[Hamara-devel] NEP Formulation – A Critique of Process & Content

[shirish]

Hi all,

Before I start NEP stands for 'New Education Policy'. This is a new 
policy being undertaken by the new Government of the day, the BJP after 
it came to power and chose Ms. Smriti Irani as our Education Minister.

  I had been looking for some content for this and found this critique

http://www.neweducationpolicyblog.org/nep-formulation-a-critique-of-process-content/

Umm... Everybody, warning the link shared is longish, if you think my 
emails are long, they will easily take couple of hours of yours.

I read it from top to bottom and some of the concerns that he has shared 
are right on the dot.

But he missed out on perhaps the most critical of all

http://www.neweducationpolicyblog.org/nep-formulation-a-critique-of-process-content/#3.2

  I think that he also hasn't seen or understood what ICT stands for, it 
doesn't mean an end in itself but is an all-encompassing world of 
technology whether it is audio (humble radio, community radio to 
satellite radio), video (TV, satellite TV, documentaries etc.) , 
Animation , mobiles (humble SMS to new technologies like whatsapp or/and 
telegram and other chatting/self-hosting solutions) and what not. It 
seems somehow the critic himself is blind to the advances being made in 
technology and chooses to ignore them as he claims others to be.

I could take dozens of examples to share that going forward it is going 
to be a more and more a digital world. Right now, most of us pay all our 
taxes online, our utilities bills are paid online, we buy stuff of the 
web, buy properties online, almost everything is going on-line. For 
passport, I didn't have to pay a penny as bribe as almost all of it was 
on-line.

So if this is the present, then the future is going to be more 
mechanized only as it becomes more and more convenient to do things 
on-line.

There is however a gem that he gets right around the bottom which is 
worth sharing -

As an ex-civil servant has noted: “Having been a part of MHRD for five
years, I am also aware of the fact that all too often, “consultation”
is used more for window dressing than for any actual input into policy
making. The process ostensibly being followed by the government to
craft its New Education Policy is suspect on many levels —–The
inevitable conclusion then, is – as someone else has said – that the
final document that gets produced will cherry pick the things
government wants to do and include only those. Essentially, we can
expect to see a document that outlines a limited vision of education
that has roots in a particular political philosophy, which will be
touted as the result of extensive consultation with all stakeholders”
- NEP critique


For those who don't know why I'm creating such a hullabaloo around it, 
this is the first National Government which is making sounds saying that 
there will be FOSS in the new ICT structure they are going to create and 
if that happens, there are chances of whole lot of new softwares coming 
up while at the same time lot of software services becoming more 
commoditized which again is and would be beneficial to new businesses, 
no matter what industry it is in.

See also 
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/no-easy-fixes-2/

I do remember a proposal couple of years back where some of the people 
from the automotive industry (Pune has a huge auto and auto spare parts 
industry in Pune) wanted to start vocational colleges to teach and 
employ hundreds to thousands of people. The Government of the Day, that 
time was Congress said no to the venture.

This all when close to 65% of all the wealth generated in the country is 
  by 17 big business houses/conglomerates who are based in Maharashtra 
and Gujarat.

In short, lot of potential between these two states but we will have to 
play it smooth.

-- 
Regards,
Shirish Agarwal,
Community Lead,
Hamaralinux.org