The education system in India has been expanding, with the number of schools increasing from 9.7 lakh in 2001 to 15.2 lakh in 2015-16. However, do we have any idea about the quality of the education provided by these schools? The lack of a reliable, accountable and transparent body that evaluates these schools makes answering this question difficult.
The growth in the number of schools is a response to the growing need for skilled human capital. Educational institutions, while fulfilling this need, also tend to set themselves apart from the rest by taking measures such as upgrading the school curriculum, providing better infrastructure for both academic (math and science labs) and non-academic activities (playground, theatre and drama activities). Despite these claims, it is difficult to know which school is better than the rest. Hence, the call of the draft National Education Policy (NEP) for a stronger focus on accreditation makes sense.
Accreditation means obtaining a formal certificate of credibility from an authorised body. For instance, many schools proclaim that they have been accredited with the National Accreditation Board for Education & Training (NABET) certification, implying that they follow their standards. Any accreditation certificate is given after an assessment by a review team, which looks at the processes a school is following. If these are as per their prescribed standards and protocols, the school receives formal certification. This certification gives credibility to the school and increases the confidence of the parents and students in the school.
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In India, the NABET and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) look after the accreditation process of the Indian schools. These systems have different approaches, standards, and look into different areas while accrediting a school. For NABET accreditation process, any school irrespective of its “type, size, board affiliation and nature of education provided” can apply for the accreditation process whereas, for CBSE accreditation, a school has to be affiliated with the board for at least the previous three years. NABET evaluates schools on three parameters: school governance, education and support processes, and performance measurement and improvement. The CBSE evaluates schools on seven parameters: scholastic process, co-scholastic process, infrastructure, human resources, management and administration, leadership and beneficiary satisfaction.
Strong accreditation system
Given the significance of accreditation, the draft NEP proposes to build a strong accreditation system. It proposes multiple agencies including State School Regulatory Authority (SSRA) in all the states, Rajya Shiksha Aayog (RjSA), and Boards of Assessment (BoA). These agencies will help in administering accreditation in the country. The draft NEP also talks of creating a School Quality Assessment & Accreditation Framework (SQAAF). The standards mentioned in this framework will be used by the schools in conducting their self-study. For a new private school to be started, schools have to obtain a License to Start School (LSS) from State Standards Regulation Authority (SSRA) and will have to follow the standards as prescribed in SQAAF.
However, there are certain gaps which the policy needs to cover to achieve the larger objective of creating an effective regulation and accreditation system. The draft NEP talks about schools conducting an internal assessment themselves. However, how will this relate to an on-site evaluation by an external assessment team is not clear, thereby raising questions on the validity of the self-assessment performed by the schools. The draft NEP briefly mentions a mechanism for the audit of accreditation but doesn’t reveal any details on how to develop it and what different stakeholders can expect out of it.
Getting the on-site evaluation done by an external agency can help in two ways. Firstly, it will help in gaining a lot of trust among the public and other stakeholders in the standards set by the school. Secondly, the agency can give recommendations to the school on how it can improve its system and structure. Schools can take action on these recommendations and submit the final report to the accreditation council. Using this report, the council can make the final decision of accreditation.
Accreditation will help schools gain the trust of students and parents. Photo: Reuters/Anindito Mukherjee
Revamp academic curriculum
In addition to the agencies mentioned above, accreditation standards in the draft NEP recommend protecting the rights of every child. To do so, the draft NEP wants to revamp the academic curriculum so that a culturally sensitive curriculum can be developed. It also recommends developing a curriculum for adult education and training teachers, principals, and counsellors for adult education. It also emphasises the inclusion of early childhood education and secondary education as a part of the RTE Act. To implement the recommendations mentioned above, the government needs to invest heavily in the education sector.
However, the government has been cutting down the expenditure on education for the past five years. Numbers have hit a new bottom with the education sector getting only 2.6% of the GDP for the last year. This year’s budget speech does not dwell on the funds that are needed but mentions the National Education Mission (NEM) for which funding has been increased from Rs 34,000 crore to Rsm38,547 crore. One of the focus areas of the NEM is to strengthen teacher training through three schemes, i.e., improving teacher training institutions, appointing language teachers and school assessment program. To sustain and improve these three schemes, the government has proposed multiple agencies as mentioned above and a mere increase of 13% will not help create multiple agencies.
Another aim of the accreditation mechanism is to create a system which gives equal opportunity to every child irrespective of gender, caste, and social background. It can be done by providing everyone with equality of opportunity in terms of access to education. The draft NEP proposes to do so by implementing the Right to Education (RTE) from pre-school to secondary education. This step is in tandem with the objectives of the National Curriculum Framework (2005). It also helps in achieving the fundamental rights of equality of opportunity in terms of education, thus ensuring not just proper delivery of social justice, but also better chances of achieving higher standards of living among the underprivileged and marginalised sections of the society.
With the implementation of RTE, the number of students in school has increased. However, India is already facing a teacher shortage and lacks approximately 2 million teachers (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2015). Figure 1 shows the top eight states with the most vacant teacher posts. Implementing the RTE means hiring more teachers for which additional funding is required. The draft NEP remains silent on these issues and doesn’t talk about the implementation problems which may arise while implementing these recommendations.
Top 8 states with the highest shortage of teachers. Source: Lok Sabha, starred question 265, December 5, 2016
Another issue is that the draft NEP doesn’t mention the need for a significant shift from the redistribution to reorganisation. The RTE’s approach in a way is to identify the students from socially and economically weaker sections of society and put them in mainstream schools. This is inadequate as the restructuring of the ‘inside,’ i.e., attitude and beliefs towards children coming from the socially and economically weaker section of the society are required than just the ‘outside’ reorganisation.
Providing a safe environment
One of the aims of establishing accreditation standards is to provide a safe environment for the children. By a safe environment, the policy not only means physical safety but emotional and mental safety. To accomplish this aim, it has to keep in mind social and democratic values and be sensitive towards all the cultures and well-being of everyone, thus creating culturally and gender-appropriate curriculums. The draft NEP 2019 gives flexibility to the schools and schooling system to choose their curriculum; however, the goal, academic content, and process need to be aligned with the NCF and SCF.
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The draft NEP also talks about establishing standards, framework, guidelines and regulations on adolescent education as a part of the accreditation system. The broad aim is to employ a mechanism using which children can report to the proper authorities, in case, someone is breaching their rights. It also recommends that all the teachers and principals will be made aware of the acts, rules, and regulations by including a module in the teacher/principal’s education training program but doesn’t talk about sensitising the non-teaching staff members in the school premises. School management should sensitise both teaching and non-teaching staff about the safety concerns in the school (Supreme Court Guidelines on Child Safety in Schools). It also mentions training the school and school complex counsellors to advise the parents and teachers on adolescent problems faced by their students but doesn’t talk about sensitising/encouraging students on approaching counsellors for their problems.
To conclude, there exists a typical problem with the recommendations made under chapter VIII of the draft NEP. Despite noble intentions, well-thought-out plans and well-chosen target beneficiaries, when it comes to actual implementation on the ground, there is a huge gap between proposed and actual implementation.
For instance, the policy proposes to build multiple agencies to build a robust accreditation system but doesn’t talk about the funding required to build those agencies. It also mentions about creating a robust accreditation system but remains silent on the validity of the self-assessment done by the school. The draft NEP correctly recognises the main shortcomings of the education sector and provides some laudable suggestions, but needs to think more about processes for effective implementation.
Karan Babbar is a PhD scholar in innovation and management in education at IIM Ahmedabad.
