentioned. But, from past experiences we know that these are mostly subverted by the deeply entrenched bureaucratic culture that will pervade any new institution created within the larger governmental ecosystem. One old institution may mitotically divide into four new ones, but the genetic material out of which these are created remains the same, and so does the institutional culture.

What is needed, perhaps, is a new kind of thinking, more along the lines of the “rhizomatic” model for social organisation and culture that Deleuze and Guattari (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, 1980, A Thousand Plateaus, Translated by Brian Massumi. London and New York: Continuum, 2004) have propounded. It is important to recognise that institutions are organic entities with their own histories and rooted firmly in, and engaging dynamically with, specific social and cultural contexts. Creation of a new ecosystem cannot be engineered through top-down fiats. Drawing an instance from ancient India, as the policy time and again does, Nalanda and Vallabhi did not reach their pinnacle of glory by complying with fiats that sought to prescribe their curricula and regulate their scholarship.

In fact, each of the ancient universities was unique; they were not cast in the same mould. They flourished in an environment of trust and freedom in which they themselves determined what their scholarly pursuits and teaching would be. Their patrons simply trusted their wisdom to carry out their work and supported them without breathing down their necks.

This article first appeared in the print edition on August 8, 2020 under the title ‘NEP 2020: The new old’. The writer is professor, Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi and former vice chancellor, Ambedkar University Delhi

India adrift, optimism hard to sustain

Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen 

The recent estimate of GDP growth for the third quarter of 2019-20, at around 4.7 per cent, has prompted a predictable sense of gloom. However, even the 4.7 per cent estimate is deceptive, since in per-capita terms, the corresponding figure would be just above 3 per cent. This, sadly, is no more than half the growth rate of per-capita GDP that India enjoyed five years ago.
The reasons for alarm, however, go much beyond the slowdown of GDP growth. If anything, there is too much rather than too little concern with growth estimates. We have to look beyond per-capita growth to what the people of India get from economic progress — health, education, social security and other necessities of a reasonably good life. If per-capita GDP is distant from better indicators of human development (such as life expectancy, mortality rates, morbidity indicators, literacy, schooling rates), even more distant are measures such as the total size of the economy. And yet policymakers today seem obsessed with India’s becoming a 5-trillion dollar economy and with its ‘overtaking’ — in this oddly devised race — more prosperous economies with much smaller population size. Confusion in economic objectives yields confounded economic policies. From the comfort of the total size of the economy for a large nation, we have to shift our gaze to the incomes of individuals and families, and from there to the capabilities to lead good lives that people can in fact enjoy. Optimism is hard to sustain as we get closer and closer to the miserable lives that a great many Indians have to live.
Economic indicators today related to people’s living conditions are indeed depressing. For instance, real agricultural wages have barely risen in the last few years. According to National Sample Survey data, there was an unprecedented decline in per-capita consumer expenditure between 2011-12 and 2017-18 (just after demonetization), and unemployment rates have never been higher since the mid-1970s. It is hard to avoid a sense of malaise if not a crisis.
Even in terms of macroeconomic indicators, many of them have turned for the worse in recent years: the investment rate, export growth, and bank credit, among others.
All this has been widely noted and discussed. What is less well understood is that this economic slowdown has been aggravated by the resilient inertia of social policy. In the first edition of An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions, published in 2013, we argued that India’s development strategy is fundamentally flawed in so far as it overlooks the central role of human capabilities, both as valuable in themselves and as means of further progress. That basic deficiency has not been removed over the years — quite the contrary.
To illustrate, there has been no significant initiative in the field of education under the NDA government. Six years have been spent waiting for the New Education Policy, which is yet to materialize (a draft was finally released last year, from which it is hard to get much encouragement). Meanwhile, it is business as usual.
The Indian public is perhaps insufficiently aware of the pathological nature of the country’s frail and fragmented education system. According to Unesco data, the proportion of children having to study in private schools at the primary level is just 12 per cent in the world as a whole. Among those who study in private schools, many are enrolled in non-profit educational institutions run by NGOs, churches, trade unions and other civic organizations. In India, by contrast, the proportion of children studying in private schools is around 35 per cent and rising, and the bulk of private-school enrolment is in profit-oriented schools. As elementary education turns into a market commodity, and quality depends on ability to pay, the schooling system reproduces the social inequalities it is meant to reduce. Even within the government sector, there are enormous variations in the quality of education facilities, with the worst being normally reserved for the poorest families and communities. Every year, millions of underprivileged children, who have much the same abilities and potential as other children, see themselves condemned to a life of harsh labour as they leave the schooling system without the most basic educational skills. None of this, however, seems to be a subject of major concern or even of serious discussion in Parliament, the media, the courts or other public forums.
Similar things can be said about other critical fields of social policy, such as health and social security. Spending on the Central government’s flagship health programme, Ayushman Bharat (farcically called “the world’s largest government funded healthcare programme” by the finance minister two years ago) was a microscopic Rs 3,200 crore in 2019-20 — that’s less than 0.02 per cent of GDP. The neglect of primary healthcare for all is appalling. Social security is also neglected, with the Central government’s contribution to old-age pensions frozen at a measly Rs 200 per month since 2006 and maternity benefits restricted to Rs 5,000 for one child per family in violation of the National Food Security Act. Even child welfare programmes, such as school meals and the Integrated Child Development Services, are still reeling from the deep budget cuts inflicted by the Narendra Modi government’s first full-fledged budget in 2015-16. The more essential a public service, the less interest it seems to receive today. Meanwhile, the country’s attention and energies are endlessly diverted by Hindutva’s pet projects, from cow vigilantism and the abrogation of Article 370 to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the construction of a temple at Lord Ram’s alleged birthplace. These distractions, deplorable as they are in their own right, also exact a heavy price in the form of reduced engagement with economic and social issues.
Alas, the prospects for the future have also been damaged by another recent setback — the retreat of democracy. ‘Retreat’ is a mild term in a situation where all democratic institutions are under attack and the most elementary democratic norms are being undermined — starting with the freedom of expression and dissent. The government is actively promoting a dangerous notion of good citizenship aligned to blind obedience to the State. Criticism of the government is increasingly seen as ‘anti-national’, and discouraged in every possible way. Anyone who speaks out against the government is at risk of being harassed in one way or another: NGOs may lose their FCRA, media agencies may be deprived of advertisement revenue, political leaders risk a tax raid, and poor people can simply be beaten up — or worse — for speaking up. Even mild criticisms of the government on social media can lead to sedition charges, a colonial relic in the Indian Penal Code. These tactics have huge chilling effects, as more and more citizens and institutions are anxious not to get on the wrong side of the government.
Along with the general weakening of democratic freedoms goes the championing of Hindu sectarian pursuits in the political arena, so there is a simultaneous weakening of democracy and India’s long commitment to secularism. What is no less disturbing is that resistance to these attacks on democracy and secularism has often been hard to present. Editors who defy State pressure to print strongly critical headlines, vice-chancellors who defend their students’ right to protest, judges who try to be fair without favouring governmental points of view, often face — direct or indirect — punishment from the ‘authorities’. There have still been defiant voices and dissents, and they have been very encouraging from the suppressed public, but there is room for many more.
In this respect, the recent nonviolent protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens are a tremendous source of inspiration and hope. The sit-in at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi and the peaceful demonstrations it has inspired across the country are a living expression of the constitutional values of liberty, equality and fraternity. They have forged new solidarities across old divides and unleashed an unprecedented wave of creative thinking and action around democratic ideals. It is not surprising that these protests, too, have become a target of attack. Few things are more important at this time than to defend and expand these democratic spaces.

Jean Drèze is visiting professor, department of economics, Ranchi University; Amartya Sen is professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard University. A new edition of their joint book, An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions, has just been published by Penguin

ASER 2019 report: A reworking of curriculum is urgently needed for the age band from four to eight

Rukmini Banerji

While the importance of good early childhood education has been known for a long time, the draft New Education Policy (released in June 2019) links the “severe learning crisis” to what goes on with young children in India. The voluminous policy document points out that close to five crore children currently in elementary school do not have foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

The draft NEP points out that the major part of this crisis may well be happening before children even enter Std I. The document cites several possible reasons for this. First, many children enter school before age six. This is partly due to the lack of affordable and accessible options for pre-schooling. Therefore, too many children go to Std I with limited exposure to early childhood education. Like with everything else, children from poor families have a double disadvantage — lack of healthcare and nutrition on one side and the absence of a supportive learning environment on the other. Although the anganwadi network across India is huge, by and large, school readiness or early childhood development and education activities have not had high priority in the ICDS system. Private preschools that are mushrooming in urban and rural communities have increased access to preschool but are often designed to be a downward extension of schooling. Thus, they bring in school-like features into the pre-school classroom, rather than developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.

Over the last 15 years, the ASER reports are well known for data on basic reading and arithmetic levels for children in the elementary school age group. What is less known is that in ASER there is rich data over time about the educational status of children below the age of six. While the nation-wide ASER 2018 report has data on enrollment patterns in age group four to eight, the recently released ASER 2019 report is completely focussed on exploring more deeply where young children are and what they can do.

Looking at these data, three clear trends are visible.

First, there is considerable scope for expanding anganwadi outreach for three and four-year-old children. All-India data from 2018 shows that slightly less than 30 per cent children at age three and 15.6 per cent of children at age four are not enrolled anywhere. But these figures are much higher in states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Expanding access to anganwadis is an important incremental step. Strengthening the early childhood components in the ICDS system would help greatly in raising school readiness among young children.

Second, it is commonly assumed that children enter Standard I at age six and that they proceed year by year from Std I to Std VIII, reaching the end of elementary school by age 14. The Right to Education Act also refers to free and compulsory education for the age group six to 14. However, the practice on the ground is quite different. ASER 2018 data show that 27.6 per cent of all children in Std I are under age six.

Third, there are important age implications for children’s learning. Data from ASER 2019 (26 rural districts) indicate that in Std I, the ability to do cognitive activities among seven-eight-year olds can be 20 percentage points higher than their friends who are five years old but in the same class. In terms of reading levels in Std I, 37.1 per cent children who are under six can recognise letters whereas 76 per cent of those who are seven or eight can do the same. Interestingly, age distribution in Std I varies considerably between government and private schools, with private schools in many states having a relatively older age distribution. A big part of the differences in learning levels between government and private school children may be due to these differences in age composition right from the beginning of formal schooling.

After several decades of efforts to universalise elementary education, there is widespread understanding of the importance of schooling. In fact, parents who have not had much education themselves have high educational aspirations for their children. Children as young as three or even less are enrolled into preschools and play schools, especially in urban areas and in middle income and high- income families. Many believe that more years of schooling is better than less and that the sooner the child enters “school” the faster she or he will learn and be ready for future learning. In many private schools, parents are encouraged to bring their children at age four or five into kindergarten (LKG or UKG) and not directly into Std I. Poorer parents, who cannot find accessible or affordable preschool alternatives and who do not see anganwadis as an option for education, will often enroll their children in Std I in the nearest government school. These patterns lead to very different age distributions in Std I in government school and private school.

Available data and evidence strongly reinforce the recommendations suggested by the June 2019 draft New Education Policy. Understanding challenges that children face when they are young is critical if we want to solve these problems early in children’s lives rather than waiting till much later to attempt the much harder to do remedial action.


The gap between policy and practice is also very visible in what happens inside preschools and pre-primary grades. In fact, the early years’ space (age four to eight) in India can be seen like a “see-saw”. Large numbers of young children are enrolled in anganwadis. But within the anganwadi system, early childhood education is not given the priority it needs. Although children are in anganwadis, they are not benefitting to the extent that is possible in terms of getting children ready for school. At the same time, increasing numbers of children are entering private preschools and pre-primary grades. But even as the name suggests, the activities at this stage are very much like a downward extension of schooling. Therefore, for different reasons, neither the government provision nor the private delivery can adequately provide exposure to developmentally appropriate “breadth of skills” that children need at this age.

On the pedagogy side, a reworking of curriculum and activities is urgently needed for the entire age band from four to eight, cutting across all types of preschools and early grades regardless of whether the provision is by government institutions or by private agencies. Anyone looking closely at the status of young children in India will agree with the draft NEP statement that early childhood education has the potential to be the “greatest and most powerful equaliser”. The year 2020 marks the 10th anniversary of the RTE Act. This is the best moment to focus on the youngest cohorts before and during their entry to formal schooling and ensure that 10 years later they complete secondary school as well-equipped and well-rounded citizens of India.


The writer is CEO of Pratham Education Foundation

Higher Education: Death by a thousand cuts

Ramachandra Guha
When, a year ago, Smriti Irani was first chosen as the Union minister for human resource development, I did not share in the general scepticism about her appointment. I had seen HRD ministers in UPA governments, with a string of foreign degrees themselves, display a conspicuous lack of interest in their portfolio. Irani seemed energetic and articulate; perhaps keenness and interest would trump lack of formal academic qualifications.

My optimism was misplaced. A year later, Irani is by far the most controversial cabinet minister, and with good reason. Stories of her arrogance and rudeness are legion. Her own senior officials have sought transfers to other ministries because they have found it impossible to work with her. Even more distressing has been her treatment of distinguished academicians such as the directors of the IITs. She has come across as bullying and overbearing, and as interfering in decisions that lie within their domains of expertise.

Irani’s lack of respect for intellectual excellence has also been manifest in some key appointments she has made. Early in her term, she appointed a certain Y. Sudershan Rao chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. Rao’s name was unknown to the community of professional historians; not surprising since he has not published one peer-reviewed paper in his life. While his scholarly pedigree is obscure, Rao has been a longstanding fellow traveller of the RSS. Since taking office, he has assured us that the Vedas are “the best evidence” for reconstructing the past, and that the Mahabharata is the “anchor for the history of Bharat”.

The HRD minister’s anti-intellectual instincts are also manifest in another of her appointments, this to the chancellorship of the Maulana Azad Urdu University in Hyderabad. University chancellors are either those holding constitutional posts (such as governors and presidents) or senior scholars of distinction. For instance, the great sociologist André Béteille has been chancellor of the North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong.

The last chancellor of the Maulana Azad University was Syeda Hameed, herself a biographer of Azad and an eminent literary scholar. After the NDA came to power, she was replaced by Zafar Sareshwala, whose contributions to scholarship are even harder to identify than Rao’s. Sareshwala is better known as a dealer in luxury cars, and as being very close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When his appointment was announced, one senior scholar told the Hindustan Times that “now it seems you just need the right political clout to head reputed institutions”.

Over the years, the quality of university education in India has been steadily undermined by political and bureaucratic interference. This has been especially marked in universities under the control of state governments. Forty years ago, Calcutta University, Bombay University, and Baroda’s M.S. University still had some excellent departments. This is no longer so. So long as the CPM was in power, all major academic appointments in West Bengal were in the hands of party bosses. The Shiv Sena played the same role in Mumbai, and the BJP in Gujarat. The universities were further damaged by parochial “sons of the soil” policies, whereby scholars from outside the state were discouraged from applying for jobs.
 

While state universities have visibly deteriorated, some Central universities have maintained reasonable academic standards. Delhi University has good departments of history, sociology and economics. Some of our finest film-makers are alumni of Jamia Millia Islamia’s department of mass communications. Both Jawaharlal Nehru University and Hyderabad University have top quality scientists, as well as social scientists on their faculty.
 

These departments and universities would be even better were it not for the dead hand of bureaucratic interference. For some years now, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has steadily encroached on the autonomy of Central universities.
 

A UGC chairman appointed under the UPA introduced a “points-based” promotion scheme that all universities had to adhere to. This gave more weight to organising student extracurricular activities and attending seminars than publishing papers in refereed journals.

One hoped that, when Irani took office, she would work to make our best universities more autonomous in their choice of curricula, students and faculty. For, the world over, it is only when scholars are in charge of scholarship that real intellectual progress takes place. Instead, the new HRD minister has sought to further centralise an already over-centralised system of higher education. Rather than let the best departments in the best universities design their own academic curriculum, the UGC now wants them to adopt a single uniform curriculum, this designed not by scholars but by incompetent (and occasionally malevolent) babus.

Worse may follow. A diabolical scheme is afloat to have a single, centralised cadre of university faculty, whose members can be transferred from place to place at a moment’s notice. If implemented, this will seriously damage existing research programmes, which crucially depend on the long-term involvement of the same set of faculty members.
 

While uniformity is congenial to bureaucrats, it is deeply antithetical to intellectual work. Scholarship and research depend on innovation and creativity from within. Most academic disciplines change rapidly. New discoveries, new methods, new theories, should all lead to changes in teaching and research. But how can this happen if every change in curriculum, every new addition to the reading list, has to be vetted by an array of babus sitting in the UGC’s gloomy office in central Delhi?
 

The scheme to allow the transfer of professors, on the other hand, is most likely the work of political apparatchiks. Suppose an outstanding physics professor in Delhi University (and there are some) signs, in his capacity as a citizen, a petition chastising the government for its failure to adequately protect minority rights. This may, if the current scheme is implemented, lead to him being transferred to the Central University of Mizoram (which, given how many recalcitrant governors have been sent here, appears to be the NDA’s preferred purgatory).
 

For some 40 years now, I have closely studied the Indian university system. I have seen some of India’s best scholars battle cuts in funding, pressure from bureaucrats, populism, parochialism and worse, while bravely continuing to teach well and produce books and papers based on original research.
 

University teachers in India suffer from hurdles and handicaps foreign to their counterparts in Europe and North America — and even Singapore and China. Past governments and ministers have been indifferent or interfering. But the present government and minister exceed them all in their outright contempt for scholars and scholarship.
(The writer is fellow at Yale, Stanford, the LSE and the IISc.)

The IITs have lost their way

anurag mehra

The ambience within disregards basic science in favour of jobs in finance or software

The Indian Institutes of Technology were founded almost five decades ago with the objective of providing technological leadership to a new and resurgent India, driven by Jawaharlal Nehru’s deep commitment to science-led development.

Whether they provided technological leadership to India or not remains debatable given the large numbers of their (under)graduate students who have migrated abroad or shifted to non-technical careers.

India has deviated substantially from the Nehruvian vision. The undergraduate education at IIT and the academic culture inside the institutes are being reshaped to an unprecedented degree by factors that operate at points of entry and exit — the former related to the joint entrance examination (JEE), and the latter arising from placement patterns dominated by non-technical jobs.

Early start

The core challenge at the entrance level has to do with the overt and subtle effects of coaching factories. Children are often enrolled for four to five years of coaching, starting as early as middle school. The result is much greater burnout, loss of creativity, and eventual loss of interest in science and technical subject matter, though coaching helps overcome the multiple deficiencies of school teaching in India to some degree.

However, the negatives become apparent when students enter high school, and succeeding in competitive examinations becomes an all-consuming goal. At one level, the sheer volume of work leaves little time for other interests and the joys of a normal adolescent life. The regimentation of solving large ‘banks’ of problems leaves little room for creativity or curiosity.

Students become adept at learning how to answer questions but are at a loss on how to ask questions — especially ones that matter. The intense, competitive pressure creates an atmosphere ripe for generating severe anxieties, and often a deep sense of inadequacy and humiliation. To be sure, this hyper-competitive experience is not different from the ordeal that students in several other Asian countries undergo. Once they enter the IITs, many students desire to rediscover normalcy in some sense.

The initial question students confront is why and what should they learn. First, unlike in the past, almost everyone plans to take a job and not go to graduate school. Second, the jobs they aspire to are in finance, consulting, software, and more generally, ‘managerial’ positions. These jobs rarely have any subject-related technical content but their pay packages are substantially higher than for technical jobs. There are far fewer openings for core technical jobs.

Jobs and advice

Most job offers come from business analytics firms and finance companies where the role is to crunch numbers on spreadsheets. While companies in these service sectors are usually satisfied with their IIT recruits, students, especially ones with middling academic records, are happy to do this, and usually enrol in an MBA programme later on. They have a certain facility with maths (which IIT-JEE selects for), are tech-savvy, and fairly quiescent as long as the job pays well.

Out of the small number of students who end up taking core jobs in their technical branch, most are often embittered about the lower paying — and lower status — technical jobs. From a student’s perspective, there is little point in mastering technical material relating to, say, mechanical, chemical, or civil engineering, or even physics or chemistry.

As students make their way through the first year, they run into that great fount of established wisdom: seniors. They rapidly pick up tips on what kind of jobs pay best, the general irrelevance of scientific and technical material, how to traverse the academic system with minimal effort and the importance of participating in all kinds of personality development activities (the crowning glory being a ‘student festival’ manager).

The “greed is good” mantra that students pick up while dreaming about pay packages also comes loaded with ‘legendary’ tales about how an alumnus made so much money in his first job or which startup was sold for how many millions to a bigger software company. These legends merely serve as a rationalisation for shirking academic work and using unfair means. As a result, students in their second year are writing business plans or planning to do some project or short course in business school while developing a disdain for learning technical subjects and basic fundamental science material such as physics, chemistry, and mathematics.

Underwhelming institutions

In the end, only those few students who have, relatively speaking, not been affected by this discourse retain the ability to continue building their technical knowledge. Sadly, poor teaching and lacklustre faculty have also contributed to this apathy.

Viewed from the outside, the IITs have managed to retain a glow because every graduating student finds a placement; students rarely remain unemployed. However, that says more about the quality of the rest of Indian higher education than the IITs. The reality is that these institutions are producing engineers, using large amounts of public money, who rarely use the knowledge acquired in their IIT education.

One could argue that a large number of students graduating with engineering degrees in the US also end up in non-technical fields, prized more for their analytical skills than domain knowledge. However, unlike US institutions, the IITs have shown very little will and the means to tackle student disinterest and faculty apathy, and quell the entire academic malpractices syndrome.

India’s policymakers need to ask some hard questions. If the IITs are to regain an ambience that generates a zest and excitement for learning and knowledge creation, how many science and engineering graduates does India need in the classical engineering disciplines? Can a more interdisciplinary restructuring of the undergraduate programme reignite interest in academic work?

Over the long term, the questions are even harder: How does the country drastically overhaul primary and secondary education, given that what happens upstream is bound to affect the flow downstream? How does India build a more dynamic manufacturing sector that will facilitate better use of the immense technical talent the IITs were set up to provide?

This article is by special arrangement with the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania. The writer is a professor of chemical engineering at IIT-Bombay and a Summer 2014 CASI visiting scholar

Education - some broadband truths for Economic Development

B. K. Modi

India is aspiring to become an economic superpower but has an antiquated education system that is crippling generations of children. The government, corporate sector and civil society need to ensure that the young are well educated and trained.

This will augur well not just for the country’s growth but also foster global citizens. Building a nation is not the sole responsibility of government.

Corporates too need to join the cause with a long-term vision and commitment backed by new technology-based solutions for betterment of 1.2 billion Indians.

A far-reaching Right to Education Act obliges the central and State governments to provide eight years of free and compulsory education to all children aged between 6 and 14 years. However, the country is a long way from achieving that goal.

There are some clear improvements, though — in particular at the elementary level — where the Government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan initiative has seen huge increases in primary enrolment, along with various midday meal schemes which attract economically-weaker sections of the population. But this is far from sufficient to prepare young people for productive employment.

While there are many handicaps in India’s governance system, the country has proven prowess in technology.

The mobile telecom revolution over the past decade or so overcame the long gestation of laying physical infrastructure across all States, and has put a wireless communication device in the hands of nearly 900 million people.

BROADBAND MAGIC

Can wireless broadband be made free for people to be empowered and fulfil their dream of a better life?

This needs to be debated and acted upon quickly. Such initiative will help the education sector which is grappling with poor infrastructure, low teacher skills and archaic pedagogy. It will be useful to shape innovation among students of Asia’s third largest economy.

Globally, high-speed broadband accessibility has led to a steady increase in the GDP of many nations.

Nearly 540 million Indians are under the age of 25 years. The labour force is expected to grow by 32 per cent over the next 20 years, whereas it will decline by four per cent in industrialised countries and by nearly five per cent in China.

INVEST IN EDUCATION

India's favourable demographic profile can add significantly to its economic growth potential for the next three decades, provided its young people are educated and trained properly.

Though the country has 621 universities and 33,500 colleges comprising one of the largest networks of higher education institutes globally and second in terms of student enrolment, its gross enrolment ratio (GER) of 18.8 per cent is still less than the world average of 26 per cent.

Global experiences indicate a positive correlation between GER and economic growth. Still, India's spends only 1.2 per cent of its gross domestic product on higher education, compared to 3.1 per cent in the US or 2.4 per cent in South Korea. The figure should be higher.

Education and nation-building should resonate in purpose and action, translate into job creation, better well-being of citizens and enhanced national confidence in a country that is truly educated, not just literate.

Businesses must focus on nurturing talent at the grassroots level as well and tackle the challenge of reaching out to economically weaker communities.

While India’s deepest malaise lies in underprivileged communities, the greatest untapped opportunity can also be found there.

Investing in education with a focus on long-term returns from these communities will ensure a sustainable model of socio-economic growth.

Grooming them into leaders will also contribute towards creating a more equitable society.

Our higher education system does not serve the masses

Justice Markandey Katju

I was at Jawaharlal Nehru University recently with some of the top senior academicians in Delhi, before dinner.

I was told that the budget of the University Grants Commission was Rs.41,000 crore in the Five Year plan and the annual budget of JNU was about Rs.150 crore.

In my usual blunt way I said, “How has this benefited the Indian masses? It seems that the huge funds being ploughed into higher education in India are for the benefit of foreign countries and to give you professors huge salaries and fine houses to live in rather than to benefit the Indian people.”

This sparked off a lively debate. Some of the professors tried to refute my statement, but I stuck to my guns.

I said that most of the money spent on education in India went to the institutes of higher education like the IITs and universities, and very little money was spent on primary and middle schools, particularly in rural areas, where the foundation of education was laid. There are very few facilities such as proper seats, electricity, books, classrooms, etc in these primary or middle schools, whereas the institutes of higher education are given huge funds and have very good facilities, state-of-the-art campuses, air-conditioning, etc. I then gave a few examples to prove what I said:

1. I once went to a village about 40 km from Allahabad (my native city) to meet a farmer friend of mine, with whom I had studied at Allahabad University.

At his home I met one of his sons who had passed class seven and promoted to class eight in his high school in the village. I asked him to bring his class 7 mathematics book and solve a few simple problems. He could not do so. I wondered how he had been promoted when he could not solve simple class 7 problems. I then solved those simple problems, and asked him to attempt the other problems in the lesson. He was obviously an intelligent boy, because having learnt how to solve the simple problems, he proceeded to solve the rest.

At this I asked him, “Did your teacher not teach you all this?” He replied, “Master Sahib thekedari karne lage hain, aur doosre master sahib class lene aate naheen hai” (the teacher has become a contractor, and the next teacher does not come to take classes”).

2. I went to a reputed intermediate college in Allahabad and was told that in a section in Class 11 there are 250 students. I was shocked. Under the rules there should not be more than 40 students in a class. What teaching can possibly be done in a class of 250 students? I also learnt that in some of the sections at Allahabad University there are over 300 students, and there is not even place for a student to sit.

In view of this, much of the real education takes place in private coaching institutes, or at the residence of teachers who make much more money there than in their institutions. As a result, these teachers evince little interest in teaching in their institutions, and a student who does not join the coaching (paying high fees) finds it difficult to pass.

3. In many of the staffrooms of our educational institutions, teachers, instead of discussing academic matters, often discuss petty politics, often of a casteist nature or matters pertaining to their service conditions. Senior professors often try to promote lecturers of their own caste, whether they have merit or not.

4. Teachers are often appointed not on merit but on extraneous considerations, like political connection, caste, etc. They are appointed on contract basis. In some States, “shikshamitra” who have been appointed on a salary of Rs.1,500 a month have no degree or teachers’ training qualification.

5. The level of intellect of many teachers is low, because many of them have not been appointed on merit but on extraneous considerations. To give an example, when I was a judge of Allahabad High Court I had a case relating to a service matter of a mathematics lecturer in a university in Uttar Pradesh. Since the teacher was present in court I asked him how much one divided by zero is equal to. He replied, “Infinity.” I told him that his answer was incorrect, and it was evident that he was not even fit to be a teacher in an intermediate college. I wondered how had he become a university lecturer (In mathematics it is impermissible to divide by zero. Hence anything divided by zero is known as an indeterminate number, not infinity).

Brain drain

I gave them many more such examples, and told the senior academicians at JNU that huge amounts of money of the Indian taxpayer is spent on the IITs and other institutes of higher education, but the graduates of these institutes usually take up jobs in foreign countries. This results in brain drain. Thus, while Indians pay taxes which go towards educating our bright students, the benefit of their education goes to foreign countries and not to the Indian people. These foreign countries benefit because higher education in their own countries is very expensive, so they have to pay only a fraction of that amount to get our bright young students.

I posed them another question: the test of every system is one simple question. Does it raise the standard of living of the masses or not? I said that the huge amount of money being spent on higher education in India is not raising the standard of living of the Indian masses because over 75 per cent of Indians live in dire poverty. There is massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices, huge problems of health care, housing, etc.

Apart from that, I asked them how many Nobel laureates have our universities and other institutes of higher education produced. Hardly any.

In many American universities one will find half a dozen Nobel laureates. Australia, which has a population of about 25 million, has 180 academicians who have an F.R.S. (Fellow of the Royal Society), while India, with a population of 1,200 million, has only about 20. So what are the achievements of our scientists and other intellectuals? It is only when they go to the United States or Canada or Europe that they achieve anything.

What is the quality of research work done by our academicians in institutes of higher learning? Unfortunately it is abysmally low and does not benefit the Indian people. Their publications are mostly poor, and done only to improve their CVs in order to get jobs.

The purpose of education is to help raise the standard of living of the masses. But in India it seems that its purpose is to raise the standard of living of a handful of people who get jobs as teachers, particularly in institutions of higher education.

I must say to the credit of the professors assembled there that they did not take any of my remarks personally. I told them that I had no intention to insult them but was only voicing my genuine grievance about the educational system in India, and the need to make it more beneficial to the masses.

At the end it was agreed that my views required serious debate which hopefully shall be held at JNU or elsewhere soon.

(Justice Markandey Katju is chairman of the Press Council of India.)

വിലക്കയറ്റവും ഭക്ഷ്യസുരക്ഷയും

പ്രൊഫ. കെ എന്‍ ഗംഗാധരന്‍

അതിരൂക്ഷമായ വിലക്കയറ്റമാണ് രാജ്യം നേരിടുന്നത്. എല്ലാത്തരം സാധനങ്ങളുടെയും വിലകള്‍ ക്രമാതീതമായി ഉയര്‍ന്നുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ഭക്ഷ്യവസ്തുക്കള്‍, കെട്ടിടനിര്‍മാണ സാമഗ്രികള്‍, അസംസ്കൃത പദാര്‍ഥങ്ങള്‍, ഔഷധങ്ങള്‍, തുണിത്തരങ്ങള്‍ തുടങ്ങി സകലതിനും തീപിടിച്ച വില. കയ്യിലുള്ള പണം ഒന്നിനും തികയാത്ത നിസ്സഹായാവസ്ഥയിലാണ് ജനങ്ങള്‍. റിസര്‍വ് ബാങ്കിന്റെ കറന്‍സിനോട്ടുകള്‍ വെറും കടലാസുകഷണങ്ങളായി മാറുന്നു. നൂറുരൂപ മാറിയാല്‍ മണിക്കൂറുകള്‍ക്കകം തീരുന്ന നിലവിട്ട് അഞ്ഞൂറുരൂപ മാറിയാല്‍ മിനിറ്റുകള്‍ക്കകം തീരുന്ന സ്ഥിതി. കുറഞ്ഞ വരുമാനക്കാരും നിശ്ചിത വരുമാനക്കാരുമാണ് ഏറ്റവും കഷ്ടപ്പെടുന്നത്. കടം വാങ്ങുകയല്ലാതെ അവര്‍ക്കുമുന്നില്‍ മാര്‍ഗങ്ങളില്ല. അതല്ലെങ്കില്‍ കുറച്ചുമാത്രം സാധനങ്ങള്‍ വാങ്ങി മുണ്ടുമുറുക്കിയുടുത്ത് ജീവിക്കണം.

ദാരിദ്ര്യരേഖയെ നിര്‍വചിച്ചിട്ടുള്ളത് നിശ്ചിത ഭക്ഷ്യഊര്‍ജം കിട്ടാന്‍വേണ്ട ഭക്ഷണത്തിനുള്ള തുക എന്നാണല്ലോ. ഗ്രാമങ്ങളില്‍ പ്രതിദിനം 22.42 രൂപയും പട്ടണങ്ങളില്‍ 28.35 രൂപയുമാണ് ദാരിദ്ര്യരേഖ. ഇത്രപോലും പ്രതിദിനവരുമാനമില്ലാത്ത പരമദരിദ്രരാണ് 35.46 കോടി ഇന്ത്യക്കാര്‍. അതായത് ജനസംഖ്യയുടെ 29.8 ശതമാനം. ഇത്ര വരുമാനമോ അതിനേക്കാള്‍ കുറച്ചു കൂടുതലോ ഉള്ളവരും ദരിദ്രര്‍തന്നെയാണ്. ആനുകൂല്യങ്ങള്‍ നിഷേധിക്കുന്നതിനും രാജ്യം പുരോഗമിക്കുകയാണെന്ന് പ്രചരിപ്പിക്കുന്നതിനുമാണ് ദാരിദ്ര്യരേഖ താഴ്ത്തി വരയ്ക്കുന്നത്. പ്രതിദിന ഉപഭോക്തൃചെലവ് സംബന്ധിച്ച് നാഷണല്‍ സാമ്പിള്‍ സര്‍വേ ഓര്‍ഗനൈസേഷന്‍ നടത്തിയ പഠനറിപ്പോര്‍ട്ട് ആഗസ്ത് ഒന്നിന് പുറത്തുവന്നു. ഞെട്ടിക്കുന്ന വിവരങ്ങളാണ് റിപ്പോര്‍ട്ട് വെളിപ്പെടുത്തുന്നത്. അങ്ങേയറ്റം ദരിദ്രരായ പത്തുശതമാനം ഗ്രാമീണരുടെ പ്രതിദിനവരുമാനം 16.78 രൂപയും പട്ടണത്തിലുള്ളവരുടേത് 23.40 രൂപയുമാണ്. ഗ്രാമങ്ങളിലെ പകുതി ജനങ്ങള്‍ പരമദരിദ്രരാണ്. വിലക്കയറ്റം ഭക്ഷ്യലഭ്യത കുറയ്ക്കും. ദരിദ്രര്‍ പരമദരിദ്രരുടെ പട്ടികയിലേക്ക് എറിയപ്പെടും; ദാരിദ്ര്യരേഖയ്ക്കുമുകളിലുള്ളവര്‍ ദരിദ്രരുടെ പട്ടികയിലേക്കും. ഇന്ത്യയുടെ സാമ്പത്തിക വളര്‍ച്ചനിരക്ക് മുന്നോട്ടല്ല, പിന്നോട്ടാണ്.

2004-05 മുതല്‍ 2010-11വരെ ആറുവര്‍ഷത്തെ ശരാശരി വാര്‍ഷിക വളര്‍ച്ച നിരക്ക് 8.7 ശതമാനമായിരുന്നു. 2011-12ല്‍ കേവലം 6.5 ശതമാനമായി ഇടിഞ്ഞു. 2011 മാര്‍ച്ചില്‍ അവസാനിച്ച മൂന്നുമാസം കൈവരിച്ചത് 5.2 ശതമാനം വളര്‍ച്ചമാത്രം. ദേശീയ വരുമാന വളര്‍ച്ചനിരക്ക് ഇടിയാനുള്ള കാരണങ്ങളിലൊന്ന് വിലക്കയറ്റമാണ്. എത്ര വെട്ടിക്കുറച്ചാലും അരിഭക്ഷണം ഉപേക്ഷിക്കാനാവില്ലല്ലൊ. ഒരു ഗ്രാമീണ കുടുംബം അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ പട്ടണത്തിലെ കുടുംബം കിലോഗ്രാമിന് 32 രൂപക്ക് അരി വാങ്ങിയാല്‍ അവശേഷിക്കുന്നത് എത്രയെന്ന് ആലോചിച്ചാല്‍ മതി. വിലക്കയറ്റം വ്യവസായ- സേവന ഉല്‍പ്പന്നങ്ങള്‍ക്കുള്ള ഡിമാന്‍ഡ് കുറയ്ക്കും. ആ മേഖലയില്‍ ഉല്‍പ്പാദനം നടത്തിയിട്ട് ഫലമില്ലെന്നുവരും. സ്വാഭാവികമായും നിക്ഷേപം ചുരുക്കും. ഒപ്പം തൊഴിലവസരങ്ങളും ചുരുങ്ങും. ഭക്ഷ്യസാധനങ്ങളുടെ മാത്രമല്ല, അസംസ്കൃതവസ്തുക്കളുടെയും എല്ലാവിധ നിര്‍മാണസാമഗ്രികളുടെയും വിലകള്‍ ഉയരുകയാണ്. ഇത് ഉല്‍പ്പാദനച്ചെലവ് വര്‍ധിപ്പിക്കും. നിക്ഷേപം ലാഭകരമല്ലാതാകും. കഴിഞ്ഞ ഒന്‍പത് വര്‍ഷത്തിനിടയിലെ ഏറ്റവും താഴ്ന്ന മൂലധനിക്ഷേപനിരക്കാണ് 2011-12ല്‍ രേഖപ്പെടുത്തിയത്. 29.75 ശതമാനം. 2007-08ല്‍ അത് 32.9 ശതമാനമായിരുന്നു. അവിടെനിന്നാണ് 29.75ലേക്ക് താഴ്ന്നത്. ദേശീയവരുമാനത്തിന്റെ ചെറിയൊരു ഭാഗംമാത്രമേ നിക്ഷേപമായി മാറുന്നുള്ളൂ. വരുംവര്‍ഷങ്ങളില്‍ ഉല്‍പ്പാദനവും തൊഴിലും ഗണ്യമായി ഇടിയുമെന്നതിന് വേറെന്തു തെളിവാണ് വേണ്ടത്? കാര്‍ഷിക വളര്‍ച്ച ഇപ്പോള്‍ത്തന്നെ മുന്‍വര്‍ഷത്തെ ഏഴ് ശതമാനത്തില്‍നിന്ന് 2.8 ശതമാനമായും വ്യവസായ വളര്‍ച്ച 7.6 ശതമാനത്തില്‍നിന്ന് 2.5 ശതമാനമായും ഇടിഞ്ഞിരിക്കുകയാണ്. കേന്ദ്ര സ്റ്റാറ്റിസ്റ്റിക്കല്‍ ഓര്‍ഗനൈസേഷന്‍ നല്‍കുന്ന കണക്കുകളാണിവ. വിലക്കയറ്റം നിയന്ത്രിക്കുന്നതിന് റിസര്‍വ് ബാങ്ക് നടത്തുന്ന ശ്രമങ്ങള്‍ ഫലം തരുന്നില്ലെന്നുമാത്രമല്ല വിപരീതഫലം സൃഷ്ടിക്കുകയുംചെയ്യുന്നു. പലിശനിരക്ക് (റിപ്പോനിരക്ക്) നിരന്തരമായി ഉയര്‍ത്തിയാണ് ബാങ്ക് വായ്പയുടെ അളവ് ചുരുക്കാന്‍ റിസര്‍വ് ബാങ്ക് ശ്രമിക്കുന്നത്. റിസര്‍വ് ബാങ്ക് നിസ്സഹായമാണെന്നും പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കേണ്ടത് സര്‍ക്കാരാണെന്നും ഏറ്റവും ഒടുവിലെ ധനയം വ്യക്തമാക്കിക്കൊണ്ട് റിസര്‍വ് ബാങ്ക് ഗവര്‍ണര്‍ പ്രസ്താവിച്ചു.

വായ്പയുടെ പലിശ ആകെ ഉല്‍പ്പാദനച്ചെലവിന്റെ ഭാഗമാണ്. പലിശനിരക്ക് ഉയരുമ്പോള്‍ ഉല്‍പ്പാദനച്ചെലവ് വര്‍ധിക്കും. ഈ സ്ഥിതി മറികടക്കാന്‍ വ്യവസായികള്‍ വിദേശവായ്പകളെ ആശ്രയിക്കുന്നു. കാരണം പലിശനിരക്ക് കുറവാണ്. സാമ്പത്തിക പ്രതിസന്ധിയില്‍നിന്ന് രക്ഷപ്പെടാന്‍ ആ രാജ്യങ്ങള്‍ പലിശനിരക്ക് ഗണ്യമായി വെട്ടിക്കുറച്ചുവരികയാണ്. പക്ഷേ, വിദേശവായ്പകള്‍ (കമേര്‍ഷ്യല്‍ വായ്പകള്‍) രാജ്യത്തിന്റെ കടഭാരം വര്‍ധിപ്പിക്കുകയാണ് ചെയ്യുന്നത്. രാജ്യത്തിന്റെ മൊത്തം വിദേശകടത്തിന്റെ 30.2 ശതമാനം വിദേശ വായ്പകളാണ്. വായ്പ ലഭിക്കുന്നത് ഡോളറിലോ മറ്റ് വിദേശകറന്‍സികളിലോ ആണ്. വായ്പ വര്‍ധിക്കുമ്പോള്‍ ഡോളറിന് ആവശ്യമുയരും. കൂടുതല്‍ രൂപ കൊടുത്താലേ ഡോളര്‍ കിട്ടൂവെന്നു വരും. രൂപയുടെ മൂല്യമിടിയും. രൂപയുടെ മൂല്യത്തകര്‍ച്ച, ഇറക്കുമതിച്ചെലവ് വര്‍ധിപ്പിക്കും. ഇറക്കുമതിക്കൊപ്പം കയറ്റുമതിയും ഉയരുന്നില്ലെങ്കില്‍ (ഉയരുകയില്ല, കാരണം, ആഗോള സാമ്പത്തിക പ്രതിസന്ധി), വ്യാപാരകമ്മി താങ്ങാനാവാത്തവിധം ഉയരും. ഇന്ത്യയുടെ വ്യാപാരകമ്മി ഏറ്റവും ഉയര്‍ന്നതോതില്‍ എത്തിയിരിക്കുകയാണിപ്പോള്‍. ആഗോള സാമ്പത്തികപ്രതിസന്ധിയുടെ പ്രത്യാഘാതംമൂലമാണ് ദേശീയവരുമാനം ഇടിഞ്ഞതെന്ന് വാദിക്കാം. അമേരിക്കയിലേക്കും കിഴക്കന്‍ യൂറോപ്യന്‍ രാജ്യങ്ങളിലേക്കുമാണ് ഇന്ത്യ പ്രധാനമായും കയറ്റുമതി നടത്തുന്നത്. കയറ്റുമതിയുടെ തോത് ഇടിഞ്ഞിരിക്കുന്നു. എന്നാല്‍, ദേശീയവരുമാനം ഇടിഞ്ഞതിന്റെ മുഖ്യകാരണം ആഭ്യന്തരകമ്പോളം വിപുലപ്പെടാത്തതാണ്. കൃഷിചെയ്യാന്‍ കൃഷിഭൂമിയോ തൊഴിലോ ബഹുഭൂരിപക്ഷത്തിനും ഇല്ലാത്തതാണ് ആഭ്യന്തര കമ്പോളം ചുരുങ്ങുന്നതിനുള്ള കാരണം. ദേശീയ വരുമാന വളര്‍ച്ചനിരക്ക് കുറഞ്ഞ നിലയില്‍ (സ്റ്റാഗ്നേഷന്‍) തുടരുമ്പോള്‍ മറുവശത്ത് വിലക്കയറ്റം സകലസീമകളും ലംഘിച്ച് വളരുന്നു (ഇന്‍ഫ്ളേഷന്‍). രണ്ടും ചേര്‍ന്ന സ്റ്റാഗ്ഫ്ളേഷനാണ് ഇന്ത്യന്‍ സമ്പദ്വ്യവസ്ഥ നേരിടുന്നത്. രണ്ടും സാധാരണക്കാരുടെ നില പരുങ്ങലിലാക്കുന്നു. വേണ്ടത്ര മഴ ലഭിക്കാത്തത് കാര്‍ഷികോല്‍പ്പാദനത്തെ പിന്നോട്ടടിക്കുമെന്ന ആശങ്ക റിസര്‍വ് ബാങ്ക് അതിന്റെ ധനയം സംബന്ധിച്ച റിപ്പോര്‍ട്ടില്‍ പങ്കുവയ്ക്കുന്നുണ്ട്. കാര്‍ഷികോല്‍പ്പാദനത്തിലെ ഇടിവ് ഭക്ഷ്യവിലകള്‍ ഇനിയുമുയര്‍ത്തും; കാര്‍ഷിക അസംസ്കൃതവസ്തുക്കളുടെ ദൗര്‍ലഭ്യം വ്യവസായ വളര്‍ച്ചയെ തളര്‍ത്തുകയുംചെയ്യും. ഇതിനെതിരായ മുന്‍കരുതല്‍ സ്വീകരിക്കുകയാണ് സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ ചെയ്യേണ്ടത്. ആവശ്യമായ ഭക്ഷ്യധാന്യങ്ങള്‍ ദുരിതകാലത്തേക്കു വാങ്ങി സൂക്ഷിക്കാന്‍ സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ തയ്യാറാകണം. എന്നാല്‍, മറിച്ചാണ് സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ പ്രവൃത്തി. 2011-12ല്‍ മുന്‍വര്‍ഷത്തെ ഏഴ് ശതമാനത്തില്‍നിന്ന് കാര്‍ഷികോല്‍പ്പാദനം 2.8 ശതമാനമായി ഇടിഞ്ഞെങ്കിലും അരിയുടെയും ഗോതമ്പിന്റെയും വിളവ് മെച്ചമായിരുന്നു. 25.7 ടണ്‍ അരിയും ഗോതമ്പും ഉല്‍പ്പാദിപ്പിച്ചു. താങ്ങുവില നല്‍കി എഫ്സിഐ മുഖേന സമാഹരിച്ച ഭക്ഷ്യധാന്യത്തിന്റെ നല്ലൊരുഭാഗം സംഭരിച്ചുസൂക്ഷിക്കാന്‍ ഇടമില്ലാതെ കാറ്റിലും മഴയിലും നശിക്കുകയാണ്. പട്ടിണിക്കാര്‍ക്ക് കുറഞ്ഞ നിരക്കിലോ സൗജന്യമായോ വിതരണംചെയ്യാത്തതെന്തെന്ന ചോദ്യം സാധാരണക്കാരുടേത് മാത്രമല്ല; സുപ്രീംകോടതി ചോദിച്ചതും ഇതേ ചോദ്യമാണ്. സര്‍ക്കാരിന് പക്ഷെ മറുപടിയില്ല. അപ്രകാരം വിതരണംചെയ്യുമ്പോള്‍ നഷ്ടം സബ്സിഡിയായി സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ വഹിക്കണം. അതിന് സര്‍ക്കാരിന് സമ്മതമല്ല. പകരം സ്വീകരിക്കുന്ന മാര്‍ഗമാണ് ഏറെ ഗര്‍ഹണീയം. താങ്ങുവില നല്‍കി സംഭരിച്ച അരിയും ഗോതമ്പും സബ്സിഡി നല്‍കി കുറഞ്ഞവിലയ്ക്ക് മൊത്ത വ്യാപാരികള്‍ക്കും കയറ്റുമതിക്കാര്‍ക്കും കൈമാറുകയാണ് സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ ചെയ്യുന്നത്. ടണ്ണിന് 12750 രൂപയ്ക്ക് സംഭരിച്ച ഗോതമ്പ് കയറ്റുമതിക്കാര്‍ക്ക് നല്‍കുന്നത് 11700 രൂപയ്ക്കാണ്. നഷ്ടം സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ വഹിക്കും. ഇങ്ങനെ വാങ്ങുന്ന ഭക്ഷ്യധാന്യം വ്യാജകൃഷിക്കാരുടെ മേല്‍വിലാസത്തില്‍ താങ്ങുവിലയ്ക്കുതന്നെ സര്‍ക്കാരിന് വില്‍ക്കുന്നു. അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ കയറ്റുമതി വിപണി ലാഭകരമെങ്കില്‍ കയറ്റുമതിചെയ്യുന്നു. അതുമല്ലെങ്കില്‍ കയറ്റുമതി നടത്തിയതായി ഇറക്കുമതി പങ്കാളിയുമായി ചേര്‍ന്ന് വ്യാജരേഖയുണ്ടാക്കി ഇന്ത്യന്‍ കമ്പോളത്തില്‍ത്തന്നെ കരിഞ്ചന്ത വിലയ്ക്ക് വില്‍ക്കുന്നു. ഭക്ഷ്യസുരക്ഷയെക്കുറിച്ച് രണ്ടാം യുപിഎ സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ അധികാരത്തില്‍വന്ന നാള്‍മുതല്‍ സംസാരിക്കപ്പെടുന്നതാണ്. 2011 ഫെബ്രുവരിയില്‍ ഭക്ഷ്യസുരക്ഷാനിയമത്തിന്റെ കരടുരൂപം പുറത്തിറക്കി. നീണ്ടുപോകുന്ന ചര്‍ച്ചകളല്ലാതെ ബില്‍ നിയമമാക്കുന്നതിന് ഒരു നീക്കവും നടത്തുന്നില്ല. 80 ശതമാനം ജനങ്ങള്‍ ദരിദ്രരാണെന്നതും അതില്‍ പകുതി ജനങ്ങള്‍ പരമദരിദ്രരാണെന്നതുമാണ് ഇന്ത്യന്‍ യാഥാര്‍ഥ്യം. ഇവരുടെ ഭക്ഷ്യസുരക്ഷ ഉറപ്പാക്കുകയാകണം ലക്ഷ്യം. പക്ഷെ, നിര്‍ദേശിക്കപ്പെട്ട ബില്‍, ജനങ്ങളെ മൂന്നു തട്ടുകളായി തരംതിരിച്ച് ബഹുഭൂരിപക്ഷത്തിനും ഭക്ഷ്യസുരക്ഷ നിരസിക്കുന്നു. ഒഴിവാക്കപ്പെടുന്നവരാണ് (ഋഃരഹൗറലറ) ആദ്യത്തെ വിഭാഗം. ശേഷിക്കുന്നവരെ വീണ്ടും രണ്ടായി തിരിക്കുന്നു: മുന്‍ഗണനാ വിഭാഗവും (ജൃശീൃശശേലെറ), പൊതുവിഭാഗവും (ഴലിലൃമഹ). മുന്‍ഗണനാവിഭാഗ കുടുംബങ്ങളിലാണ് കിലോഗ്രാമിന് 3 രൂപ നിരക്കില്‍ പ്രതിമാസം 35 കിലോ അരിക്ക് അര്‍ഹതയുണ്ടാകുക. പൊതുവിഭാഗം കുടുംബങ്ങള്‍ താങ്ങുവിലയുടെ അമ്പതുശതമാനം വില നല്‍കണം. താങ്ങുവില ഉയര്‍ത്തുമ്പോള്‍, വിലയും കൂടും. ബിപിഎല്‍- എപിഎല്‍ ഭേദമില്ലാതെ എല്ലാ വിഭാഗം കുടുംബങ്ങള്‍ക്കും കിലോഗ്രാമിന് 2 രൂപ നിരക്കില്‍ അരി വിതരണംചെയ്ത എല്‍ഡിഎഫ് സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ പദ്ധതിയില്‍നിന്ന് തികച്ചും വ്യത്യസ്തമാണ് കേന്ദ്ര ഭക്ഷ്യസുരക്ഷാ നിയമത്തിലെ നിര്‍ദേശങ്ങള്‍. പാവങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് സബ്സിഡി നല്‍കാന്‍ വിസമ്മതിക്കുന്ന സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ കോര്‍പറേറ്റുകള്‍ക്ക് ഭീമമായ ആനുകൂല്യങ്ങളാണ് വച്ചുനീട്ടുന്നത്. കേന്ദ്ര സാമ്പത്തിക സര്‍വേ പ്രകാരം 2010-11ല്‍ ഭക്ഷ്യ സബ്സിഡി ഇനത്തില്‍ ചെലവായത് 62929 കോടി രൂപയാണ്. അക്കൊല്ലം കോര്‍പറേറ്റുകള്‍ക്ക് മാത്രമായി നല്‍കിയത് 88263 കോടി രൂപയുടെ ആനുകൂല്യങ്ങളാണ്. ആകെ നല്‍കപ്പെട്ട പ്രത്യക്ഷ നികുതി ഇളവാകട്ടെ 1,38,921 കോടി രൂപയും.

വ്യവസ്ഥിതിയുടെ ഉല്‍പ്പന്നമാണ് വിലക്കയറ്റം. ഉല്‍പ്പാദനവും വിതരണവും കൈയാളുന്നവര്‍ വില നിശ്ചയിക്കും. ഉല്‍പ്പാദനവും വിതരണവും സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ കൈയാളുന്ന വ്യവസ്ഥയില്‍, വില നിയന്ത്രണാധികാരം സര്‍ക്കാരിനായിരിക്കും. സ്വകാര്യ വിപണിയാണ് കൈയാളുന്നതെങ്കില്‍, മുതലാളികള്‍ വില നിയന്ത്രിക്കും. സബ്സിഡികള്‍ വെട്ടിച്ചുരുക്കിയും നിയന്ത്രണങ്ങള്‍ ഒഴിവാക്കിയും വില നിര്‍ണയാവകാശം സ്വകാര്യമേഖലയ്ക്ക് കൈമാറിയും ഊഹവ്യാപാരത്തെ പ്രോത്സാഹിപ്പിച്ചും സ്വതന്ത്ര കമ്പോളവ്യവസ്ഥ സ്ഥാപിക്കാനാണ് കേന്ദ്രസര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ ശ്രമം. ഈ നടപടികളാണ് വിലക്കയറ്റം സൃഷ്ടിക്കുന്നതും രൂക്ഷമാക്കുന്നതും. സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ ഇടപെടല്‍ ശക്തിപ്പെടുത്തുകയാണ് വിലനിയന്ത്രണത്തിനുള്ള വഴി.

Is the schools are now open for all?

In one city, in a house, a mother is getting her child ready for school, making him wear his uniform and packing his tiffin box. She then walks him to the bus stop.

In another place, another house, a mother is also getting her child ready and packing his tiffin box. But this is not for him to take to his school. He will go to the factory where he works as a labourer for minimum wages.

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the Centre and the States must do their utmost to provide eight years of good quality schooling to all children. The unsuccessful challenge to the Act, which went into effect on April 1, 2010, came from unaided private school managements who are required to set apart 25 per cent seats for poor children. Private schools that favoured a market-based approach to universalisation — relying on government education vouchers for the poor and filtered entry — failed to make convincing arguments. They are all within the ambit of the law, except for unaided private minority institutions. Rather than view this as a loss of prestige, they must sagaciously open their doors to students of all social strata, and help those from the weaker sections integrate with the others. The letter of the law is a far-going reform measure and has the potential to create a generation of Indians who are equipped to participate in nation building. But it will take relentless efforts to turn the legislation enacted in furtherance of Article 21A — which enjoins the State to provide free and compulsory education to all children aged six to fourteen — into a revolutionary instrument. The immediate challenges lie in the area of recruitment, to meet the estimated shortfall of one million teachers, and toning up teacher training as per the pedagogic requirements of the National Curriculum Framework, 2005.

With continued economic growth, it should not be difficult to allocate the Rs. 4.50 lakh crore that the Planning Commission thinks is needed for the implementation of the RTE Act over the next five years. The task will primarily be led by the States, but only a few, notably in the South, have the capacity to take on the challenge. The others must use the opportunity that presents itself to improve facilities and raise standards. Government and municipal schools have a long history of neglect and lack of investment in infrastructure, while affluent private schools use the most modern educational tools and teaching methods. It is worth pointing out here that the RTE rules have provisions to help bridge this asymmetry, in the form of perspective plans to be drawn up by individual schools. Moreover, the Act enables monitoring of the manner in which the law is being implemented, through the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. The NCPCR and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights can, of course, only perform their task if they have sufficient resources. The Supreme Court order makes it possible to speed up these vital reforms.