India’s new national education policy – Lessons for Africa

By Goolam Mohamedbhai

On 29 August 2020, India announced its new National Education Policy (NEP 2020) which proposes comprehensive and over-arching reforms to the whole spectrum of education in India, replacing the previous education policy of 1986.

Its proposals for the higher education sector aim at addressing some of the major challenges faced in India, including: a fragmented sector; too much emphasis on rote learning and learning-for-exams rather than development of cognitive skills and learning outcomes; low student enrolment and limited access in some socio-economically disadvantaged areas; poor quality of education; large non-completion or dropout rates; significant graduate unemployment or under-unemployment; insufficient research output and suboptimal institutional governance and leadership.

The higher education sector in Africa faces very similar challenges and, on reading the policy document, one cannot help wondering whether some of the proposals might not be equally applicable to Africa.

Higher education sector profile

India, with a population of about 1.35 billion, has nearly 800 universities (of which some 360 are private) and 39,000 colleges, most of these colleges being non-degree granting institutions affiliated to public universities. Its gross enrolment ratio (GER) is currently about 26% and the proposal is to increase it to 50% by 2035. While a good number of the institutions are excellent (in particular the Indian Institutes of Technology), the majority suffer from poor quality.

Africa’s population is also about 1.3 billion. It has about 1,300 higher education institutions, with an almost equal number of public and private institutions, although enrolment in the private institutions is much smaller.

The GER for Sub-Saharan Africa is just under 10%, an unacceptably low value which should be at least doubled by 2035. Again, there are excellent institutions (several of them in South Africa) but the quality of the majority is poor, although significant efforts have been made, at national and regional levels, over the last decade to address the quality issue.

Differentiation

A major policy proposal in NEP 2020 is to create a range of differentiated higher education institutions. The document first defines a university as a multi-disciplinary institution of higher learning that offers undergraduate and graduate programmes with high quality teaching, research and community engagement.

It then proposes the creation of a spectrum of institutions with somewhat different missions: research-intensive universities that place equal emphasis on teaching and research; teaching-intensive universities that place greater emphasis on teaching but still conduct some research; and autonomous degree-granting colleges focusing primarily on undergraduate teaching.

The policy thus recognises that higher education institutions must cater for different needs of learners and employers, and that not all of them can be expected to provide both teaching and research of high quality.

This differentiated system is exactly what Africa needs. In almost all African countries there has been a proliferation of new public universities, often created by political consideration, all having more or less the same mission as the older ones. Because of insufficient resources – human, physical, financial – the new ones end up being of inferior quality. This also applies to polytechnics which are being converted to universities.

Multiple exit degree

A noteworthy proposal is the introduction of a three- or four-year degree with multiple exit options. A student could exit a degree course with a certificate after successfully completing the first year, or a diploma after two years or a bachelor degree after three years. The preferred option is the four-year bachelor degree programme enabling the student in the fourth year to choose from a range of special options, or undertake a research project and earn a Bachelor with Research.

This has the enormous advantage of ensuring that students can plan the duration of their study depending on their interest and resources. They could exit their programme, work for some time and then return to complete the second or third year. This will not only help to reduce non-completion or dropout rates but also facilitate graduate employment.

Coupled with the above is the interesting proposal of establishing an Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) which will digitally store the academic credits earned by the student at an exit point, which can then be used at re-entry and for a higher award from the same or another institution.

The multiple exit degree proposal is certainly relevant to Africa. It of course requires careful planning of the degree curriculum so that each year can stand as a programme on its own or lead on to the following year. And it need not be applied to all programmes. It would be more appropriate for vocational or professional areas such as engineering, nursing, accountancy, education, etc.

The ABC is also particularly relevant to Africa and is very much in line with the harmonisation of higher education and the setting up of an African Credit Transfer System proposed by the African Union to facilitate intra-Africa mobility. Credits earned at an institution in one African country can thus be transferred to an institution in another African country.

Online or digital education

NEP 2020 was finalised during the COVID-19 pandemic and it therefore devotes a special section to online or digital education, to which all institutions have, willy-nilly, resorted. It recognises the importance of leveraging the use of technology wherever traditional modes of education are not possible, but it also warns against the potential risks and dangers of widespread use of online or digital education.

It highlights several issues to be addressed, for example: teachers not adequately trained; difficulties in conducting science practicals and online examinations; the digital divide across the country; inequity among the students, etc. It therefore recommends a series of pilot studies on online education to evaluate its benefits but also to determine how to mitigate its disadvantages.

The situation regarding the use of online education in Africa is very similar to that in India, and African countries would greatly benefit from the results of the pilot studies proposed under NEP 2020.

Vocational education

At first, it seems strange that vocational education should appear under higher education, but the strategy soon becomes clear. It has been estimated that less than 5% of India’s workforce in the 19-24 age group has received formal vocational education, whereas it is 52% in the United States, 74% in Germany and 96% in South Korea. The reason for this is because vocational education is perceived to be inferior to mainstream education and is meant largely for students who have dropped out of early schooling.

These students have no future pathways to higher levels of education. The policy, therefore, proposes that vocational education programmes be integrated in a phased manner into mainstream education at all levels, from secondary on to higher education. It recommends that, by 2025, at least 50% of learners through the school and higher education system should have been exposed to vocational education.

The Bachelor of Vocational Education (BVoc) degrees introduced in 2013 will be continued but vocational courses will also be available to students enrolled in all other bachelor degree programmes. Higher education institutions are to offer vocational education either on their own or in partnership with industry.

Vocational education is vital for Africa’s development, especially for the informal sector. Although there are no statistics available, the situation regarding vocational education in Africa is believed to be very similar to that in India. The revalorisation of vocational education by its integration into mainstream higher education, as proposed under NEP 2020, can go a long way towards the promotion of vocational education in Africa, which so far has met with little success.

Implementation

The above is just a selected sample of proposals in NEP 2020 considered to be relevant to Africa; there are several more that might interest African countries and higher education institutions.

The challenge for India will be to finance the plethora of proposals in NEP 2020. This is acknowledged in the document. The current public expenditure on education in India is about 4.4% of gross domestic product (GDP), well below the 6% of GDP recommended in the previous 1986 policy, and NEP 2020 again aims to achieve that target.

By comparison, the average public spending on education in African countries is of the order of 5% of GDP. There is also the fact that COVID-19 will inevitably place constraints on public expenditure in all countries, including India.

Notwithstanding the above, African countries would benefit from closely following India’s implementation of the NEP 2020, whatever the pace, as they would learn from its experiences and how it addresses the challenges.

Goolam Mohamedbhai is the former secretary general of the Association of African Universities, former president of the International Association of Universities and former vice-chancellor of the University of Mauritius. He is a former member of the governing council of the United Nations University and is a board member of University World News – Africa.

Source: University World News