Under the NEP-2000, the name of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) was changed to Ministry of Education (MoE). There was a serious dimension to this change in nomenclature. The term “human resource” induced the person in charge to look at teachers and academics as part of a labour force and therefore not worthy of too much respect. The renaming of the department could well initiate the process of refashioning the government’s attitude to educational institutions and to those who teach in them.

The attitude, as articulated by present Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s predecessors, had been for the government to curtail the autonomy of academic institutions as much as possible on the ground that most universities were fully or partially funded by the government. The presence of the government ~ often bordering on interference ~ tended to stifle the pursuit of excellence in bodies of higher learning. It was expected of Mr Pradhan to step back and allow the heads of universities to run the institutions. Admittedly, this would be one of the first steps in the government’s gradual withdrawal from the sphere of higher education and to opening it up for private players. So the task before Mr Pradhan as the minister of education for a second time is to cut the Gordian knot. While the policies of successive governments have failed to live up to the country’s much-trumpeted goals in the sector ~ inclusion, expansion and excellence ~ electoral politics have always prevented our planners from thinking creatively. Drawing the border between populism and pro-people policies is often forgotten. Our country’s Constitution cannot be faulted.

The directive principles of state policy offer great promise. Article 41 says: “The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.” However, there is a rider: the State will perform such tasks “within the limits of its economic capacity”. The ground reality is daunting though. There has been an unmistakable imbalance in the allocations for the different facets of the social sector in the union budgets for decades. One can easily plead that the economics of learning is yet to be calibrated in our country.

A notable trend, particularly in the past three decades, is that private expenditure on education is growing faster than that of the public, which reflects increasing privatization of education in India, and has far-reaching policy implications. Growing demand for education coupled with inadequacy of public expenditure on education has resulted in growing private expenditure. The nonfulfillment of the public education system due to inadequate state funding strained the private pockets in meeting the growing demands. NEP-2020 intends to curb the commercialization, but not privatization. According to All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) report estimates, Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education in India was 28.5 per cent in 2021-22.

Private educational institutions account for nearly 46 per cent of the total school enrolment and 70 per cent of higher education enrolment. Most of the studies on private expenditure on education infer that education being a public good, public investment in education is a must. Unfortunately such expenditure is found to be insufficient in achieving the educational goals of our country. Whereas the private expenditure on education (PFCE) increased from Rs 86.5 crore in 1951-52 to Rs. 509961.6 crore in 2018-19 and to Rs 728197.6 crore by 2022-23, public expenditure increased from Rs 64.5 crore to Rs 736581 crore and further to Rs 1098589.4 crore for the same periods.

It goes without saying that the government’s intent on faster digital Integration and creating a high-quality and equitable public education system needs to be supported by adequate fund allocation. Though NEP-2000 notes the criticality of enhancing public funding, it is discouraging that the budgetary allocation does not provide proper support to make a convenient roadmap for achieving the target. While it was expected that some specific allocation would be announced keeping in view the objectives of NEP-2000, much to our dismay a sum of Rs 1.206 lakh crore was allocated to the ministry of education in the interim budget (2024-25) which is a mere 6.8 per cent increase in comparison to FY 2023-24. Of this, Rs 47619.77 crore has been set aside for higher education departments. However, the budgetary allocation for education as a percentage of total expenditure has dropped over the last seven years from 10.4 per cent to 9.5 per cent, according to the Economic Survey 2022-24.

The allocation is not encouraging in view of the NEP 2000 schemes that aim at improving infrastructure and teaching in educational institutions post-Covid 19. While the government is and should be intent on an overall implementation of the NEP 2000, which aims at universalisation of education from preschool to the secondary level, the budget for Samagra Shiksha Scheme, the main vehicle for implementing the Right to Education Act is at Rs 37500 crore, slightly higher than Rs 37435.47 crore allocated for 2023-24. The NEP launched in the second half of 2020 aimed at overhauling India’s education system, but the pandemic situation turned the academic calendar topsy-turvy. It is time to review how far the NEP can be made relevant to the new normal in education. A UNESCO report explained the scenario: “Education systems responded with distance learning solutions, all of which offered less or more imperfect substitutes for classroom instruction”.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, campuses across the country were shut down and all academic institutions switched to virtual classrooms. However, most institutions lacked the infrastructure to take digital classes while only a few had previous experience on the platform. Most of the teachers struggled to learn how to use the digital platform for the teaching-learning process. As for the learners, the digital divide became a matter of great concern. A Delhi High Court judgment called for the responsibility of the government to directly address the digital divide. It mandated in its judgement and order of 18 September 2020 in Justice for All versus Government of NCT Delhi & Ors that the government has a responsibility and legal obligation to enable online education for EWS students ensuring free laptop/iPad/mobile phone and high speed internet etc. for online classes through video conferencing to be provided free of cost to children defined under Section 2 (c) of the RTE Act.

Encouragingly, the NEP has plans to set up and develop a National Education Technical Forum to oversee capacity building, develop e-content and provide a platform for educational institutions and stakeholders to share best practices leveraging technology. Setting up more virtual labs to give students remote access to experimentbased learning and virtual field trips strongly suggests that the policy promises a lot in focusing on experimental learning. It also aims at providing learning apps, satellite based TV channels and teacher’s training to strengthen online learning.

NEP is set to include more online and e-learning platforms at both school and college levels to make it more technologyoriented. It also seeks to encourage research across a higher perspective of education by setting up a National Research Foundation. It is very likely that remote learning and technology-based education delivery are going to become the norm and are sure to attract huge investments. The digital divide may only be bridged with the availability of requisite hardware, software and networking facilities.

(The writer, a former Associate Professor, department of English, Gurudas College, Kolkata, is presently with Rabindra Bharati University)