Need for Education Reforms in India
The Macaulayan habits die hard – the clichés will be overworked and the
stereotypes reinforced ad nauseam - the reformist fervour of the recent
academic and pedagogical discourse has to calm down on the backburner,
the cold feet are here to develop and stay- the school examination and
admission season has set in.
Following an eventful year of public debate on our education system in
general and school examination paradigm in particular, these months are
poised to have an air of banality, the moments of insipid reality check when
the procedural demands of the entrenched system will take precedence over
the substantive vision of reforms. It is in this context that the terms of
discourse, and the resultant debate, on the education system need to be
recast, preventing it from degenerating into a diatribe between ivory tower
mandarins and ardent reformists.
The reconfiguring of the public discourse on the education system has in
some limited sense captured the popular imagination, fueled as it has been
by an unlikely combination of catalysts- Yashpal Committee’s
recommendations, HRD ministry’s proposed reforms and a celluloid product
from the tinsel town. However, as the devil of any blueprint for reforms lies
in details, the crusaders for reforms have opted to be angelic and serve as
obfuscating pedants.
The glaring limitations of the school education system should not act as a
red herring for ignoring the dismal state of the higher education system in
India. The higher education system in India has a behemoth structure,
almost representing a cumbersome monstrosity with 214 universities, 38
institutions ‘deemed-to-be universities,’ 11 institutes of national importance,
9,703 colleges, and 887 polytechnics. The government has gone through
perfunctory rounds of critically reviewing the existing system and the
diagnosis as well as prescription runs on predictable lines. Last year the final
report of the Committee on ‘Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher
Education’ (Prof. Yashpal Committee Report) was another addition to it.
Committing itself to implementation of the core of the recommendations, the
HRD Ministry sought to blend the reformist orientation with the tenets of
access, equity and excellence. However, beyond perfunctory lip service, the
qualitative and logistical aspects of the reform need to be addressed with a
blend of strong political will and pedagogical imagination.
The question of reforming an entrenched system of pedagogy and academic
evaluation is a question concerning socio-economic and cultural milieu,
epistemological outlook and the nature of professional classes as well as a
question of a society’s quest for excellence, sense of intellectual inquiry and
logistical feasibility. Diagnosis of the rut in the academic system has to be
sympathetically understood in its historical context and the strange blend of
objectives that it sought to achieve for the cross section of professional
classes in India.
The Macaulayan minute on Indian educational system had the imprint of
Benthamite utilitarianism, wedded to the condescending civilizational
objectives of carrying “white man’s burden”. T he utilitarian objectives of
equipping the British rule with English educated young men and modern
professional classes not only served the British rule in good stead but also
ushered in the first serious interface of the educated Indian class with the
western science ,philosophy and literature . However, the success and
survival of the Indian functionaries in the Government and the educated
Indian professional classes was a product.
The Macaulayan habits die hard – the clichés will be overworked and the
stereotypes reinforced ad nauseam - the reformist fervour of the recent
academic and pedagogical discourse has to calm down on the backburner,
the cold feet are here to develop and stay- the school examination and
admission season has set in.
Following an eventful year of public debate on our education system in
general and school examination paradigm in particular, these months are
poised to have an air of banality, the moments of insipid reality check when
the procedural demands of the entrenched system will take precedence over
the substantive vision of reforms. It is in this context that the terms of
discourse, and the resultant debate, on the education system need to be
recast, preventing it from degenerating into a diatribe between ivory tower
mandarins and ardent reformists.
The reconfiguring of the public discourse on the education system has in
some limited sense captured the popular imagination, fueled as it has been
by an unlikely combination of catalysts- Yashpal Committee’s
recommendations, HRD ministry’s proposed reforms and a celluloid product
from the tinsel town. However, as the devil of any blueprint for reforms lies
in details, the crusaders for reforms have opted to be angelic and serve as
obfuscating pedants.
The glaring limitations of the school education system should not act as a
red herring for ignoring the dismal state of the higher education system in
India. The higher education system in India has a behemoth structure,
almost representing a cumbersome monstrosity with 214 universities, 38
institutions ‘deemed-to-be universities,’ 11 institutes of national importance,
9,703 colleges, and 887 polytechnics. The government has gone through
perfunctory rounds of critically reviewing the existing system and the
diagnosis as well as prescription runs on predictable lines. Last year the final
report of the Committee on ‘Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher
Education’ (Prof. Yashpal Committee Report) was another addition to it.
Committing itself to implementation of the core of the recommendations, the
HRD Ministry sought to blend the reformist orientation with the tenets of
access, equity and excellence. However, beyond perfunctory lip service, the
qualitative and logistical aspects of the reform need to be addressed with a
blend of strong political will and pedagogical imagination.
The question of reforming an entrenched system of pedagogy and academic
evaluation is a question concerning socio-economic and cultural milieu,
epistemological outlook and the nature of professional classes as well as a
question of a society’s quest for excellence, sense of intellectual inquiry and
logistical feasibility. Diagnosis of the rut in the academic system has to be
sympathetically understood in its historical context and the strange blend of
objectives that it sought to achieve for the cross section of professional
classes in India.
The Macaulayan minute on Indian educational system had the imprint of
Benthamite utilitarianism, wedded to the condescending civilizational
objectives of carrying “white man’s burden”. T he utilitarian objectives of
equipping the British rule with English educated young men and modern
professional classes not only served the British rule in good stead but also
ushered in the first serious interface of the educated Indian class with the
western science ,philosophy and literature . However, the success and
survival of the Indian functionaries in the Government and the educated
Indian professional classes was a product.
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