SUMMARY OF THE MAIN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The Challenge The formal education system in India is now a gigantic enterprise with about 700,000 institutions, 3.5 million teachers, 100 million students, and an annual expenditure of Rs.25,000 million. And yet it hardly benefits the common people who are poor or very poor. Most of them are still illiterate; a large proportion of their children do not go school, and most of those that do, drop out sooner rather than later. A very small minority does climb up, through the limited vertical mobility that the system provides, and is coopted into the system which is thus legitimized. But the main beneficiaries of the system (which overemphasizes secondary and higher education that receive about 60 per cent of the total educational expenditure) are really the rich and well-to-do classes who form the top 30 per cent of the income groups and who occupy about 70 per cent of the places at the secondary stage and about 80 per cent of the seats at the university stage. Besides, the system is not adequately related to national needs and aspirations, is highly inefficient and wasteful, and has become greatly dysfunctional, especially in higher education. Nothing short of a major educational revolution can meet the challenges of the desperate educational situation which is becoming worse every year.
2. The New Strategy Although this educational revolution has been reported upon by several Committees and Commissions and has been continuously talked about since independence, very few basic changes have been made, and there has only been an unprecedented linear expansion of the traditional colonial system which we inherited in 1947. The principal reasons responsible for this failure are the social structure, the educational structure, and the absence of mass mobilization. We
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must learn from this experience and adopt a three-fold strategy, as shown below, to achieve our objectives.
(1) Education does not function in a vacuum: it reflects the characteristics of the society which supports it, and which it tries to serve. The Indian society, which is highly stratified and inegalitarian, is really a duel society which vests economic and political power in the rich and well-to-do classes who fall within the top 30 per cent of the income groups while the vast masses of the people are marginalized and deprived of most good things of life. The education system also follows this `dual' model and provides fairly `good' education (i.e., education which provides access to the privileged sector) to a few who come from good socioeconomic backgrounds and little education of an indifferent quality, or none at all, to the vast bulk of the people. No egalitarian transformation in education alone is possible under such a social structure. What is needed is a simultaneous effort to reduce poverty and inequality in society and to provide good education to all the people. Programmes of educational transformation must thus go hand in hand with the complementary programmes of social and economic transformation; and both programmes must be implemented in a vigorous and carefully planned strategy spread over a short period, say, ten years.
(2) The existing educational structure of the formal system has also to be radically transformed if any meaningful progress is to be made. The value system underlying education should emphasize social objectives, cooperation and team-work, complementarity of intellectual and manual work, development of skills and building up of character. The emphasis should shift from teaching to learning; all the three channels of learning, viz., full-time, part-time, and own-time, should receive equal emphasis and status; a multiple-entry system should be adopted along with considerable flexibility in the choice, content, and duration of courses; and all social institutions as well as all teaching resources of the community should be utilized for educational purposes. The content of education should be radically transformed and made relevant by the integration of intellectual and manual work, linking of education with development, emphasis on culture, science, and technology, and promotion of the values of democracy, secularism, and socialism. Standards need to be improved considerably at all stages and the whole system should be made elastic, diversified, efficient and dynamic, so that state systems, schools, and teachers have ample scope to innovate and experiment
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even while conforming with a care of nationally agreed basic concepts and principles.
(3) A simultaneous and radical social and educational transformation of this type is not possible unless there is a backdrop of a mass movement which is organized on the basis of solving the day- to-day problems of the poor people (who should be conscientized and organized to fight for their rights) and giving them a basic minimum standard of living. This task is no doubt essentially political. But education cannot be politically neutral. It will be greatly assisted in the development of its own programmes by the organization of this mass movement, just as this mass mobilization itself will be greatly assisted by the intensive effort to transform education.
3. Major Programmes The principal programmes to be developed for the educational transformation we need may be briefly indicated.
(1) Adult Education: The Programme of adult education, where monetary investments are comparatively small and returns both rich and immediate, should receive the highest priority; and even within the programmes, greater emphasis should be laid on the education of out-of-school youth in the age-group 15-21. The primary objective of the programme should be to help the poor to recognize the `I' and the `us' in them so that they can assert themselves and are able to perceive that they too can be free from fear, want, and dependency. The content of adult education should be closely related to the local environment and the needs and interests of the educants. It should ordinarily include literacy which, however, should not be over- emphasised. A massive and nation-wide programme of adult education should be developed and, from this point of view, the resources within the school system as well as those without it should be fully utilized.
(2) Universal Elementary Education: Elementary education (age- group 6-14) should be made universal in an intensive and sustained programme spread over to 5-10 years. Special attention has to be given to the enrolement of girls and children from the poorer sections. The multiple-entry system should be adopted and part-time education should be provided for all children who cannot attend on a full-time basis. The content of education should be radically altered, especially in introducing productive work and social service and relating it to the
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environment. Standards should be improved so that the schools have greater power to attract and retain children. The administration of the programme (as well as that of adult education) should be thoroughly decentralized: unit costs should be kept down; and special assistance should be provided to those States which have a large number of non-attending children and inadequate resources. The common school system should be universally adopted.
(3) Post-elementary Education: The development of post- elementary education should be guided by the following principles:
(a) Post-elementary education is not a matter of right.
(b) While there should be no bar to an individual to receive all the education he desires, provided he claims no assistance from public funds, it should be ensured that subsidies from public funds are given at the post-elementary stage, and only to those who are socially and economically disadvantaged.
(c) Since post-elementary education has so far been mostly a privilege of the rich and the well-to-do, special measures should be adopted to increase the access of the poor people to secondary and higher education though provision of free-studentships, grant of scholarships combined with placement and individual guidance, and extension of facilities now given to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes to all socially and economically handicapped persons irrespective of caste, religion, or sex.
(d) In particular, there should be a nation-wide and intensive effort to identify talented students from the weaker sections: they should be regarded as wards of the state and assisted to receive all the education they deserve.
(e) There should be a policy of double-pricing in post- elementary education; the poor should have free education while the well-to-do should pay according to their capacity.
(f) Independent schools at this stage, like public schools, should preferably be abolished. If this is not immediately possible, such schools should be under an obligation to admit 50 per cent of their students from the socially and economically handicapped groups. (g) Admissions to higher secondary and university education in state- supported or -aided full-time institutions should be selective in all cases where applicants exceed the available seats; and adequate seats should be reserved for the weaker sections. Selection tests should be improved.
(h) All public examinations at the post-elementary stage should be
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open to private candidates, and facilities for correspondence education should be expanded and provided in all languages.
(i) Pressures on admissions to higher education should be reduced by adoption of measures which will eventually delink the degrees from jobs.
(j) There should also be a great restraint in establishing new institutions whose locations should be carefully planned and which should be established only on the basis of need, proper maintenance of standards, and availability of resources.
(k) The existing institutions and courses should be rationalized to the extent possible and cooperative teaching and common sharing of facilities should be encouraged.
(4) Secondary Education: The standard of secondary education needs to be greatly improved and its content radically altered. An intensive effort needs to be made to introduce vocational courses at the end of the elementary stage, class X, and class XII. Most vocational education should be post-selection or post-decision and there should be adequate provision for industry-based and sandwich courses.
(5) University Education and Research: The universities and colleges should evolve integrated programmes of teaching, research, and extension, all of which should have an equal status. The undergraduate course needs to be restructured and its status raised. The system of grants-in-aid to affiliated colleges and the machinery for its administration at the State level needs considerable reform. Postgraduate level education needs considerable reform. Post-graduate teaching should be extended and improved, and both fundamental and applied research should be promoted. The structure of higher education should be diversified to suit the needs of the increasing number of students and the changing social needs. The courses should also be diversified, especially to cover the newly emerging inter- disciplinary areas, and choices available to students should be substantially increased. The semester system should be adopted. The entire university system should function on a thoroughly decentralized basis and autonomy (which the state should respect, and academics exercise increasingly to provide an objective critique of society) should be passed on from the universities to the departments and affiliated colleges which should, in turn, share it with teachers and students. The system has become highly dysfunctional and hard political decisions and firm action are needed to retrieve the situation
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and develop higher education to meet the national needs and aspirations.
(6) A National Language Policy: A national language policy should be laid down and firmly implemented. The Indian languages should be developed further and used as media of instruction at the undergraduate stage also. This increases rather than decreases the need for cultivating a better study of English for which flexible, dynamic, and modern methods of teaching should be adopted. On the whole, the language issue should be played down. While Hindi should be developed and propagated in every way possible, a long period of bilingualism at the centre and in national life should be accepted.
(7) Administration: Education is a participatory activity of the society as a whole, involving all individuals and all social institutions. Within the system itself, it is essential to encourage institutions at different levels to work together instead of separating and atomising them as we do at present. A centralized apparatus is not suitable for educational administration in a vast and plural society like ours. The Centre should provide a stimulating but non-coercive leadership. The States should respect the autonomy of the universities which should share it with the departments and colleges. So far as school education is concerned, there should be suitable authorities at the district (or block) level, and the local community must be associated with its school in an effective way. Care should be taken to see that, in this process, there is adequate devolution of resources to match the delegation of authority and transfer of responsibility. Similarly, the schools and teachers should have increasing freedom to innovate and experiment, and the concept of `experimental' schools should be developed on as large a scale as possible.
(8) Finance: The expenditure on education should be doubled over the next ten years. Plan and non-Plan expenditure should be considered together for effective utilization. Every effort should be made to reduce unit costs and to ensure that every available rupee is made to go the longest way. While additional resources are required, the need for non-monetary inputs (e.g., better planning, human effort, and creation of a climate of hard, sustained, and dedicated work) is even more important.
4. Implementation If these programmes are to succeed, we need a new strategy of
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development. While several factors have impeded progress in the past, let us not forget that the part played by inadequate financial resources is comparatively limited. While each of the agencies involved - Centre, States, politicians, teachers, students, and the public - has contributed to this failure, the common game of passing the buck between themselves (which they often play) is no solution. Nor can the solution of the problem be sought exclusively in pedagogic remedies. The basic issues which have really impeded educational development so far are: (1) dominance of the traditional model of the formal education system; (2) uniformity, inertia, and rigidity of the educational structures; (3) neglect of micro-level cells of education; (4) exclusive dependence on the bureaucracy and noninvolvement of the people; (5) failure to make the hard decisions needed, both academic and political; (6) wrong priorities; and (7) failure to develop the needed social and political forces. Unless adequate attention is given to them, no worthwhile progress is possible.
It is necessary to abandon the old approach which was bureaucratic, selective, and limited, and to organize massive programmes to solve our problems in a short time. There is a need for organizing a mass movement to bring pressure on the government to play its due role in the education of the people. A big reform movement has to be started, simultaneously within and without the system, and a well-planned and coordinated programme has to be developed in which workers within the educational system as well as social and political workers can effectively participate. The entire ethos of the system needs to be radically transformed to create a climate of sustained hard work and dedication. In all this, the work at the grass-roots level is of great significance. It is also necessary to take full advantage of the awakening among the people and to develop a massive simultaneous movement of mass education and mass mobilization. This will need a very large band of committed workers; and the success of the programme will depend upon our ability to create it.