The National Education Policy of 2020 has led to the establishment of an academic bank of credits where one can store one’s course completion progress verifiables and redeem them for a certificate, a diploma or a degree. Change is the only constant and if matters are unsatisfactory, as much of our education system is, we must strive to change it continually in order to achieve a more just education system. Striving towards the hitherto unknown is not the point of education. We do not wrench our hands in despair because we cannot stop the rotation of the earth. We do not expect our immediate education to achieve such unexpected seemingly impossible results. Education is often seen as a way of knowing what others already know and of catching up with them in terms of status, be it intellectual, social or financial. As an end-product of education, we seek the fairness that society otherwise denies us. It is debatable whether education exacerbates the inequalities that exist in society outside educational institutions or whether education is the panacea to undo the inequalities that beset society.
Striving towards universal literacy as a first step is a fairly modern state of affairs if one considers the history of humankind. Being literate and going through the educational system is something without which centuries of human beings have gone through, leading lives no less or no more happier than ours. What then is the point of education?
Certificates, diplomas and degrees—till recently these were only material objects and now they are soon to be available also in a demat form. What do they indicate? Do they indicate anything more than what a personal interview or a practical demonstration of skills can indicate? I would argue that the answer is no. However, interacting personally with applicants in the job sector or asking them to demonstrate their skills before hiring them is impractical. Hence, these verifiables. They are supposed to authenticate a certain standard and magnitude of satisfactory skills that job-seekers possess and that is required to complete the job that they are offering to do.
Till this new academic bank of credits churns out its first batch of certificates and diplomas, such verifiables indicated that their beholder had completed a course. Now, in addition to that meaning, they will also indicate that their possessor has failed to complete a course that they had signed up for. Instead of being solely a mark of achievement, they will also become a mark of failure. Dropping out of courses is like life. It happens. The academic bank of credits is being implemented in only the top institutions which follow the UGC’s mandate. The rank and file of the Indian higher education system is not required to follow them. Presumably, this is so because the authors of the NEP envisage that those who had managed to secure admission to the top institutions are the crème de la crème of the Indian school education system and hence they are savvy enough to drop out of a course and yet possess a set of skills that entrants to less distinguished institutions lack. The new certificates and diplomas will be a mark of failure but for those who will seemingly wear it as a badge of pride with an illustrious school education pedigree.
How to make the best of what is afoot and how may it be tweaked in order to further the idea of a more just education system? What to do with higher education drop-outs? Vocational education, which we need more of but which is often upheld as a second-grade alternative to the conventional three/ four/ five year undergraduate course, is an alternative but how to bring it into this system? Sajid Javid, the conservative UK politician, had school grades which were deemed low and he was offered a vocational educational track. He went on to change schools so that he could escape the vocational track which the educational system was offering him as the only choice. Changing schools led him onto a career path which made him one of the global heads of Deutsche Bank, a position one may argue more intellectually strenuous to get oneself into than that of a cabinet minister. Generally, opting for vocational education often signals the end of more bookish education.
If one is not aghast at offering vocational education to drop-outs from the top UGC-led institutions, one would see how the academic bank of credits is a good way to prevent drop-outs in higher education and also offer vocational education as a realistic career path.
Studying one year of humanities of a two or more year course, dropping out, and then leaving with a certificate is neither here nor there. Substitute the humanities with any other branch of study and the result is the same. One does not learn either the history of a literature or the fundamentals of a science or of a branch of engineering in one year. If all three/ four/ five year undergraduate courses were so arranged that all non-major subjects are studied only in the first year, then that would increase the chances that at the end of the first year when one becomes eligible to get at least a certificate, one has some basic knowledge of communication and the basics of the humanities, social sciences, sciences, commerce or any other stream. If the student drops out after having cleared the first year exams, handing over a certificate is unlikely to make it a useful verifiable. What is likely to prove useful is that those first year credits will be stored in the academic bank. S/he can utilise the time after dropping out to re-assess oneself and decide if s/he wants to re-enter higher education and if so, whether to pursue the same stream as earlier or a new stream. Year one of humanities basics, year two of science intermediate and year three of engineering advanced is impractical. However, year one of humanities basics, followed by year two of vocational intermediate and advanced is likely to prove more useful. Year one basics, if they do not focus on the core discipline courses but instead is all the minor, extra departmental general skill enhancement courses that are peppered throughout the current three/four/ five year structure, are likely to prove useful. Years two to higher should focus only on the core courses.
The year two exit point which is now going to hand over a diploma may similarly be re-designed. A diploma in the history of literature where one is aware of the history of literature in some eras but not in others or a diploma in computer science where one is aware of the ‘for’ loop and the two-dimensional array but not of the SQL database is unlikely to be useful. Year two must be designed in such a manner that it offers the complete basics of the core courses. Given my profession as a literature teacher, one suggestion would be to impart the skills required to scan lines of poetry, to identify figures of speech and form a general idea of the overview of literature as the subject matter of year two. If a student drops out after year two and decides that literature is not his/ her area of interest, a diploma in literature is unlikely to equip the student with skills which are perhaps necessary to teach literature in a school but it is perhaps enough to enable the student to pick a profession where language skills are required, for instance, as a mass communication professional. Given the basics of extra departmental courses that s/he undertook in year one, the student would also have formed a general view of the stream that s/he enrolled in. The student should have an option to do year two of a vocational education course even then. The student may return to literature studies and complete year three and if there is a year four, then that too but if not, the student should be able to pursue vocational education and get down to the meat of it without re-doing basic general skills courses which most programmes contain.
The idea of the NEP to prevent drop-outs in higher education is noble. How best to execute it? Handing out verifiables which do not verify knowledge but rather that one passed some exams is unlikely to further the cause of Indian higher education. In the unequal world that we live in, more people are likely to possess a verifiable than earlier. Yet, the value of that verifiable would be paltry and the inequalities that education seeks to address would remain. What students need when they find themselves wandering and lost is to be pushed in a direction where they can find a more dignified way than the one they would have made their way into as a drop-out.
Striving towards universal literacy as a first step is a fairly modern state of affairs if one considers the history of humankind. Being literate and going through the educational system is something without which centuries of human beings have gone through, leading lives no less or no more happier than ours. What then is the point of education?
Certificates, diplomas and degrees—till recently these were only material objects and now they are soon to be available also in a demat form. What do they indicate? Do they indicate anything more than what a personal interview or a practical demonstration of skills can indicate? I would argue that the answer is no. However, interacting personally with applicants in the job sector or asking them to demonstrate their skills before hiring them is impractical. Hence, these verifiables. They are supposed to authenticate a certain standard and magnitude of satisfactory skills that job-seekers possess and that is required to complete the job that they are offering to do.
Till this new academic bank of credits churns out its first batch of certificates and diplomas, such verifiables indicated that their beholder had completed a course. Now, in addition to that meaning, they will also indicate that their possessor has failed to complete a course that they had signed up for. Instead of being solely a mark of achievement, they will also become a mark of failure. Dropping out of courses is like life. It happens. The academic bank of credits is being implemented in only the top institutions which follow the UGC’s mandate. The rank and file of the Indian higher education system is not required to follow them. Presumably, this is so because the authors of the NEP envisage that those who had managed to secure admission to the top institutions are the crème de la crème of the Indian school education system and hence they are savvy enough to drop out of a course and yet possess a set of skills that entrants to less distinguished institutions lack. The new certificates and diplomas will be a mark of failure but for those who will seemingly wear it as a badge of pride with an illustrious school education pedigree.
How to make the best of what is afoot and how may it be tweaked in order to further the idea of a more just education system? What to do with higher education drop-outs? Vocational education, which we need more of but which is often upheld as a second-grade alternative to the conventional three/ four/ five year undergraduate course, is an alternative but how to bring it into this system? Sajid Javid, the conservative UK politician, had school grades which were deemed low and he was offered a vocational educational track. He went on to change schools so that he could escape the vocational track which the educational system was offering him as the only choice. Changing schools led him onto a career path which made him one of the global heads of Deutsche Bank, a position one may argue more intellectually strenuous to get oneself into than that of a cabinet minister. Generally, opting for vocational education often signals the end of more bookish education.
If one is not aghast at offering vocational education to drop-outs from the top UGC-led institutions, one would see how the academic bank of credits is a good way to prevent drop-outs in higher education and also offer vocational education as a realistic career path.
Studying one year of humanities of a two or more year course, dropping out, and then leaving with a certificate is neither here nor there. Substitute the humanities with any other branch of study and the result is the same. One does not learn either the history of a literature or the fundamentals of a science or of a branch of engineering in one year. If all three/ four/ five year undergraduate courses were so arranged that all non-major subjects are studied only in the first year, then that would increase the chances that at the end of the first year when one becomes eligible to get at least a certificate, one has some basic knowledge of communication and the basics of the humanities, social sciences, sciences, commerce or any other stream. If the student drops out after having cleared the first year exams, handing over a certificate is unlikely to make it a useful verifiable. What is likely to prove useful is that those first year credits will be stored in the academic bank. S/he can utilise the time after dropping out to re-assess oneself and decide if s/he wants to re-enter higher education and if so, whether to pursue the same stream as earlier or a new stream. Year one of humanities basics, year two of science intermediate and year three of engineering advanced is impractical. However, year one of humanities basics, followed by year two of vocational intermediate and advanced is likely to prove more useful. Year one basics, if they do not focus on the core discipline courses but instead is all the minor, extra departmental general skill enhancement courses that are peppered throughout the current three/four/ five year structure, are likely to prove useful. Years two to higher should focus only on the core courses.
The year two exit point which is now going to hand over a diploma may similarly be re-designed. A diploma in the history of literature where one is aware of the history of literature in some eras but not in others or a diploma in computer science where one is aware of the ‘for’ loop and the two-dimensional array but not of the SQL database is unlikely to be useful. Year two must be designed in such a manner that it offers the complete basics of the core courses. Given my profession as a literature teacher, one suggestion would be to impart the skills required to scan lines of poetry, to identify figures of speech and form a general idea of the overview of literature as the subject matter of year two. If a student drops out after year two and decides that literature is not his/ her area of interest, a diploma in literature is unlikely to equip the student with skills which are perhaps necessary to teach literature in a school but it is perhaps enough to enable the student to pick a profession where language skills are required, for instance, as a mass communication professional. Given the basics of extra departmental courses that s/he undertook in year one, the student would also have formed a general view of the stream that s/he enrolled in. The student should have an option to do year two of a vocational education course even then. The student may return to literature studies and complete year three and if there is a year four, then that too but if not, the student should be able to pursue vocational education and get down to the meat of it without re-doing basic general skills courses which most programmes contain.
The idea of the NEP to prevent drop-outs in higher education is noble. How best to execute it? Handing out verifiables which do not verify knowledge but rather that one passed some exams is unlikely to further the cause of Indian higher education. In the unequal world that we live in, more people are likely to possess a verifiable than earlier. Yet, the value of that verifiable would be paltry and the inequalities that education seeks to address would remain. What students need when they find themselves wandering and lost is to be pushed in a direction where they can find a more dignified way than the one they would have made their way into as a drop-out.
