The Draft Education Policy 2019 is full of provisions that are being considered as some long-awaited shift in the education sector, many of which were long-standing demands of the civil society. However, many of the policy’s omissions and contradictions have weakened our hope.

Inclusion of both early childhood education and secondary education under RTE, doubling the budgetary allocation for education, strengthening decentralized mechanisms of teacher management and support and a possible comeback of the no-detention policy which was scrapped by the BJP led NDA Government are some of its features.

According to the Kasturi Rangan Committee report, the draft policy is based on four pillars where equity issues have been prioritized.

But looking at the complexities of India’s public education system, having nine types of schools presently functional in our country, it cannot be overlooked that equity in education will be challenged within the system.

When equity comes to the point of discourse, common school system is the best idea to think upon.Common school system in India has been a long standing and justified demandfrom civil society organizations as well as educationists and social scientists of our country. 

The Education Commission of India in its report in 1964-66 recommended the establishment of a Common School System for all children irrespective of their class, caste, religious or linguistic background. However, this has no place in the policy.

The draft policy also highlights the importance of the contribution of the private schools when it comes to quality education whereas the World Bank report 2018 clearly states that there is no evidence that private schools deliver quality education.

 The quality in terms of results and other parameters are derived because of the educated and/or well-to-do parents who pay for their children’s education.

The policy also tries to address the issue of inclusive education by 2030, may be in line with the deadline of Sustainable Development Goal but this should be addressed immediately.

Extension of Right to Education downward and upward is a welcoming idea but there is no proper governance framework and operational details into how the policy will be funded.

The provision of doubling the financial allocations in the education in the next ten years is a welcome inclusion in the draft policy but since the revenue is decentralized to the States, there is no such mechanism to monitor to ensure that the resource needed will be allotted.

The gross understanding of education should be seen as a nation building task and not only a mere system to frame and implement it.

Therefore, the Government must revisit the past education policies, recommendations of education commissions and should make conscious effort in understanding the policy-implementation gaps so that the hope for one nation, one education can be actualized.

(The writer is a development practitioner based in Bhubaneswar. He can be emailed at nabamaster@gmail.com)