DUTA PRESS RELEASE: December 6, 2016

After a series of meetings held to discuss the document “Some Inputs for Draft National Education Policy, 2016” that is on the MHRD website, the Delhi University Teachers Association Executive unanimously resolved to reject the document and demand its immediate withdrawal.


 The Draft Policy Document, as it stands, reflects a narrow agenda of Privatisation that completely disregards concerns of Equity and Access of marginalised social groups in Education. Instead of catering to the increasing demand for quality education among underprivileged sections, the Policy Document points towards more commercialisation and cost-cutting by advocating mergers of existing Government Schools and promotion of MOOCs (mass online courses) as a cheap alternative to the urgent requirement of increasing the number of public-funded institutions at all levels of education. It also recommends Student-Loans as an alternative to public-funding, thereby putting an injurious debt-burden on students that is bound to have disastrous consequences on their academic choices and creativity. As it stands, the document should more appropriately be named as a ‘National Exclusion Policy’!


 The DUTA feels that this narrow vision is the outcome of MHRD’s refusal to engage with the particular learning needs of students belonging to diverse social groups. While the Draft Policy Document peddles terms like Knowledge Society and Knowledge Economy, it fails to account for deteriorating standards of education at the school and higher levels due to lack of adequate teachers and learning infrastructure. The worrying rise in student-teacher ratio at all levels finds no mention in the Document. Instead, the thrust of the Document seems to be towards a steady withdrawal of public-funding from education, in keeping with the massive cuts in budgetary provisions that have already been implemented by the Government. 

The Draft Policy Document also maintains a dishonest silence on continuously declining service conditions for teachers, ad-hocism in recruitment, effective lack of promotional avenues and erosion of the autonomy of Universities in matters of syllabi and examinations (such as the imposition of semester system and CBCS) that has led to a drain of talent and quality in recent years. Instead, the Document emphasizes on teachers’ spatial mobility and transfer – a measure that is bound to have adverse repercussions on the stability and growth of institutions and the confidence of the teaching community. 


 The DUTA also feels that the Draft Policy Document’s narrow emphasis on Skill-based Education disregards the diversity in educational needs and aims. A National Policy cannot afford such a blind-sided perspective; it needs to articulate the widest-possible role of Education in relation to the social, economic and cultural empowerment of citizens. This is absent as the Draft Policy Document reduces Education to a mere feeder-process that aims to provide cheap labour to the global job market.  


 Issues of access for backward sections and differently-abled students have also been completely ignored. There is no provision of extending Reservations to privately-maintained educational institutions. Neither does the Draft Policy Document envisage measures whereby greater confidence can be instilled in differently-abled sections in relation to their unique learning problems and special requirements.


 The DUTA also criticises the uncritical and monolithic articulation of “Indian Culture” which exposes a Vedic and Brahminical bias and ignores the plurality of knowledge-traditions in the subcontinent. The reverential insistence on following Vedic and Brahminical values is bound to alienate the diverse social and cultural groupings that constitute the contemporary educational milieu. 


 What is most shocking is that this document, that appeared on the MHRD Official website without acknowledgment of authorship, appears to have been lifted wholesale from the “Final Vision NEP Policy Document International Seminar on National Education Policy and NAMODI Framework” held on 11-14 July, 2016. In a scandalous act of plagiarism, the MHRD has shied away from revealing this source and is trying to pass off the Document as its own.


 The DUTA has demanded that this document be immediately withdrawn and a wide and transparent debate be initiated with the involvement of all sections of Indians – including representatives of students and teachers across the country – on a genuine pro-people education policy reflecting the values enshrined in our Constitution..


 The DUTA has also resolved to set up a special sub-committee that will prepare a detailed Report on the Draft Policy Document, raise concerns of public-interest and offer corrective suggestions to the MHRD.