THE crisis in education has been mounting since the lockdown announced to contain the Covid-19 epidemic. All institutions, offices and organisations including all educational institutions were closed down. In the field of education, online teaching and learning was introduced during the lockdown period, which was accessed largely by the urban rich students; students belonging to poor families, particularly in rural areas could not avail of this option due to unaffordability and inaccessibility. Still in many areas in the country electric power is not available, not to speak of internet connection. As a result, the dropout rate increased.

During the period of lockdown, government introduced many new laws including the three farm laws, four labour codes as well as the National Educational Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). NEP 2020 has been introduced without discussion, or without even placing it in parliament, and bypassing the states. This violated the constitutional provision of federalism as education is a subject listed in the concurrent list.

NEP 2020 emphasised against fragmentation; instead, it focused on concentration through clustering of colleges, which will reduce the number of institutions, resulting in closure of smaller educational institutions; larger institutions only will survive. It further emphasised on flexibility in choosing institutions, subjects, modes, etc.

There are many contentious issues about the provisions of NEP 2020 as well as problems with its implementation. There are many serious lacunae, inadequacies and limitations.

There is a need, therefore, to take into consideration all important factors adversely affecting various sectors in the field of education arising out of NEP.

We have been discussing the critical issues about NEP 2020 and raising our voice against it during the last two years.

Under the circumstances, representatives of teachers, non-teaching staff members, students and parents from all sectors of education in Maharashtra have been brought under an umbrella called the Shiksha Bachao Manch. The manch organised a state level convention at the prestigious St Xavier’s College Campus, Mumbai on September 9, 2023.

The convention had two patrons, Kapil Patil, MLC and Tapati Mukhopadhyay. The patrons, and representatives of 13 organisations and guests, in all over 400 persons, participated in the convention. Over 15 representatives spoke.

The convention discussed various issues about the provisions of NEP 2020 as well as problems of its implementation, particularly in the context of Maharashtra, and found many serious lacunae, inadequacies and limitations.

NEP 2020 wants to introduce clustering of universities, colleges and schools. For example, it desires to reduce the number of colleges from 50,000 to only 15,000 in the country. This, naturally, will adversely impact students, mainly in rural areas, as the distance between the institutions will increase, resulting in serious difficulty for students to travel.

As a result, larger institutions will survive, and smaller ones will close down. This will increase unemployment of both teaching and non-teaching staff and fall in enrolment.

The convention also discussed the introduction of the four-year graduation course -- the post-graduation will be for one year. This will lead to surplus of teaching and non-teaching staff, reduced research works, etc.

NEP 2020 claims to bring flexibility in choosing institutions, subjects, modes, etc. As a result, students will have to move from one institution to another for their choice of subject. They will be scattered and subject-specific specialisation will disappear. The focus largely is on online teaching and learning; this will help the well-to-do students, depriving poor and rural students, leading to many more drop outs.

The convention also deliberated on the new policy’s adverse impact onMaharashtra’s school education system – from primary to secondary schools. Because of non-allocation of funds, schools have been suffering from lack of adequate number of teaching and non-teaching staff, infrastructure, health and hygiene of students, stoppage of midday meals, etc. There are only ad hoc / contractual appointments in vacant posts, irregular payments of salary, etc.

The convention prepared a composite list of 56 demands, covering anganwadi, primary and secondary teachers, Shikshak Bharati, BUCTU, non-teaching college employee’s organisation, SFI, People’s Science Network, AIDWA, etc. Some important common demands are:

1. Scrap NEP 2020.

2. Fill up the vacant posts for all sectors from primary, secondary, higher secondary to colleges and universities as well as non-teaching staff.

3. All appointments should be made by following regular procedures and they should be paid salary regularly.

4. Teachers appointed under clock hour basis (CHB) should be paid regular salary if they carry out regular activities as per Supreme Court directive, ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’.

5. All teaching and non-teaching staff appointed after 2005 should get the benefit of Old Pension Scheme; the Contributory Pension Scheme should be abolished.

6. Increase in allocation of GDP from 6 per cent to 10 per cent for the education sector.

The convention concluded that NEP 2020 is a sure recipe for disaster for the country’s education system, and decided to fight it even more vigorously and unitedly.