The Educational Fallout of Emergency

Pranay Kotasthane’s starts off with a deliberately provocative statement after the forced resignation of the Union Education Minister recently.

“Let me propose an idea that sounds radical but isn’t: India does not need a Union Education Ministry.”

 

He elaborates why. How did the constitution originally envision education?

“General education was a State List subject, meaning that states had exclusive legislative power over schools and colleges.”

But yes, the center had control over central universities (AMU, BHU), certain technical institutions it considered as being of national importance and a few other areas. All central ministry ideas on school education were advisory, and states could reject or accept them as they wished.

 

Like so many things, all that changed during the Emergency. The 42nd amendment added “education, including technical education, medical education and universities” to the Concurrent (center) List. And with that:

“The Union gained legislative competence over all education, from primary school to postgraduate research.”

 

The course of the river had been changed, and it is has had ever increasing concrete consequences ever since.

“The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is a direct product of the concurrent list architecture. It is a single centralised examination for medical admissions across the country, designed by a national testing agency, and imposed on states regardless of their preferences.”

~~

 

How about other countries? Canada keeps education a state/province topic, and it ranks high on quality of education. Germany is highly federal on many topics, including education. They too have done well. While the US has a central education ministry, education is overwhelmingly a state affair.

 

Tamil Nadu has been the most vocal state against the centralization of education. Why? Because TN’s education system worked far better than most states. Plus, its education system served as a feeder into the state’s healthcare system – the system was designed for the state and worked very well.

 

To be fair, TN and the countries listed above can’t be the basis for saying the whole of India would be better off with decentralized education.

“(Most) state governments are no paragons of education, and some will perhaps flounder in the absence of Union supervision.”

We might well end up with what happens in the US, where some states teach Creation (by a Christian God) as an alternative “theory” to Darwinian evolution!

~~

 

What then might be our options? One, dismantle the Union education ministry altogether and replace it with a coordinating and standards authority that ensures credential portability across states. No central institutions; AMU, the IIT’s everything falls under the states.

 

Two, revert to the pre-Emergency setup, i.e., education reverts to being a State List item; but a few institutes remain under the center including CBSE and NCERT.

 

Three, acknowledge that the poorer states would need funds (not just UP or Bihar; think also of Ladakh and the North East). Therefore, have a central education ministry which is all about allocating educational funds and tracking outcomes (enrolment, learning level etc) but has little/no say in setting the curriculum.

 

Pick one of these or propose something else, ends Kotasthane. Because the current system hasn’t worked well. And no, he isn’t saying this based on a decade of BJP rule, but based on all the decades since the amendment was made during the Emergency.

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