Unravelling the Policy-Practice Gap in Education in Post-Colonial India

Educational Priorities of the Indian State: A Post-Independence Trajectory

The first section of the volume, spanning eight essays, delves into the educational challenges faced by post-colonial India in areas such as literacy, adult education, the right to free and compulsory education, secondary education, and educational planning. V. K. R. V. Rao’s essay in Chapter 1, originally written in 1972, emphasises the significance of educating Indian youth for socio-economic development and nation-building, a topic relevant even today, given the contemporary debates on demographic dividend and the policy thrust on vocational education in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 (Government of India, 2020). In the next two chapters, Malcolm S. Adiseshiah and Rajiv Balakrishnan have highlighted the sluggish growth in literacy rates during the initial years of planning. Emphasising the importance of literacy for the socio-economic development of India, Adiseshiah, in Chapter 2 had vouched for a time-bound functional literacy programme in each state of the Indian Union. The adult literacy programme that started in the early 1970s in India and was considerably strengthened in the late 1980s (with the launch of the National Adult Education Programme, post-literacy, and continuing education programmes) brought significant improvement in literacy rates in India, as discussed by Balakrishnan in Chapter 3. Nonetheless, there were gaps in the literacy rate among the Indian adult population based on gender, region, and other socio-economic and demographic characteristics. In Chapter 4, J. P. Singh discusses the state of education and literacy in rural India and argues for mobilising enough resources to meet their educational needs. In sum, the discussion in the initial part of this section highlights the role of education in the socio-economic mobility of citizens in the early phase of post-colonial India.

With a global emphasis on universalising primary education (Goal 2 of the Millennium Development Goals was to achieve Universal Primary Education by 2015), India enacted the RTE Act in 2009 to provide free and compulsory education for children aged 6–14 years. Muchkund Dubey in Chapter 5 critically analyses the RTE Act and finds that it has failed to minimise inequality and discrimination in the education system. For instance, it continues to permit the expansion of private education—the growth of private schools in the country is rampant and increasing over the years, which is (re)producing educational inequality in Indian society. That is, despite the ideal normative stance of RTE, the actual practice reinforces existing hierarchies, perpetuates inequalities, and legitimises new exclusions. Though secondary education serves as the gateway to higher education and the labour market, universal secondary education still remains a distant goal in India. This is reflected in the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) 2021–2022 data, which shows that gross enrolment rates (GER) for grades 1–8, 9–10, and 11–12 were 100.1 per cent, 79.6 per cent, and 57.6 per cent, respectively—implying a significant proportion of enrolled students drop out after completing eight years of schooling (Government of India, 2022). To prevent students from dropping out after compulsory schooling facilitated by the RTE Act, NEP 2020 aims to achieve a 100 per cent GER in secondary level by 2030. Nevertheless, the editor of this volume, J. B. G. Tilak, considers this to be a challenging task given the sheer size of out-of-school children in Indian society, public–private mix in provisioning of secondary education, shortage of trained teachers, and resource scarcity. In Chapter 6, Rounaq Jahan, partly drawing her experience from Bangladesh, explores the role of political will and social commitment in implementing the target of providing universal access to secondary education in two South Asian countries—India and Bangladesh. This discussion is carried out with an emphasis on similar experiences with respect to the level of political will, policy-practice gap, quality and equity issues, and governance reforms in both the countries. In the following chapter, Vidhya Das discusses the importance of learning that happens outside the classroom. The author points out that India’s formal schooling system, which focuses largely on classroom learning and examinations, has led to juvenile stress and high student suicide rates. The importance of conceiving a system that does not alienate alternative education forms for children is highlighted. The last chapter of this section (Chapter 8), authored by D. P. Nayar, discusses the issue of educational planning in India. It is argued that the educational development of the first two decades in post-colonial India is largely the result of drift rather than of planned effort. He advocates for radical educational planning to address development concerns. This 1978 text remains relevant as the education system has made minimal contributions to employment, poverty reduction, empowerment, and overall social development in India even today.

With three different chapters, the second section covers issues such as colonialism and women’s education, the importance of women’s education for social change, and the debate on women’s exclusion-inclusion in higher education. Highlighting the sorry state of affairs of women’s education in colonial India, M. C. Paul in Chapter 9 describes the policy neglect of women’s education in the colonial period. The chapter provides a historical outlook on the issue by describing the four phases of the development of women’s education in India in the colonial period—1757–1812, 1813–1853, 1854–1892, and 1892–1947. It is argued that the colonial government was uninvolved in developing women’s education. Rather, the effort was made by private bodies and missionaries. Furthermore, the rural women in India were denied the opportunity of education as there was no school system for women in rural areas. While women’s presence in education has increased significantly in post-colonial India, we find gender inequality in household investment in education, access to quality school education, and low representation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. Muriel Wasi’s short paper in Chapter 10 highlights the crucial role of women in transforming Indian society, arguing that education should reach them. Wasi also expresses concern that even when a section of women was receiving education, their participation in the societal change was negligible, with minimal participation of women in politics and policymaking. Compared to the situation in 1971 when Wasi wrote the paper, this continues to pose a problem in contemporary India since many highly educated women join neither the labour force nor politics. To this end, she argues that literate and educated women should be made aware that they are an integral and necessary part of social change. Karuna Chanana’s work in Chapter 11 on women’s participation in higher education forms the concluding chapter of the section. Although access to higher education is critical to promoting gender equality in society, this received little attention in policy discourse. Chanana reveals the rhetoric of inclusion–exclusion and the myopic decisions that fail to alter the structures of exclusivity by gender. Gender concerns in higher education must receive more attention, particularly concerning gender inequality in access to different disciplines in higher education and learning outcomes.

Mapping the Higher Education and Research Landscape of India: Concerns, Strategies and Reforms

The third part of the volume focusses on higher education and research. Currently, India has the second-largest higher education system, with around 1,168 universities and 45,473 colleges attended by 4.33 crore students according to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE, 2021–2022). Although the Indian higher education sector is experiencing significant institutional expansion and higher enrolment figures, it is grappling with multiple challenges. Chapter 12 by Moonis Raza on the crisis in higher education in India observes that during the initial three decades of planning after independence, the expansion of higher education was artificially induced by educational inflation. The essay discusses certain dimensions of the higher education crisis, such as concentration of quality within elite institutions, proliferation of low-quality institutions, mushrooming of affiliated colleges, disparities between rural and urban areas, gender inequality, uneven growth of specific disciplines within the system, and escalation of costs. Interestingly, many of these issues, as discussed by Raza in 1985, continue to affect the Indian HE sector adversely even today, and some of them are discussed in the NEP 2020. In Chapter 13, Subramanian Swamy narrates the ‘brain drain’ issue in Indian society during the 1960s and early 1970s. This persists as several engineers and scientists who go abroad for their higher education and research choose not to return. A minuscule share of the individuals returning to India struggles to adapt to the work culture and hierarchical occupational structures. The discussion underscores the importance of academic freedom in research environments and a flexible work culture in the labour market. Malcolm S. Adiseshiah’s paper in Chapter 14 draws attention to the reverse side of the brain drain—some countries are confined to being raw material suppliers and, therefore, impart basic education; others are tasked with processing the input, and hence vocational education is prioritised. In developed countries where production activities are technology-based and research-intensive, the higher education system (re)produces science and technology competence. This hierarchical global order remains a significant concern in light of the brain drain from India and other developing countries to advanced nations, leaving the drained nations with lower levels of education and scientific competence. Additionally, the paper extensively discusses equity issues in the Indian education system with a focus on poverty, gender gaps, rural–urban disparity, caste, and class differences.

Ujagar Singh’s article in Chapter 15 argues for the national development orientation of teaching and research. To this end, he advocates for an integrated approach in higher education, encompassing technical, liberal, religious, and science and technology education. Doing away with the rigid separation of research and teaching activities in universities is also argued for. Interestingly, these continue to form the contemporary policy discourse in India. For instance, NEP 2020 seeks to end silos in higher education by allowing for institutional restructuring and consolidation into large multidisciplinary universities and higher education institution (HEI) clusters. In Chapter 16, Pravin J. Patel underlines the significance of scientific research in building a knowledge economy. The paper identifies the policy vacuum on research and development in HEIs and argues for serious deliberations about the research culture and resource constraints rather than quick-fix solutions through executive orders. Overall, this section highlights how important quality higher education and research settings are to advancing human and societal well-being in developing India.

The final section of the book, with four chapters, draws readers’ attention to policy reforms in Indian higher education. V. Eswara Reddy’s 1985 paper (Chapter 17) summarises recommendations of committees and commissions relating to university education. It facilitates a conversation around the idea of a university as laid out in the policy documents. The subsequent period witnessed the entry of private players in the education sector. To address this issue, Manish Kumar Shrivastava and Chandan Chowdhary, in Chapter 18, ask a critical question, ‘Where are we heading to?’ with the private-led expansion of the education sector in India. They argue that the neoliberal paradigm subverts education to serve capitalist interests, ultimately turning students and education into marketable commodities. These neoliberal tendencies also have a bearing on the public good character of education, as pointed out by Kishore Singh in Chapter 19. The author passionately argues for strong measures of the state to regulate the private players and protect the public good nature of education and asserts that doing so would pave the way towards addressing marginality and its manifestations in education. In the concluding chapter, J. B. G. Tilak has critically commented on the voluminous draft NEP 2019 text, prepared under the chairmanship of K. Kasturirangan. A few issues focussed in this chapter include curriculum reforms and restructuring of pedagogy in school education, reforms in examinations, imparting vocational education at the school level, replacement of the 10+2 school system, expansion of the private schools, philanthropic contributions to education, expansion of universities, research funding for universities, teacher shortage in higher education, and the regulatory system in higher education. With a focus on both systemic and institutional levels, this chapter provides a critique of some key issues raised and recommendations made in the draft report of the NEP 2019, many of which are also discussed in NEP 2020.

The volume curated by Jandhyala B. G. Tilak uses a broad lens drawing from a range of disciplines like economics, history, gender studies, and sociology to highlight the evolution of policy and practice in education in India, which also shows Tilak’s long-standing and impressive engagement in understanding the discourses in education and development. The discussion in this volume will be valuable to scholars, policy-makers, and educational administrators who share the same sentiment as the authors that education is critical to economic and social development. The writings of individual chapters in different time frames will assist the readers in identifying significant moments in the history of policymaking in India and their contributions to the discourse. The volume will also be helpful in tracing the contemporary challenges faced by the education system in India, specifically in the context of NEP 2020. Since the collection contains insightful articles that offer multiple perspectives from theoretical, conceptual, and empirical orientations, it makes an important contribution to the growing literature on education and development in India. Also, the canvas of the issues on the evolution of the educational landscape in post-colonial India would work as a useful reference to the early career researchers who are engaged or wish to engage themselves in understanding the challenges of the Indian education system from an interdisciplinary lens.

Despite its strength of coverage of the Indian educational landscape across five decades, the collection misses out at least two important concerns—the caste question and the language debate in education. Given the peculiar nature of these two concerns in the Indian society, any reader would naturally expect to learn educational policies that were in place to address them, particularly in the initial phase of post-colonialism. Reading through the essays, one also finds that the volume could have extended the discussion on issues like educational concerns of minorities and persons with disabilities, early childhood education, skills and skill development, and education and technology, that are often talked about in the educational policy discourse in India. Nevertheless, this volume advances the conversation surrounding education by reflecting upon the priorities of the state and the policy-practice gap, thereby contributing to the discourse on social change in India, the overarching theme of the series.