The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) declared five public universities as Institutions of Eminence in an order issued on September 4, 2019. These are IIT Madras, Banaras Hindu University, IIT Kharagpur, University of Hyderabad and University of Delhi.

As a member of University of Delhi, it should have been a moment of pride for me and all my colleagues and students. However, most of us are not happy. We are, in fact, scared and agitated.

One of the largest and perhaps one of the few surviving teachers’ associations in the country, the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) has called for protests against the decision.

Despite the opposition of DUTA and elected members in the University’s Executive Council, the University administration has gone ahead and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the MHRD and the University Grants Commission. The administration also put up this agenda in Executive Council held on October 25, but because of sustained pressure of EC members and teachers, this decision has been deferred for now. But threat is still looming since this issue is going to be tabled in the coming Winter session in the parliament.

With the signing of the tripartite MoU, University of Delhi has entered into an irreversible trajectory of disintegration and privatisation. The camouflaging the decision as a move towards “autonomy” and “eminence” and the prospect of increased funding by the government is an attempt to sell the destructive policy to all the members of the university community and all the other stake holders, i.e. future students and their parents.

When we read the parts on Institutions of Eminence in the Draft National Education Policy, we get a clear picture of larger assaults on public higher education unleashed by the present government. It is harmful for all the stake holders including the teachers, students, general staff and, of course, the larger idea of nation.

Also read: In Trying To Defy Colonialism, Draft NEP Walks the Path of the Colonisers

Following is a general introduction to the problems with the draft NEP in higher education.

The draft NEP of 2019 is a unilateral script of the government, which is systematically unfolding, to privatise higher education and withdraw from the funding of public institutions. It has complete disregard for all kinds of marginalised sections and is defined by the lack of any vision for the youth, in a country which has a demographic dividend.

It ignores the fact that public education has created a number of top scientists, leaders, entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers, lawyers and even generals of the army and has benefited millions working for the well-being of the country.

It ignores the fact that a majority of Indians belonging to all sections of the society cannot afford to avail themselves of higher education without public support. In a situation when Indian youth need extensive infrastructure in public-funded higher education, NEP seeks to withdraw it from them. A small trailer of this can be seen in the tenfold increase of fees in the IITs recently, along with the introduction of tenure-track appointments.

NEP is a frontal attack on the basic idea of higher education which is embedded with the concept of scholarship itself. The word ‘scholar’ has its origin in the Greek word schole which means ‘leisure,’ that is, to pursue knowledge in an atmosphere which is free from tension and the material pressures of life. It is also an assault on the constitutional right to a good life.

Privatisation of education

NEP seeks to monetise higher education for the benefit of private operators and runaway capital. NEP is a logical culmination of the policies of commercialisation and commoditisation of education following in the wake of liberalisation. The actual agenda of these policies from day one was a takeover of education by finance capital.

What has changed, however, is what was underground has come overboard and over ground, leaving nothing untouched, nothing beyond its reach. As per its nature, finance capital must make what is unavailable to it into something that is innately available for its self valorisation.

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It then turns what it has made available for itself, in this case educational infrastructure, into a source of creating profit. The NEP in this regard is the concrete embodiment of the changed educational and social priorities of the state. Higher Education Financial Assistance is merely a body that embodies the state-finance capital nexus.

The first step in this direction is doing away with the UGC and instead forming NHERA (National Higher Education Regulatory Authority) which would be purely a non-academic financial arm of the government. NHERA shall be the sole regulator for all higher education, including professional education (page 326).

The NEP states in unambiguous terms that it will treat both the public and the private institutions “equally”, which means a massive withdrawal from public funding education (page 334). This will accentuate the growth of the private universities which will again receive funding from a government institution, NHERA, while these private institutions will be empowered to set up any amount of fees for their programmes “independently” (page 334).

To facilitate privatisation, NEP proposes to implement a uniform administrative structure designed to execute the industrial policy of hire and fire. These intentions are made amply clear where the NEP talks about the “tenure track” appointment. To quote extensively from the draft, “A robust and merit-based tenure track, promotion and salary structure will be developed, with multiple levels within each faculty rank to incentivise and recognise excellent and “committed” faculty through tenure, promotions and salary increases” (page 258). This system of tenure track appointment will keep the teachers permanently temporary and at the service of their masters where extra academic considerations will replace academics and free and fearless pursuit of knowledge, “An appropriately designed tenure track system for faculty will be introduced for all college and university staff, including the faculty” (page 260).

If the tenure track appointments will be an instrument of uncertainty among the faculty than unusually long periods of probation will completely take out the rigour and zeal from the trapped academia. “The probation period will typically be five years, which may be reduced or increased upon evaluation. Confirmation will be based on a rigorous and comprehensive assessment process with multiple sources of data. This could include 360-degree feedback (supervisor, peer and student review).”

In such a situation critical thinking and innovative teaching in higher education would be a sure casualty.

The lack of commitment of the government in higher education is reflected through NEP proposal to double the student-teacher ratio from 15:1 to 30:1. Internationally, small teaching learning groups are the core strength of the performance and eminence. NEP further seeks to muddle up the higher education through its idea to encourage lateral recruitments of “field practitioners” in each institution without considering any criteria of educational qualifications (page 259).

Corporate model

The University of Delhi is going to implement the draft NEP timeline of 2020 in October 2019 itself. This timeline seeks to do away with the statutory bodies like Executive Council, Academic Council and Departmental Council or College Staff Council by the constitution of BOGs (Board of Governors).

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There will be no elections for BOG members and instead it will comprise a few nominated members from the society. It would be accountable only to Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (RSA), which would be headed by the prime minister at the Centre and CMs in the states.

These BOGs will be self-renewing and self-extending with a power to weed out inconvenient members whenever needed. BOGs will have the sweeping power to appoint teachers and to decide about their tenure, promotions, salaries, etc.

These BOG’s are designed as a corporate tool of human resource management in academics i.e. they will have absolute powers to implement variable pay structure within the same rank and grade. For example, an assistant professor in the pay scale of 7000-8000 may have a different salary than a colleague who joined with him on the same day in the same scale having same experience and qualification.

This will be a death knell to the free pursuit of knowledge especially in the pure sciences where the research is not directly linked with the industry or immediate results. This attitude would further make all the fine arts and humanities appear as useless vestigial organs which would eventually dry up in the absence of government funding and corporate greed.

These BOG would take away the autonomy and decision-making powers of a university and make any independent functioning of the educational institutions impossible. This is antithetical to the interest of students and other stakeholders such as the staff and teaching faculty.

The policy proposes three types of higher educational institutions: research universities, teaching universities, and autonomous degree granting colleges. The implementation of NEP would delink colleges from the universities vertically, handing over the both, forcibly to private players.

The NEP, in fact, has a timeline to dismantle the federal structure of the university and to hand it over and its constituents to the corporates.

The NEP is a fatal script with a horrifying timeline to be implemented with an unusual hurry.

November 2019 would see the constitution of the apex bodies like RSA and NHERA. Government’s preference for private sector is very explicit in the draft NEP. Whereas the constitution and operations of BOGs will start in all public funded institutions from next year, private funded institutions have till 2030 to implement the same. This is ridiculous because private institutions inherently operate with the mentality and instrumentality of BOGs.

Profit making enterprise?

The draft NEP recommended doubling of public funding to 6% of the GDP and increasing overall budget expenditure on education to 20% from the current 10%, which doesn’t seem feasible as most of the funding has to come from the states.

Also read: Can India Afford the Increasing Privatisation of Public Universities?

The policy emphasised the role of philanthropists and companies to route their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to supplement government efforts, but it ignored the fact that such funds will not be ideologically neutral and free from corporate greed (page 406).

In this scenario, the government claim of spending up to 6% of GDP on education is a misnomer as it wants to camouflage its withdrawal from funding of public institutions by including the loans given by the government to the private players and valuation of their private properties into GDP expenditure on education. It is a well-known fact that most of the corporates will try to recover their investments in education sector, which will be a perfect excuse to raise the fees and make education a commodity out of the reach of most of the youth.

Education a privilege of the few

Thus the draft NEP is a classic push towards the government’s withdrawal of funding from public institutions in the name of increasing GDP share towards education.

While quoting from the UN charter on higher education and emphasising “excellence” and “competence,” it only seeks to throttle the long standing organs of higher education by replacing the representative electoral components with nominated ones.

And at the same time, it seeks to delink the free pursuit of knowledge in humanity and pure sciences by changing grants into loans and breaking the permanent into tenures with absurdly revisable probations of “five years and more”.

It is a move towards privatised and exclusive higher education and a move towards turning it from a right for all to a privilege of a few.

Dr Aditya Narayan Misra is former president of the Delhi University Teacher’s Association (DUTA) and Federation of Central Universities Teacher’s Association (FEDCUTA).