In the following decade after the second World War, one of the most baffling questions which haunted many thinkers was something to do with German Masses. How could the Germans be so easily brainwashed into believing the so- called ideals of the Nazis? How could the Germans give tacit approval to a genocide? How could they turn a blind eye to human suffering?
Noted philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke of the banality of evil highlighting how even an ordinary individual, committed family men, dotting fathers were absolutely capable of carrying out something as ghastly as Holocaust! She took the aid of a highly publicised trial of Eichmann to prove her premise. Moving further it is now very clear that Nazis had set in motion a systemic process to instill racial science and anti- Semitism in the very young many years before the Holocaust.
German schools played a major role in preparing the youth for genocidal actions. Textbooks were rewritten, hatred towards Jews was textualized, science was tampered with. There was excessive emphasis on racial purity and outright rejection of difference and variation. The curriculum in itself was a cult! It was instrumental in constructing the image of the infallible leader. It foregrounded the vision that there was only one leader who could lead the nation to its glory. His image was imprinted in the minds of the schools’ wards. Pedagogy and curriculum were therefore the essential preliminary steps in educating the German youth towards the Holocaust.
Gone are the days when people naively believed that education was benevolent. Schools, pedagogy, and curriculum during the Nazis proved that education at the behest of a dictator can be lethal.
It can be used to safeguard the existing hierarchies, perpetuate hatred, humiliate and demonise the marginalised. Theodor W. Adorno of the Frankfurt School rightly asserted in a radio talk “Education After Auschwitz” (1966) that “The premier demand upon all education is that Auschwitz not happen again.” In spite of such cautionary appeals, successive governments have used education for pushing the agendas they believe in, to curtail self-reflection, self- determination, to encourage the rhetoric of hyper-nationalism through divisiveness.
With such a great onus put on the education sector, how should one perceive NEP-2020, India? Central Cabinet approved the New Education Policy (NEP-2020) when the country was reeling under a series of lockdowns. Economy was brought to a grinding halt. Lakhs of migrant workers were returning to their natives on foot deprived of even the barest incomes. Schools and Universities were shut down for months. Majority of the students were either coerced or threatened to attend the online classes when the technology needed was almost inaccessible for many. Under such trying circumstances the cabinet passed the NEP without presenting and debating it in Parliament. NEP was thus passed without observing basic democratic niceties and since any democratic resistance to NEP wasn’t permitted, it was accepted by the people as “path-breaking!”
Once the public perception in favour of NEP was manufactured via propaganda, the servile academia took over. Universities and affiliated colleges conducted seminars and conferences heaping praises on the NEP. The voices of academicians who raised alarm bells about NEP being detrimental to
establishing an equitable system of quality education in India and helping commercialisation of education were silenced. The scholars who could see through this facade and commented about “skills approach” rather than acquiring knowledge as a resource for critically comprehending the existing society and value system were also snubbed. It is this NEP-2020 which the then Karnataka Government decided to implement!
The then BJP led Karnataka Government decided to implement the NEP in a haste. It was probably doing so in order to garner the praise of the all-powerful central leadership. It went on to pat its own back as the first state in the country to have implemented NEP-2020 “successfully.” Can there be a better example of ingratiation? With no necessary infrastructure in place, right curriculum, nor the apt pedagogy in sight, the government went ahead with utter disdain for the future of thousands of students. As per the new NEP curriculum students were asked to choose core subjects and open electives. Students were neither informed nor oriented regarding the same. In fact many of the university faculties themselves were not in a state to explain the changes ushered in by NEP.
Previously if a student pursued Humanities, say BA, he would choose combinations HEP, HES, HEE* and so on. With the dawn of NEP, arts students were allowed to choose two core subjects from the discipline of Humanities and an open elective from commerce or science streams. The colleges offering graduate courses went into a dizzy state. Many of the colleges (especially government colleges) were not equipped to offer multidisciplinary courses. With the majority of the government colleges offering exclusively commerce/science or arts courses, they had no faculties to offer multidisciplinary courses. In the ensuing confusion students who could afford to shell out considerable money, abandoned government colleges and joined private institutes and on the other hand students who could not afford to pay exorbitant fees abandoned the studies all together. The dropout rates in government colleges after the implementation of NEP stand testimony to it.
It is interesting to note that now students from the humanities stream have to study two core subjects and can pursue their post-graduation only in one of these subjects. In essence students have lost out on an option due to a farce called open-elective. Can a student comprehensively learn science, commerce or arts choosing them as an open-elective is a question to which many scholars, VCs, principals are reluctant to provide a convincing answer. Confusion was created
regarding the number of years students have to study in order to get a degree certificate too. It was stated that a four years honours degree is the desired degree over the current three years graduation degree. Can an ordinary student hailing from low class or lower middle class pursue four years Honours course in an era of the pandemic which has put a lot of families under emotional and financial stress?
Adding to the existing quandary, a new centralised admission system was introduced in all government colleges. It was named as UUCMS (University and College Management System.) It is a software for college affiliation and admission. Technical issues such as system crashes, software bugs, or compatibility problems have since
disrupted the affiliation and admission processes, causing delays and frustration amongst students. Cyber centres and computer operators in colleges and universities have fleeced the students with this pretext further adding to the misery of the students.
The curriculum offered was nothing but a sham. There are numerous examples of university textbooks taking materials directly from google without even acknowledging the source! The texts on caste issues, plurality, rich tapestry of overlapping religious/cultural practices were largely ignored from the text. Critical thinking, scientific temper, rationalism and harmonious co-existence were presumed to be unimportant during the designing of the text books. Such is the pathetic plight of higher education in Karnataka courtesy NEP! Adding insult to injury, students were and still are coerced to log into LMS- Learning Management System to view online contents made using the same sub- standard textbooks. Most of the content has not gone through any kind of systematic quality checks either. Students and the faculties are still being threatened and made to log into LMS. For the concerned authorities the log-in numbers are crucial to keep the golden goose called LMS alive. LMS IS A SHAM. It has to be scrapped and an enquiry should be initiated to expose the money laundering of the SHAM.
It is in this context, the newly formed governments decision to scrap NEP is welcome. The new government has also set up a committee to study and draft a new state education policy. No doubt it’s a daunting task to set the house in order. To start with, the state government will do a world of good just by assuring students that sanity will eventually prevail! Hope the present government will instill confidence amongst despondent students and teaching fraternity soon.
*History Economics Political science, History Economics Sociology, History Economics English
Critical thinking,temper, rationalism and harmonious co-existence were presumed to be unimportant during the designing of the text books. Such is the pathetic plight of higher education in Karnataka courtesy NEP!
