The Congress government in Karnataka, that defeated BJP by an absolute majority, ran its pre-poll campaign around promising five major guarantees, along with undoing many policies brought by the BJP government. From revision of textbooks to the contentious Hijab ban, the Congress government has often charged at the previous regime for ‘saffronising’ education. Its latest target has been BJP’s flagship National Education Policy (NEP), which Chief Minister Siddaramaiah recently announced would be scrapped from next academic year.
Karnataka was the first state to announce the implementation of NEP in 2021. The BJP, which was in power at the time, had called it a “well-thought policy in the interest of students”. While the BJP dubs Congress’s decision as ‘political foul play’, the Congress claims that NEP encroaches upon the state’s prerogatives, highlighting the government’s contention that it violates the state’s rights in the domain of education. The education matters fall under the Concurrent list.
Only time will tell if the move was a political strategy or a policy-related decision.
NEP implementation in Karnataka
Several educationists, lecturers and students criticised the haste with which the NEP was implemented. When the state government issued a notification regarding the implementation of the policy in 2021, undergraduate colleges were left scrambling as they neither were prepared nor were they aware of the provisions of the new policy. Many educational institutions were still in fact, reeling from the impact of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the major provisions of the NEP was to overhaul the system of undergraduate courses, by changing three-year courses to four years and doing away with the three-major system that is prevalent in colleges in Karnataka.
Students who sought admission prior to the introduction of the policy and were in their first year then, were taken by surprise when they realised that their course would now be extended for another year. “Along with extending our degree by a year, our colleges were not prepared to handle the extensive courses mentioned under the policy. We didn’t have textbooks, or for that matter, even teachers to help us learn the new syllabus,” a student from Mysuru says.
Further, students were compelled to take an open elective, along with their two core subjects. For example, if a student was studying two core subjects of science, they would have to choose an open elective from a completely unrelated field – either from commerce and arts.
Education experts point out that more than 200 subjects are listed under these open electives – ranging from journalism to beautification. Despite the variety, educational institutions were not equipped to teach these varied courses. “It was the pure case of jack of all trades but master of none. Students would end up choosing an easier elective only for scoring purposes and not to pursue it in the future. Instead of excelling in three core subjects like earlier, we had to focus on two core subjects and a third completely unrelated course,” Abhaya, a member of the All India Democratic Students’ Organisation said.
Principles of colleges expressed concern at the time that while earlier, students were proficient at least in three subjects, with the NEP, this number came down to two.
AIDSO, AISA and many other student-led organisations have led over 20 protests within the state against the NEP. “We consider the Congress government’s decision of discontinuing the policy as a victory of the student-led movement that received major support from our lecturers as well,” Abhaya says. But, the students still have some apprehensions.
Self-financing institutions, merger of government schools
When the Congress government announced that it would scrap NEP, ministers explicitly stated that they would only scrap the four-year honours degree. However, students and professors express concerns around other provisions of the policy.
The provisions of the policy clearly lay out the definition of a ‘graded autonomy’ status of an university: that it will have to generate its own funds for salaries, promotions, pensions and maintenance. The policy also envisages that over time, every college would develop into either an Autonomous degree-granting College or a constituent university of a university. This process has already begun in Karnataka.
The University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) in Bengaluru, is more than 100 years old. The college, which was started in 1917 by Sir M. Visvesvaraya, houses students from across Karnataka, a majority of them belonging to OBC, SC, ST categories. Over the decades, students have mainly chosen UVCE for two reasons: affordability and less academic pressure. “Even until a few years ago, we would see students from backward districts in Yadgir and Raichur. But once the institution turned into a self-financing one, many of these students couldn’t afford the fees and had to pay the price,” a former student of UVCE says.
The state government in March 2023, gave an autonomous status to the UVCE and announced it will be developed on the model of Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), as promised by the then CM Basavaraj Bommai. However, this meant that part of the funds for the institution will be provided by the government and the other half will have to be arranged by the institution itself. Although the status of the institute changed only this year, a slight increase in fees has already been observed.
On August 6, 2023, releasing the fee structure for engineering colleges, the Karnataka Higher Education Department said, “For the UVCE, a sum of Rs 45,000 will be charged for first-year students and Rs 43,500 for other years will be obtained from students.” Earlier, students used to pay around Rs. 39,000 for the first year and Rs. 29,000 for the second.
“Students from underprivileged backgrounds and backward districts come to these decades-old institutions for subsidised education. But once they turn autonomous, they will be inaccessible to these students,” AIDSO members say.
The NEP further recommends the consolidation of schools for greater resource efficiency and more effective functioning, coordination, leadership, governance, and management of schools.
In 2022, the then Minister for Education BC Nagesh, announced that 13,800 government schools will be merged to form Model Government Schools in the state. “Closure is not an option. These schools will be merged with the model schools at hobli levels. There are 16 schools in Chamrajnagar and 32 schools in Raichur without teachers,” Nagesh had clarified.
However, many feared the shutdown of these schools under the garb of a merger which will only result in the rise of out of school children. Karnataka is among the five states across India that recorded a high drop rate in government schools (14.6 per cent), higher than the national average 12.6 per cent, according to the minutes of Planning Approval Board (PAB) meetings held with different states between April to May for the financial year 2023-24.
Student associations too slammed the state government, alleging that it was shutting down schools on the pretext of mergers and model schools. “It is shocking that the government has shown no hesitation in blatantly telling us that 13,800 schools will be closed down this year. Current academic year has witnessed a horrifying situation in which 10 lakh students dropped out of schools in Karnataka. At times like these, improving the facilities and appointing adequate numbers of teachers to government schools should have been the priority of the government,” Sithara H M, office secretary of AIDSO Karnataka said.
Apart from the above-mentioned reasons, threat to Kannada language, inadequate representation of Karnataka in the curricula and lack of adequate resources; are some of the reasons given by Congress ministers for discontinuing the NEP.
The state education minister has expressed fears over the imposition of Hindi language through the NEP. While the policy clearly does not state the same, it does include a provision: “Sanskrit will be mainstreamed with strong offerings in school -- including as one of the language options in the three-language formula -- as well as in higher education.”
Student bodies and professors have welcomed the move of scrapping the NEP, even as the policy continues to be in place for this year to avoid confusion for educational institutions mid-term. Dr. M.C. Sudhakar, the Higher Education Minister, has acknowledged both the positives and negatives of NEP and emphasised the need to avoid hastily withdrawing NEP without thorough discussion, debate and consideration of all aspects. Meanwhile, all eyes are on the state as it proceeds to evolve its own education policy.
