REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE FOR REVIEW OF NATIONAL POLICY ON EDUCATION 1986 FINAL REPORT 26TH DECEMBER, 1990 Table of Contents Acknowledgements iv Preface v Methodology and Procedures 1 Approach 14 Roles, Goals and Values in Education 19 Equity, Social Justice and Education 27 Education and Womens' Equality 27 Education for the Scheduled Casres, Tribes and other Educationally backward sections 56 Education of the Handicapped 78 Common School System 84 Navodaya Vidyalayas 86 Early Childhood Care and Education 100 Universalisation of Elementary Education 119 Adult and Continuing Education 171 Education and Right to Work 179 Higher Education 192 Technical and Management Education 207 Languages in Education 221 Content and Process of Education 241 Teachers and Students 266 Decentralisation and Participative Management 285 ii Resources for Education 302 Epilogue 327 Appendices : I. Text of the Resolution Dated 7th May, 1990 Setting up the NPE Review Committee. 328 Appendices : II.Composition of Sub-Committees Constituted by NPERC 331. Appendices : III.List of Background Documents Obtained from Government 342 Appendices : IV.List of Government Papers (GP Series). 343 Appendices : V.List of Papers of Government Organisations (GOP Series). 345 Appendices : VI.List of Non-Government Papers (NGP Series). 346 Appendices : VII.List of Studies Commissioned. 352 Appendices : VIII.List of Seminars/Workshops. 353 Appendices : IX.Academic Cell 356 Appendices : X.List of Experts Who Helped the Drafting Committee 357 Appendices : XI.Names and Addresses of Chairman and Members of Committe for Review of National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986. 358 Appendices : XII.Secretariat of Committee for Review of National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986. 361 Bibliography 362 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Committee to review the National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986 is indebted to the former Minister of State for Education, Shri Chimanbhai Mehta, the present Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri Raj Mangal Pande and Shri Bhagey Gobardan, the present Minister of State in the Ministry of Human Resource Development for the help and encouragement given by them. We are grateful to Shri Anil Bordia, Union Education Secretary and the Bureau Heads of the Department of Education for all the facilities provided by them during our meetings and interactions. We are also thankful to the Members of Parliament, Editors of Newspapers, Central, and State Government officers, Vice-Chancellors of Universities, representatives of voluntary agencies, students, teachers and their organisations, women activists and social groups which participated in our deliberations and made presentations on behalf of their organisations. Our thanks are also due to the members of the Academic Cell and other experts who assisted the Committee. We are particularly thankful to the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, and Educational Consultants India Ltd., the former for looking after the administrative and financial arrangements of the Committee and the latter for making arrangements for interactions at IIT, New Delhi. We also acknowledge the good work done by Shri A. Venugopal, SSA, NIC and his staff for providing word-processing and computer facilities. We wish to place on record our deep appreciation of the organised work done by the Member-Secretary, Shri S Gopalan, and his staff, particularly Shri K S Kohli, Sr. P.A., Shri K K Khullar, Consultant, Shri T C James, Desk Officer and his staff viz. S/Shri Ashok Kumar Khurana and S S Butola. The hard work done by this team has enabled the Committee to present this report. ( RAMAMURTI ) NEW DELHI Chairman December 26, 1990 Committee to review the NPE, 1986. iv PREFACE When on the 7th May, 1990 the Government of India announced the appointment of a Committee 'to review the National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986, there were people who asked why this hurry in instituting a review even before the expiry of the stipulated period of five years. The question is legitimate. But the reasons that influenced the decision of the Government have been given in the resolution of the Government itself. It says: "Despite efforts at social and economic development since attainment of independence, a majority of our people continue to remain deprived of education. It is also a matter of grave concern that our people comprise 50 per cent of the world's illiterate, and large sections of children have to go without acceptable level of primary education. Government accords the highest priority to education both as a human right and as the means for bringing about a transformation towards a more humane and enlightened society. There is need to make education an effective instrument for securing a status of equality for women, and persons belonging to the backward classes and minorities. Moreover, it is essential to give a work and employment orientation to education and to exclude from it the elitist aberrations which have become the glaring characteristic of the educational scene. Educational institutions are increasingly being influenced by casteism, communalism and obscurantism and it is necessary to lay special emphasis on struggle against this phenomenon and to move towards a genuinely egalitarian and secular social order. The National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986 needs to be reviewed to evolve a framework which would enable the country to move towards this perspective of education." obviously, the basic concerns mentioned here are: one, provision of education of a minimum quality to all children; two, removal of illiteracy; three, struggle against petty parochial passions and prejudice; four, social transformation towards equality; five, orientation of education to work and employment. These concerns are not new except the Right to Work now being sought to be enshrined in the Constitution. They were there when The Challenge of Education was written in 1985 and The National Policy on Education formulated in 1986. While The Challenge of Education felt that 'the present scenario is an indication of the failure of the education system', the Policy on Education stressed the need 'to make education a forceful tool' for its two roles I combative and positive During the four years since 1986 v the situation has grown much worse. Everywhere there is economic discontent, cultural decay, and social disintegration. The youth are in revolt. Violence is fast becoming a way of life. But, in spite of concerns expressed from time to time,. not much success has attended our feeble efforts to arrest the descent downhill. The nation is faced today with a crisis of many dimensions. Its very survival is threatened. In the total crisis of the nation, along with Politics, Business, and Religion, Education has its full share. Why has failed to play the role that every Commission or Committee appointed since independence has assigned to it is the first question. One fundamental reason for failure has been that while we go on making radical protestations, our education to this day continues to be governed by the same assumptions, goals and values that governed it in the days of the British Raj. The British believed in the 'downward filtration theory' under which education and culture would inevitably flow from the classes to the masses. They kept the common people away from education, and education away from life. But things have not much changed since they left. Even today the principal beneficiaries of our education are the upper and middle classes. To them also we give a wrong education. Our formal system remains confined to the f our walls of a school or college. It is tied down to textbooks and examinations. Even then the books are unreadable and the examinations totally unreliable. The courses of study are so framed that the students are not equipped with any productive skills. Whatever education they receive cuts them off from their natural and social environment. They become aliens to their own community. They lose faith in life itself. What Jayaprakashji wrote in 1978 still holds true. According to him, it also converts them into a parasitic class which perpetuates and even intensifies the poverty of the masses. The system has failed to promote individual growth. It also becomes more of a hindrance than a help to bring about an egalitarian transformation'. If this be true, can we say that we have basically departed from the Macaulay tradition? And, if this is what our education has done to us, one may well ask, is not no education better than bad education? The other important reason is that our education has been a routine sectoral activity left to the initiative and judgement of specialists at the desk, controlled and , guided by those far removed from where people live and work. The whole system is so completely centralised that little, if any, initiative is left to people even at State or district levels. Education co-related to life has to be linked to clearly defined social objectives and comprehensive strategies. But the whole approach of government activities is sectoral, so much so that the different policies of the Government such as educational agricultural, industrial, forest, water, or even a policy for scheduled castes and tribes, do not refer to each other, and are often even mutually contradictory. They are, in fact, designed to attain objectives internal to their respective sectors, and not to any fundamental social objectives. The result is that the only option left is expansion without proper thought to quality or relevance. So, our education has expanded without thought to quality or relevance. One may admit that for this situation education alone is not responsible. During the last forty-three years we have pursued a model of economic development that has led to the creation of two Indias - one of the rich, the other of the poor. A new privileged vi class has come into being. It holds monopoly over political and economic power and sources of wealth.