Dr. Manasvi M. Kamat
The education sector in India for long desired inclusion of education agenda in election manifestos by political parties. The 2019 election season gave us an opportunity to see both main political parties expressing their commitment to education and fortunately both political parties have referred to the grueling pains plaguing Indian education.
The sphere of higher education has been given more preference in the manifesto of the Congress as it promises to allocate 6 percent of the annual budget from current levels of 3 percent for education. Reference to increase in the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education from the current level of 25.8 to the level of at least 40 in a period of 5 years generates some euphoria. The BJP, on the other hand, talks about developing at least 50 educational institutions to attain international eminence tag in 2024 in addition to the existing six and focuses on obtaining international rankings for Indian universities.
Apart from the promise of increasing allocation to education, the Congress has promised to transfer school education under the state list and retain higher education in the union List. The school education from Class I to Class XII is promised to be made compulsory and free. Congress has tried to be more relevant by seeking to address the problems of increasing NPA’s in education loan by guarantying to waive outstanding interest on education loans prior to March 31, 2019 and introduce a single-window system for such loans. The party has promised to establish more public universities in under-served areas, open new state-run varsities in backward and to resort the alleged ‘lost’ autonomy in higher education.
The grand old party has advocated compulsory vocational training from classes I-XII, scrapping of NEET examination by incorporating a state level exam of equivalent standard. The manifesto also refers to restore the 200-point roster system in colleges, increase teacher training institutions and to pass a Students Rights Bill to codify the rights and obligations of student community.
The ruling party has promised to set up 50 Institutions of Eminence (IoE’s) by 2024, increase in number of seats by 50% in centrally-funded professional institutions of higher learning and setting up of 200 new Kendriya Vidyalas to expand affordable education. BJP plans to address the issue of funding higher education by enabling investment of Rs 1 lakh crore. The party also promises to set up new universities on art, culture, music, hospitality, tourism and police and set up specialised National Rail and Transport University at Vadodara.
Incidentally, both political parties lay emphasis on ‘learning outcomes’ (LO) in their respective manifestos. Congress has promised for more importance to ‘learning outcomes’, after ASER (Annual Survey Education Report) highlighted poor quality of education and poor learning outcomes while BJP aims to focus on teacher training and capacity building as key in achieving these LOs.
On comparison of the education agenda of both political parties it may be realized that manifesto of the Congress on education is more definitive, clear and specific in issues whereas the manifesto by the BJP talks about achieving numerous high-end goals, clearly lacking reference to the means and measures to achieve these goals.
Congress has tried to pin-pointedly address the problems of funding and mostly fund cuts at JNU, UGC, TISS, etc. The issue of low rate educational loans, contract teachers grappling with lack of permanent status and prayer for granting more autonomy is referred to. The party also addressed the problems of reservations caused due to dis-functionality in the 13-point roster with a plan to replace it by 200-point system and the increasing system of contract basis appointments in educational institutions are seemingly welcome.
The BJP, on the other hand, has planned extension of schemes launched earlier; including conferring of IoE status, more smart classes, and extension of National Digital Library scheme. The increment in seats by 50% for all courses would be a great step in addressing other related problems of reservation similarly the agenda of imparting education through online courses would enable access and equity to a lot of students throughout the country. What remains to be seen is how it’ll be made a reality, as a lot of online courses were scrapped last year due to change in policy.
Overall it looks like that the BJP should have focused on increasing budgetary allocation for education, increasing funding for universities and restoring autonomy to educational institutions. The Congress on the other hand made lofty promises of doubling fund allocation without spelling out where the additional funds will come from. Similarly the idea of scrapping NEET and bringing back the State-based entrance tests would undermine the need for national level and uniform entrance examination.
Given the recent news that government of Haryana ruled by the BJP has recently allowed 974 private schools to open while shutting down 208 government schools, it was imperative both political parties speak out about increasing privatization of education. Both political parties busy in pitching for votes need to understand that India needs to pick up good pieces from both these documents and instead have a “manifesto for education, to better education in India.
