The intent of this education reform route map spanning the entire spectrum from preschool to PhD education, is to provoke debate within the somnolent groves of Indian academia and the intelligentsia to transform the nation’s demographic liability into an asset

IF INDIA’S ACADEMY had a conscience and sense of responsibility, August 15, when the nation celebrates Independence Day, would be a day of introspection, if not sackcloth and ashes. Although since the hauling down of the Union Jack 67 years ago, the Indian State has chalked up some notable achievements — national unity, democracy, rule of law, constitutional government — its failures in birth control, universal healthcare, poverty eradication, income inequality, justice delivery etc, by far outnumber its successes.

Yet perhaps the most egregious failure of the Indian State and several political formations which have established 15 governments in New Delhi and state capitals during the past six decades, has been the conspicuous failure to adequately educate and develop the country’s vast human resource pool which had the potential to restore the Indian subcontinent and particularly the Indian Republic within it, to its glory days of less than three centuries ago.  Right until the mid-18th century this geography contributed 20 percent of global GNP. Indian architecture, goods and manufactures were acclaimed worldwide and its vast landmass was a busy hub of learning boasting the world’s greatest universities. Today, almost seven decades after independence, in every sector of the education continuum — preschool, primary, secondary and higher education — India is routinely ranked among the bottom decile of the world’s 195 nation states in education quality surveys conducted by reputable international organisations.

This situation analysis report is the backdrop against which the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party assumed office in New Delhi on May 26 following its huge victory in General Election 2014. Nevertheless, Modi and BJP have aroused great expectations within the academy and the small but growing community of reformers committed to upgrading Indian education which needs drastic overhaul across the board. The cause of their enthusiasm is a single sentence in the BJP election manifesto which states that “public spending on education would be raised to 6 percent of the GDP, and involving the private sector would further enhance this”.

This commitment is of great significance because it hasn’t been honoured since the Kothari Commission recommended it in 1966, as a precondition of national development. Despite promising to take the lead in implementing this recommendation made 39 years ago, no government at the Centre has succeeded in raising public spending (Centre plus states) on education to 6 percent of GDP in any year.

For this desideratum to be attained, the Central government needs to provide a sum equivalent to 2 percent of GDP for education, setting an example for the country’s 29 states and seven Union territories to contribute the remaining 4 percent. However, in its first Union budget presented to Parliament and the nation on July 10, finance minister Arun Jaitley provided a sum of Rs.68,728 crore for education — equivalent to 0.53 percent of the projected GDP (Rs.128,76,653 crore) for fiscal 2014-15.

According to the Economic Survey 2013-14, which was presented to Parliament by the new government a day before the Union budget, the national expenditure on education in the recently concluded fiscal was Rs.3.75 lakh crore — equivalent to 3.3 percent of GDP. “The existing gap in health and education indicators in India as compared to developed countries and also many of the developing countries highlights the need for much faster and wider spread of basic health and education,” comment the authors of the Economic Survey mildly.

However, not everyone is enthused by the BJP’ s election manifesto promise, and there’s no shortage of pessimists who point out that a similar promise was made by the Congress party in its election manifestos of 2004 and 2009, which remained unfulfilled. Moreover, not a few genuinely committed liberal educationists are skeptical about the deep and durable nexus between the BJP and its ideological parent and cultural mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu militant organisation dominated by saints and savants committed to revising the secular and minorities-sensitive traditions of the post-independence Indian State and establishing a Hindu rashtra (society).

These apprehensions of liberal educationists are not fanciful. During the BJP/NDA’s last term in office in New Delhi (1999-2004), then Union HRD minister made a determined effort to infiltrate Hindu mythology into secondary history textbooks, and to dilute the autonomy of the country’s prestigious IITs and IIMs and pack their boards with BJP/RSS ideologues. These initiatives were fortuitously thwarted by the BJP/NDA’s unexpected defeat in the general election of 2004.

Even this time around after the BJP/NDA re-election, the auguries are not good. One of the first initiatives in education of the new government has been to appoint Prof. Y. Sudershan Rao, a historian involved with researching ancient Hindu mythology as chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (see editorial p.10).

Against this sombre backdrop with advice to the newly-elected BJP/NDA government to lose no time and energy with the divisive hindutva agenda of RSS and associated ideologues, EducationWorld (estb. 1999) offers an education reform routemap spanning the entire spectrum from preschool to Ph D education. The intent is to provoke debate within the somnolent groves of academia and the larger community of parents, teachers, development economists and social scientists. With India’s youth moving to an aspirational culture, reform and reboot of its laggard education system is necessary, indeed vitally important, if the nation is to transform its demographic liability into an asset.

Also read: BJP/NDA Government’s Education Report Card (2014-18)