Meaningful interventions in education

A couple of days back, speaking at the valedictory function of a 2 day conclave on the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) at Amar Singh College, one of the oldest colleges in J&K, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah made some very pertinent remarks. In the backdrop of the decisions to establish dozens of colleges in J&K, Omar Abdullah raised a concern about the utility of such colleges.

Earlier we had limited number of colleges, but those were very impressive spaces that carried an aura with them. Now we have colleges that look not even as good schools. This has diminished the very image of a college. Secondly, we now have seen a declining trend in the number of students taking admissions in colleges, and among those who get admissions a significant number doesn’t attend classes. This is a serious shift in the attitude of students towards colleges.

While there are a number of reason why the roll in colleges is declining, the above point raised by Omar Abdullah, chief minister of J&K, underlines a bigger phenomenon. “If a college was established in one area, nearby areas demanded one as well. If a college was set up in a particular village, another was established in a nearby village.” These words of the Chief Minister need a fuller debate. What has been expressed is a pointer towards a bigger problem.

That problem can be put in just two words – Optics and Populism. Such decisions, and many more, are guided by an element of narrow ended political investment.

Establishing colleges everywhere without doing a corresponding assessment on whether we even require them or not is not just a policy failure, it is a corruption of mind. And this corruption of mind, the absence of thinking, is reflected in many more decisions and practices that are in vogue as far as education is concerned in J&K. If Omar Abdullah follows it up seriously, he will be doing a great job. The way we manage our schools, the way rules have been laid down, the way schools are asked to submit NoC after NoC, the way populism guides the response of the authorities when it comes to school education – all this breeds inefficiency.

The decisions regarding school and college education should only be guided by the requirements of the education, not populism or optics.