The draft National Education Policy (NEP), 2019, was submitted to the government on May 31, 2019. This sizeable report of about 480 pages has been in the making since January 2015 when consultations on the NEP first began. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) had earlier constituted a Committee for Evolution of the New Education Policy, under the chairmanship of T.S.R. Subramanian, the former Cabinet Secretary, which submitted its report in May 2016. Based on this report, the Ministry prepared “Some inputs for the Draft National Education Policy, 2016”. Subsequently, in June 2017, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of K. Kasturirangan, the eminent scientist and former Chairperson, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), to examine all suggestions and submit a draft policy by December 2018. The draft NEP was put in the public domain, seeking comments, suggestions and inputs from various stakeholders, until June 30, 2019. (This has since been extended by a month.) The policy is comprehensive and aims at covering several aspects and stages of school, college and university education. For school education, it has included children of the 3-18 age group instead of the existing 6-14 age group under the Right to Education Act (RTE).
A number of education commissions and committees have been set up since Independence to help formulate and implement various governmental policies and programmes. The first University Education Commission (1948-49), also known as the Radhakrishnan Commission, under the chairmanship of Dr S. Radhakrishnan, the second President of India, spelt out the objectives and functions of university education in detail. It was followed by the B.G. Kher Committee on Primary Education in 1951 whose recommendations were made part of the Secondary Education Commission (1952-53), which was also known as the Mudaliyar Commission. Subsequently, the Official Language Commission, 1956, and the Education Commission (1964-66), the latter known as the Kothari Commission, were set up to achieve the ideals of democratic citizenship, economic and social mobility and cultural integration through a comprehensive education policy in India. What emerged from these commissions was the National Education Policy, 1968, which emphasised the domains of science and technology in the education system of the country. Thereafter, the National Policy on Education was presented in 1986 to integrate new domains and spheres in the realm of education; finally, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) outlined the broader framework for school education.
SCOPE OF NEP 2019
The draft NEP is a vision document of education and its accessibility for the next two decades. It proposes that the education policy must have as its objectives access, equity, quality, affordability and accountability. It sets out that students must develop not merely cognitive skills relating to numeracy and literacy but also soft skills consisting of social and emotional skills with cultural competence, team work, perseverance and leadership, and so on (page 25). In other words, education must impart social and emotional competence, going beyond the recommendations and policy implementations of the earlier two education policies—the National Policy on Education, 1986, and its modification in 1992. The universalisation of school education provided through the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002, under Article 21-A of the Constitution, ensures free and compulsory education as a fundamental right as part of the RTE Act that came into force in April 2010.
Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is a novel concept in the draft with particular respect to the idea of cognitive growth and the questions relating to “learning crisis”. The questions of curricula design, pedagogical framework, creative activity-based education and innovative teaching tools have got significant attention in the draft. The idea of establishing National Tutors Programmes across the country is to enable high quality peer tutoring among students. Similarly, to increase communicative skills among children, the draft policy recommends the expansion of school and public libraries and encouraging the culture of reading. In order to minimise rote learning, it emphasises the transformation of both curriculum and pedagogy by the use of multilingualism and diverse communicative order in classroom teaching.
In its vision for universal access to education for the 3-18 age group by 2030, the draft draws attention to the need for providing transport and hostel facilities and safety measures, monitoring of attendance and school status, and the role of social workers and counsellors. With regard to the administrative governance of schools, the draft indicates measures such as the organisation of schools into school complexes for institutional resources, and a comprehensive teacher development plan for regulation and accreditation of school education by setting up a State School Regulatory Authority (SSRA) in every State as part of the extension of the RTE, 2009. Similarly, for higher education, the draft committee has suggested the setting up of a National Research Foundation (NRF) as a resource centre to provide a funding framework for higher education. A move has been proposed to regulate, control, and monitor education at the Central and State levels by setting up the Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (National Education Commission) to be headed by the Prime Minister and the Rajya Shiksha Aayog (State Education Commission) to be headed by the Chief Minister.
The draft policy emphasises language teaching as part of the school curricula. It recognises the power of languages in learning and in the dissemination of knowledge throughout the school years. However, in pursuit of acquiring learning and not necessarily interrogating critically or introspecting what and how to learn in schools through textbooks or set curricula, the draft gives languages more of an instrumental role to perform. The deeper relationship between language and education has not been worked out substantively.
Language as a medium of instruction and language as a subject of learning are two distinctive domains. Where a particular language becomes a medium of instruction and not just a subject of acquiring knowledge about that particular language, it acquires more of an instrumental value and becomes a formal tool of learning. It may not result in gaining substantive knowledge of that language. The committee members of the draft policy seem to be concerned about integrating the multilingual social ethos into school and university pedagogical domains. Therefore, it suggests that children between two and eight years of age have the capacity to learn multiple languages, giving them much-needed cognitive benefits.
The three-language formula (TLF) that the draft lays emphasis on is to be initiated from the foundational stages so that multilingual skills are internalised and retained as well. The draft stresses the fact that early childhood schooling should be in the students’ own language, that textbooks should be written in the local languages, and that teachers should be taught the local languages too. In its recommendation to make the home language/mother tongue/local language as the medium of instruction at least until grade 5 or preferably until grade 8, the draft reiterates the significance of mother tongue education throughout school life. The draft NEP 2019 has identified the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Survey to know the standard of language education in different schools of India.
A large number of Indian languages, which are not yet used in schools as medium of instruction, would need to have teachers, interpreters and translators who can provide the much-needed assistance for schoolchildren during the years of transition from local to regional language. Keeping this in mind, the draft also suggests setting up an Indian Translation and Interpretation Mission to introduce a “bilingual approach for those whose language is different from the primary medium of instruction to ensure the smooth transition from the home language to the medium of instruction”. While accepting that “multilingualism is a necessity of India” (page 81) and that Indian languages are no less than English, the draft emphasises that “importance and prominence must be returned to Indian languages” and that “language teaching jobs must be created in schools and colleges across the country”.
THREE-LANGUAGE FORMULA
The draft NEP 2019 states that all students from preschool and grade 1 onwards will be exposed to three or more languages to be able to recognise and read basic text by grade 3. This reconfirms the continuity of the TLF which was first introduced in 1968 and has remained a subject of controversy since then. It clearly states that the TLF will be continued as recommended in 1968, 1986/1992 and 2005 and implemented in its spirit throughout the country but it must be better implemented in some States, particularly in Hindi-speaking States, for purposes of national integration as schools in Hindi-speaking States should also offer and teach Indian languages from other States.
The draft NEP 2019 has expanded the reach and access of the TLF by recommending that “States may enter [into] bilateral agreements to hire teachers in large numbers from each other, in order to satisfy the three-language formula in their respective States”. There seems to be a call for some sort of linguistic federalism in this regard. For example, the call for nationwide recruitment of teachers to teach local languages, including retired teachers, is an innovative idea. Another important suggestion is that students whose medium of instruction is the local language will start learning science bilingually from grade 8 onwards so that by grade 10 they can understand a subject like science both in English and in their local language.
In order to make children multilingual, the draft recommends that every student take a “fun course” on “languages of India” during grades 6-8 and that excerpts from literature of other languages be included in the curriculum. The recommendations about the TLF further suggest that “ students, who wish to change one of the three languages they are studying, may do so in grade 6 but there can’t be any change in the teaching of three languages—Hindi-speaking States will have Hindi, English and one modern Indian language; non-Hindi speaking States will have Hindi, English and one of the regional languages ”.
The draft clearly states that the TLF must be implemented, although the foreign language (French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese) will be an elective at the secondary level. It is also suggested that Sanskrit be offered as an optional subject at all levels; that courses of all classical languages be made available at all levels and classical languages be taught for two years in grades 6-8. The draft, in chapter 22, on the promotion of Indian languages, suggests the setting up of a National Institute for Pali, Persian and Prakrit in order to encourage learning and teaching in these languages. Furthermore, the proposal to set up a National Research Foundation is aimed at ensuring the survival and stability of Indian languages through research about their historical genealogies, their literature and their capabilities to become the languages of education. In order to be able to navigate between different languages, there is a proposal to set up a Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology and one that says “all higher education institutions must recruit high faculty for at least three languages”.
Over the last 70 years, numerous commissions and committees have addressed the question of language in terms of the teaching of English, Hindi, mother tongues and other languages. For example, the first University Education Commission in 1948 recommended the replacement of English by Indian languages as the medium of instruction at the university level after five years. It also recommended that one’s mother tongue should be adopted as the medium of instruction at primary and secondary levels and that students should know at least three languages—the regional language, Hindi and English, the latter two serving as link languages.
The Mudaliyar Commission (Secondary Education Commission, 1952) recommended the study of Hindi and English at the higher primary level too. Subsequently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in 1957 suggested the TLF, which was adopted in 1961 at the Chief Ministers Conference, leading to the teaching of a regional language, Hindi in non-Hindi-speaking areas and any other language in Hindi-speaking areas, and English or any modern European language. In December 2016, the CBSE put forth to the HRD Ministry a proposal concerning the TLF for secondary education, and it seems to have suggested that foreign languages be provided as a fourth or fifth option in the TLF given the fact that 18,000 schools affiliated to the CBSE allow students the option of studying three languages (mother tongue or Hindi, English and any other foreign language) until class 8. However, it is to be noted that languages under the TLF have to be chosen only from those listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
For minorities and minority language communities, the draft suggested the following measures. For the Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities facing discrimination and disadvantages on account of social and linguistic inequalities, it suggested that teachers be recruited from these communities to provide translated learning material for the education of children from tribal communities while contextualising curriculum and incorporating tribal knowledge tradition. Furthermore, the draft says, curriculum and pedagogy should be connected to tribal language and culture with measures such as bilingual education to make the transition easy from home language to the language of instruction; modernisation of madrasas and other religious educational institutions; education for children from urban poor families; physical access to schools for children with special needs and their inclusion in school and provision for home-based education.
SURGE AND SPREAD OF HINDI
Two days after the draft policy was released, on June 2, an outburst of anger and anxiety from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra erupted against the imposition of Hindi as part of the TLF in non-Hindi-speaking States. On June 3, the Union government backtracked and assured people that the TLF would not be implemented in primary schools. This was done to avert the protests and agitations that had spread far and wide in the country. Subsequently, the clause “mandatory Hindi Lessons” was removed from the draft. Although this reassurance from the government quelled the tide of anger and protests, it nevertheless brought forth a number of questions relating to the role of the TLF in a linguistically diverse country such as India. For example, the old claim of Hindi being spoken or used by the largest number of people in the country is based more on assumption than on any serious and consistent census or any other enumerative methods. Languages such as Braj, Bhojpuri, Awadhi and Rajasthani are counted as variants of Hindi, increasing the numerical strength of Hindi in order to justify its claims of being the language spoken by the largest number of people.
What is perhaps needed is a new language census or proper language survey records as part of the decennial census exercise of 2021 to see the numerical status of various languages and dialects in the country. It is necessary that the Language Atlas published in 2004 is revised and counted with additions or deletions in the list of languages of the last 15 years. What is interesting is the sixfold increase in just about 10 years in the number of students learning Hindi through various courses offered by the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha (DBHPS), a Hindi promotion society established by Mahatma Gandhi in 1918 “with the sole aim of propagating Hindi in Southern States”. It is also noteworthy that despite several constitutional provisions favouring the promotion and propagation of Hindi in Central government offices and their associated organisations, Hindi is an official language in only about half of the States in the country. The DBHPS conducts eight levels of proficiency examinations, and 80 per cent of them are for schoolchildren.
There have been a number of official means and strategies followed since Independence by the Central government to accord official/national recognition to Hindi. With so many measures of state protection and promotion of Hindi by the government, it is obvious that the language has spread far and wide in the country. For example, in compliance with the Official Language Resolution, 1968, the Department of Official Language has prepared an annual programme which sets targets for Central government offices with regard to originating correspondence, telegrams, telex, and so on, in Hindi. A Quarterly Progress Report is called for from these offices regarding achievements vis-a-vis the targets. Eight Regional Implementation Offices have been established at Bengaluru, Kochi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhopal, Delhi and Ghaziabad to monitor the implementation of the Official Language Policy of the Union.
A Committee of Parliament on Official Language was constituted in 1976 under Section 4 of the Official Languages Act, 1963, to periodically review the progress in the use of Hindi as the official language of the Union and to submit a report to the President. The committee consists of 20 members of the Lok Sabha and 10 of the Rajya Sabha. The Kendriya Hindi Samiti, constituted in 1967 and chaired by the Prime Minister, is the apex policymaking body which lays down guidelines for the propagation and progressive use of Hindi as official language of the Union. Under the directions of the Kendriya Hindi Samiti, Hindi Salahakar Samitis have been constituted in all Ministries/Departments under the chairmanship of the Ministers concerned. These Samitis periodically review the progress in the use of Hindi in their respective Ministries/Departments and offices/undertakings and suggest measures to promote its use.
Besides, the Central Official Language Implementation Committee (headed by the Secretary, Department of Official Language, and consisting of Joint Secretaries (in-charge Official Language) of all the Ministries/Departments as ex-officio members) reviews the status of use of Hindi for official purposes of the Union, training of its employees in Hindi and implementation of instructions issued from time to time by the Department of Official Language and suggests measures to remove the shortcomings and difficulties in implementing these instructions. Town Official Language Implementation Committees have been constituted in different towns having 10 or more Central government offices to review the progress made in the use of Hindi in their member offices and to exchange experiences. So far, 255 Town Official Language Implementation Committees have been constituted all over the country.
The draft should have taken into account a more detailed view on migrants’ languages and the need to include them in the curricula of school education and in the list of dominant regional languages of the country. The anti-Hindi protests are indicative of linguistic identity as a significant form of recognition of people and communities whose language is older and enjoys the status of classical language in the country. The language of citizenship and its democratic enunciation should be the one having pedagogical effects in the realms of education.
The law and administration, too, should be made sense of in the language of the people. The language-education question is a deeply political one with implications for language planning in the multilingual social fabric of the country. Education is in the Concurrent List, any issues relating to it is determined by both the Centre and the State governments concerned. Therefore, the Central government cannot impose any language on any State in the sphere of education particularly, and the idea of the TLF would always be contested by the States concerned. Given the global network of trade, commerce, education, employment and migration, teaching of foreign languages must be made part of the school curriculum throughout the country. There is a need to make learning and teaching of languages integral to the educational and pedagogical ethos across the country.
Asha Sarangi teaches at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
