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National Education Policy 2020
Even as the National Education Policy, 2020 talks of accessibility, there are too many visions in the document that would not allow that. It seeks to build skills for traditional vocations and for the global market. This is structured with a vision that deepens the inequalities of caste, class and gender by focusing on two types of citizens. With no vision to sustain the environment, tribal education is also weakened. Accessibility is deeply associated with nature of knowledge. With the predominance of skills, the heavy base on Hindutva, and a lightness of curriculum that is yet to be defined, the NEP cannot enhance the right of citizens to know, to critically reflect and to shape the world.
A first layer of response to a very layered document, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, is that its own contextual meanings contradict the literal meanings of words used. With such underpinnings, the ambience of the document on many core issues of education, is contra distinct to earlier education policy documents.
A brief look at the emergence of and struggles on modern schooling would be useful to locate the socio-politics of the NEP. The modern state was formed through the shift from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production in Europe. Through this shift, the relations of people vis-à-vis the state became defined through citizenship and labour. People as citizens elected the government, and the modern industries recruited people as labour for wages. The modern school was designed in alignment with these two roles of people.
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