Academics term UGC Draft on NHEQF, IDP move to demolish public education

The Government is finding refuge in ‘onlinekaran’ of education to increase the GER, alleges DTF.

A section of academics have termed the two drafts released by the University Grants Commission (UGC), NHEQF and IDP as a move to demolish the public higher education system in the country. They have demanded the withdrawal of these guidelines.

On January 28, UGC has released Drafts of two important documents which are National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 derivatives-Draft National Higher Education Qualification Framework (NHEQF) and Draft Guidelines on Institutional Development Plan (IDP) for Higher Educational Institutions.

The Democratic Teachers' Front, an association of university-level teachers have stated that the draft NHEQF which prescribes course and credit structures, follows NEP 2020 in giving an overdose of multi-disciplinarity and skill development at the undergraduate level. As per the association, it forgets that multi-disciplinarity is only useful when it supplements specialized skills and has no worth in itself.

It has alleged that the proposed structures will fragment students’ time in various domains, without giving them an opportunity to become experts in any. This dilution of the undergraduate education framework is especially dangerous as the vast majority of students in higher education are undergraduates.

‘UG Diploma, certificates mere degree’

The NHEQF has set the most desired duration of undergraduate studies to be four years and has given it a fixed structure from which students may extract various certifications depending on the number of years of study. DTF has claimed that due to the orientation of the structure towards a 4-year research degree, the lower certifications – the Undergraduate Certificate and Undergraduate Diploma – will be mere paper degrees with no market value in terms of employability.

Further, students who graduate with a 3-year degree run the risk of being treated as drop-outs who lacked the ability to complete the full programme.

The teachers have stated that the additional fourth year requires a greater investment from the Government. It is not feasible without an increase in faculty and staff members, as well as more advanced laboratory and library facilities. There is no indication that the Government plans this additional investment, yet without it, the 4th year can only be implemented via online learning and will be destined for rejection by the market. Publicly funded universities will find it especially hard to cater to the needs of a diverse student population in these circumstances.

“The net result of all these developments will be the collapse of teaching as a viable career choice,” alleges DTF.

Draft IDP

The draft of IDP recommends for undergraduate courses a rise in the teacher-student ratio of (1:30) in Social Sciences, (1:25) in Sciences and (1:30) in Commerce/Management. The existing teacher-student ratio is (1:18) across these disciplines. Further, there is no mention of any teacher-student ratio for Humanities.

The academics are worried that this would lead to a massive job loss for teachers and a sharp decline in the quality of education. The draft IDP thus moves in a direction opposite to what is desirable for quality. DTF has stated that the desired teacher-student ratio in IITs is 1:10, even if this is not met in practice.

Second, this draft recommends that 50% of the total faculty requirement is to be met by Contractual (tenure)/Visiting faculty from the Profession/Industry. This means firstly that a sizeable amount of teaching workload will remain variable and many existing teaching posts will remain non-permanent. It also implies further that half of the teachers left after the fall in the student-teacher ratio will also be additionally displaced. This will imply a further fall in the quality of education as the critical faculties of these teachers will be made redundant by this anti-academic recommendation.

"Tenure-track" teachers

The IDP draft also recommends a separate cadre of teachers apart from the existing ones who will be known as "tenure-track" teachers. For these tenure-track teachers, the Draft Guidelines recommends that a "suitable probation” will be put in place to further "ensure excellence."

As per the DTF, this clause about suitable “probation" in itself and especially when left to the interpretation of individual Higher Educational Institutions, implies greater exploitation of teachers. “Further, what is the academic rationale for these teachers to have a probation period that is different (longer and more arduous no doubt) than the existing permanent teachers?,” questions DTF.

Fourth, the performance assessment for these tenure-track teachers will have "multiple parameters" to be "developed by each Higher Educational Institution according to the Draft Guidelines.” DTF states: “This expansive disarticulation of service conditions of teachers working in different institutions is a one-way street to a massive deterioration of the pay and working environment of teachers. In this proposed set-up, there will not be an apex body to govern higher education like the UGC.

According to DTF, the Draft Guidelines on Institutional Development Plan (IDP) for Higher Educational Institutions is a clarion call for the recolonisation of the minds of Indians. It aims to do so by demolishing the public higher education system, undermining the gains made by the struggle for social justice through reservations and rolling back the hard-won collective rights of teachers.

With near stagnant allocation to the education sector, the Union Budget 2022 shows that the Government lacks the will to increase public spending in education. The Government is finding refuge in ‘onlinekaran’ of education to increase the GER. “Treating teachers as recurring costs, it wants to use informalisation of education as the model of education. DTF rejects these anti-academic Draft Guidelines and calls upon DUTA to lead a participative struggle, in concert with the democratic movement of India including teachers, non-teaching colleagues, students and parents, to ensure that these Draft Guidelines are withdrawn,” it stated.

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