The Routledge Handbook of

Education in India

This comprehensive handbook introduces the reader to the education system in India in terms
of its structural features, its relations with society and culture, and the debates that have shaped
the present-day policy ethos.
The book provides an overview of major debates that have shaped India’s education systems,
as well as the significant issues within higher and school education, education studies, and poli-
cies. Expert scholars provide a lucid analysis of complex themes such as the equity, access, and
the quality of education. The volume also examines legal provisions and policies shaping the
distribution structure and curricular issues in major areas of knowledge, as well as the provision
of schools for the marginalised, economically weak, and people with disabilities. This new edi-
tion includes an analysis of the private sector’s participation in higher education and the techni-
cal and vocational education and training systems in India.
This handbook will serve as a valuable resource and guide to educators and public policy
practitioners seeking information about India’s contemporary educational challenges. It will also
be useful to scholars and researchers of education, public policy and administration, sociology,
and political studies, as well as think-tanks, the media, policy-makers, and NGOs.

Krishna Kumar is Honorary Professor of Education at Panjab University, former Professor of

Education, University of Delhi, and former Director, National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT), India.
The Routledge Handbook
of Education in India
Debates, Practices, and Policies

Second Edition

Edited by Krishna Kumar

Second edition published 2022
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Krishna Kumar; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Krishna Kumar to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
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used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2018
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
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ISBN: 978-0-367-46677-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-04279-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03036-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362
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 Contents

List of figures viii

List of tables ix
Notes on contributors xi
Preface xv

Introduction to the second edition 1

Krishna Kumar

PART I
Logic of access 11

1 Compulsion to educate 13
Archana Mehendale

2 Education in urban areas 26

Nalini Juneja

3 Institutional diversity and quality 42

Padma M. Sarangapani

4 Examination for elimination: celebrating fear and penalising failure 63

Disha Nawani

PART II
Curriculum and teaching 79

5 Mind the (language-medium) gap 81

Chaise LaDousa

6 Science and mathematics teaching in schools and colleges 97

Shobhit Mahajan

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Contents

7 The teaching of social sciences in schools and colleges in India 116

Hari Vasudevan

8 The uses and teaching of history 131

Kumkum Roy

9 An experiment in rural education: the revival of Anand Niketan 143

Nidhi Gaur

PART III
Training for professions 153

10 The making of India as an engineering society 155

Milind Sohoni

11 Discourse of teacher education in India 175

Latika Gupta

12 Management education in India: how far have we come? 189

Pankaj Chandra

13 Technical and vocational education and training in India:

lacking vision, strategy and coherence 203
Santosh Mehrotra

PART IV
Universities and society 217

14 Indian higher education: twenty-first-century challenges 219

Philip G. Altbach

15 Gendered access and participation: unequal subject choices

in Indian higher education 231
Karuna Chanana

16 Caste quotas and formal inclusion in Indian higher education 243

Satish Deshpande

17 Tribes and higher education in India 265

Virginius Xaxa

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 Contents

18 Private participation in higher education in India: issues

and implications on access, equity and quality 276
Furqan Qamar

PART V
Underbelly 293

19 Active partners: rethinking the educated unemployed in India 295

Craig Jeffrey and Jane Dyson

20 Access, success, and excess: debating shadow education in India 305

Manabi Majumdar

21 Understanding Vyapam 317

Krishna Kumar

Index 324

vii
 Figures

2.1 Government primary school enrolment trends in cities 33

2.2 Children from municipal primary schools in Delhi and Mumbai
in the lowest grade of state-provided secondary schools 34
2.3 (a) Showing difference between populations of district, district urban,
urban agglomeration, and municipal corporation areas. (b) Diagrammatical
representation of Indore District Urban comprising 11 towns 38
3.1 Sketch of Block A 44
5.1 Varanasi municipal corporation school signboard 90
5.2 Career Point tutorial service advertisement 91
5.3 Three tutorial service advertisements 92
6.1 Change in GER for higher education with time 100
11.1 Three curricular components of teacher education programmes 178
11.2 Discourse of pedagogy courses 180
13.1 Distribution of the workforce by their level of education and training in India 204

viii
 Tables

2.1 Elementary education: urban schools and enrolment 2014–15 27

2.2 Population Indore 2011 37
3.1 Schools surveyed 45
3.2 Types of management 48
3.3 School clientele 52
3.4 Aims of education 55
3.5 Pedagogic types in relation to clientele type and management type 59
4.1 Result of BSEs (2009–11): Class X 67
4.2 Result of senior secondary boards of examination (2009–11): Class XII 67
4.3 Result of secondary examination of different boards (2009–11):
pass percentage – Class X 68
4.4 Result of senior secondary examination of different boards (2009–11):
pass percentage – Class XII 69
6.1 Number of institutions of higher education 99
6.2 Number of schools 99
6.3 Gross enrolment ratio at various levels 100
6.4 Percentage enrolment in various courses 101
8.1 Details of sections in chapter 1 of India and the Contemporary World, part 1 133
8.2 Distribution of long answer type questions from Golden Social Science 136
10.1 Starting jobs by sectors for IIT Bombay graduates in 2013 170
10.2 Average household spending on education by families having
one studying member 171
10.3 Number of papers published with at least one Indian author,
by word appearing in title of the paper: novel areas of research 172
10.4 Number of papers published with at least one Indian author, by word
appearing in title of the paper: research in engineering services 172
10.5 Statistics of students appearing for and qualifying for entrance
to the IITs by gender 172
10.6 Statistics of students appearing for and qualifying for entrance
to the IITs by place of passing the XII standard 172
15.1 Subject enrolment of women and men at undergraduate level 239
16.1 Dropout rates and pass percentages in school, 2005–06 245
16.2 Graduate degree-holders by caste and community, urban India, 1999–2000 247
16.3 Group shares in school graduates and those currently enrolled
in higher education: age group 17–25, urban India, 1999–2000 247

ix
Tables

18.1 Number and distribution of different types of higher education institution

in India in 2018–2019 278
18.2 Enrolment in different types of higher education institution
in India in 2018–2019 278
18.3 Enrolment in academic and professional higher education across
different types of HEIs (in millions) 279
20.1 Percentage of students (5–29 years) using private tuition, 2014 309

x
 Contributors

Philip G. Altbach is Research Professor and founding Director of the Center for International
Higher Education at Boston College, USA. He has taught at Harvard University, University of
Wisconsin, and State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of Global Perspectives
on Higher Education (2016), Student Politics in America: A Historical Analysis (1997), and Turmoil and
Transition: Higher Education and Student Politics in India (1969), among other books.

Karuna Chanana is a former Professor and taught Sociology of Education and Gender at
the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, India. She is the author of Interrogating Women’s Education: Bounded Visions,
Expanding Horizons (2001), and has published in several national and international academic
journals and books.

Pankaj Chandra is Professor of Operations and Technology Management at Ahmedabad

University, Gujarat, India. He is former Director of the Indian Institute of Management,
Bangalore, India, and has held full-time faculty positions at the Indian Institute of Management,
Ahmedabad, and McGill University, Canada. His areas of research are manufacturing man-
agement, building technological capabilities and hi-tech entrepreneurship, and governance in
knowledge organisations.

Satish Deshpande teaches Sociology at the University of Delhi, India. He is the author of
edited volumes The Problem of Caste (2014), Beyond Inclusion:The Practice of Equal Access in Indian
Higher Education (2013), and Contemporary India: A Sociological View (2003), among others.

Jane Dyson is Lecturer at the School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia.

She is the author of many articles and books, including Working Childhoods:Youth, Agency and the
Environment in India (2014). She has also produced an award-winning short documentary film
on her scholarly work, available at www.lifelinesfilm.com.

Nidhi Gaur is associated with Ektara, Bhopal. Her research interests include Gandhi’s nai talim
(new education), science pedagogy, and gender. She completed her doctoral research at Delhi
University on ‘Gender and Craftwork in Rural Society: the Role of Education’. It examines
the potential of craft-based education to influence gender socialisation among rural children.

xi
Contributors

Latika Gupta teaches at the Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi, India. She is
the author of Education, Poverty and Gender: Schooling Muslim Girls in India (Routledge). She has
coordinated the production of two graded reading series for children. Her research interests
include gender, citizenship education, peace studies, and teacher education.

Craig Jeffrey is Director of the Australia India Institute, New Delhi, India, and a former Professor
at the University of Oxford, UK. He is the author of many books on India, including Timepass:
Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India (2010) and Keywords for Modern India (with John
Harriss, 2014).

Nalini Juneja is a former Professor, National University of Educational Planning and

Administration, New Delhi, India, and heads the Department of School and Non-Formal
Education. She has also been a Visiting Professor at the Center for the Study of International
Cooperation in Education, Hiroshima University, Japan. She is the author of Primary Education
for All in the City of Mumbai, India:The Challenge Set by Local Actors (UNESCO, 2001).

Krishna Kumar is Honorary Professor, Panjab University and former Professor, Central Institute
of Education, University of Delhi. He is former Director of the National Council for Educational
Research and Training (NCERT), India. His books include Prejudice and Pride: School Histories
of the Freedom Struggle in India and Pakistan (2001), Battle for Peace (2007), Politics of Education in
Colonial India (2013), A Pedagogue’s Romance (2016), and Education, Conflict and Peace (2016). He
has co-edited (with Joachim Oesterheld) Education and Social Change in South Asia (2006), and
(with Edward Vickers) Constructing Modern Asian Citizenship (2015). Several of his books are
in Hindi, the latest being Choori Bazaar mein Larki (2013), which presents an analysis of girls’
upbringing and education.

Chaise LaDousa is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Hamilton College, New York, USA.
He has authored several articles and books including Hindi is Our Ground, English is Our Sky:
Education, Language, and Social Class in Contemporary India (2014) and House Signs and Collegiate
Fun: Sex, Race, and Faith in a College Town (2011).

Shobhit Mahajan is Professor at the Department of Physics & Astrophysics, University of Delhi,
India. Apart from his research work in cosmology and theoretical particle physics, he has written
two textbooks and several books on popular science. He is also the author of a report on science
education for the Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai.

Manabi Majumdar is Professor of Political Science at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences,
Kolkata, India. She has worked extensively on the broad themes of politics of education, child
labour, local democracy, and capability deprivation and its measurement. Her recent publications
include Education and Inequality in India: A Classroom View (with Jos E. Mooij, 2011).

Archana Mehendale is Professor at the Centre for Education Innovation and Action Research,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, India, where she co-leads the Research Group
of Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx), a multi-partner initiative of TISS, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, USA, and Tata Trusts. She has been involved in several law-making pro-
cesses during her tenure at the National Law School of India, Bengaluru, India.

xii
 Contributors

Santosh Mehrotra is Visiting Professor, Centre for Development, Bath University, UK, and
was Professor Econ at the Centre for Labour, Jawaharlal Nehru University. After an MA Econ
from New School for Social Research, New York, and PhD, Cambridge University (1985), he
was Associate Professor of Economics, JNU (1988–1991), head of UNICEF’s global research
programme at Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, and chief economist, global Human
Development Report New York. He returned to India to head the Development Policy Division
of India’s Planning Commission. He was also the Director General (2009–2014) of National
Institute of Labour Economics Research.

Disha Nawani is Professor and Chairperson, Centre for Elementary Education, School of
Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. She teaches, researches, and writes
on curricular, pedagogic, and assessment-related issues in elementary education.

Furqan Qamar is presently Professor at the Centre for Management Studies, Jamia Millia
Islamia, New Delhi, has served as Secretary General, Association of Indian Universities; Vice
Chancellor, University of Rajasthan and the Central University of Himachal Pradesh; and
Advisor (Education), Planning Commission of India.With keen research interest in policy, plan-
ning, administration and financing of higher education, he has numerous publications in jour-
nals of repute.

Kumkum Roy teaches Ancient Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Her areas of interest include gender, political institutions
and pedagogical practices. She is also a Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library,
New Delhi.

Padma M. Sarangapani is Professor of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai,

India. Her current areas of work and research include teacher education, quality in education,
elementary education and the use of ICTs in curriculum and teacher professional develop-
ment and education and culture/indigenous education. She was a member of the Steering
Committee of the National Curriculum Framework 2005 and the National Council of Teacher
Education (2013–2016).

Milind Sohoni, a computer scientist and mathematician, teaches at the Indian Institute of
Technology, Bombay, India. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the University of Chicago,
USA; Kyoto University, Japan; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and Zakir Husain Centre
for Higher Education, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. He also works as a development
researcher with the Government of Maharashtra.

Hari Vasudevan was Professor at the Department of History, Calcutta University, and Director
of Malauna Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies. He was a specialist of Russian history
and his last book was In the Footsteps of Afanasii Nikitin: Travels through Eurasia and India in the
Twentieth First Century (2015). He was involved in syllabus production and textbook develop-
ment at the universities of West Bengal, Delhi and Indira Gandhi National Open University
(IGNOU). He was Chairperson of Syllabus and Textbook Development Committees for Social
Science for the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) from 2005
to 2009.

xiii
Contributors

Virginius Xaxa is Professor and Deputy Director at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Guwahati
Campus), India. He has taught Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of
Delhi and North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. He is the author of several books including
Economic Dualism and Structure of Class: A Study in Plantation and Peasant Settings in North Bengal
(2002) and State, Society and Tribes: Issues in Post-Colonial India (2008).

xiv
 Preface

Reading about education always intrigues me more than writing about it. As a reader, one is alert
to the different ways in which people use the word ‘education’. When you are writing, you are
preoccupied with the meaning it has for you, that too in the immediate context. While editing
this handbook I have often wondered how its readers will cope with the many different ways in
which its contributors have used the keyword ‘education’. Their locations, backgrounds, disci-
plines, and expertise have shaped the ways in which they look at education in today’s India. I
hope readers of the handbook will notice the variation in the terminology the contributors have
used to describe and examine the nature of the problems facing the system of education India has.
To the usual complexity involved in social inquiry of any aspect of Indian society, a signifi-
cant addition has been made by the fast-paced but not necessarily planned changes introduced
in the recent past. These changes are related to the economic policies associated with liberalisa-
tion and globalisation. No sector or stage of education is untouched by this policy. The impact
is so deep and regionally so varied that ‘liberalisation’ as a common label seems much too com-
pressed and inadequate to describe the policy to which the impact is attributed. And there is
reasonable ground to wonder whether there is any policy at all. India’s socio-political ethos
defies sober reflection on the meaning that liberalisation might have for education. But the
absence of a discourse or policy has not hampered the growth of market forces in education. If
the size of this volume were to be increased to three or four times of what it is, the full picture
of education in the era of liberalisation might still prove elusive in some details. Therefore, I see
no harm in feeling content with the illustrative glimpses this volume provides. Someone eager
to grasp how to make sense of education in present-day India will find plenty to ponder on.
Right from the start of this project I faced the question: ‘How many areas can it cover?’ One
part of the answer was: ‘Not all.’ And the second part of this answer was: ‘Coverage is no substi-
tute for analytical depth.’ The choice of topics was constrained by availability of existing con-
templative literature that the contributors and I might draw on. There are more than a few
critical areas of education in India that, for one reason or another, have not attracted scholarly
attention. In some cases, the attention given is not commensurate with the significance or grav-
ity of the problem these areas pose. One can cite secondary schooling, medical education, and
private universities as three topics deserving more and deeper attention than they have so far
received. Readers who miss these topics in the table of contents will perhaps find some solace
in the collateral insights provided, respectively, in the chapters covering the examination system,
engineering institutes, and management education. Quite the contrary is the case for issues
pertaining to the pursuit of equality. It is a major theme for anyone interested in India and its
system of education, and this handbook provides extensive and varied coverage of this issue in
different parts and chapters. This coverage is quite wide and it takes note of the systemic resis-
tance and reaction that the pursuit of equality has met. These tendencies, as expressed by the

xv
Preface

coaching or private tuition industry and publicly sung sagas of institutionalised nepotism, are
seldom permitted to enter the discourse of research on education. I hope the contributions
included in this handbook on these themes will arouse interest and encourage further study.
I would like to acknowledge with gratitude the warm readiness with which all the authors I
approached agreed to contribute. All but three chapters included in the handbook have been
freshly written. I am thankful to Professor Philip Altbach and Professor Satish Deshpande for
permitting me to include their papers originally prepared for publication elsewhere. My own
chapter on the Vyapam scam was written for the Economic and Political Weekly. Finally, I wish to
acknowledge the help Ms Ritu Pandey gave me in copy-editing the volume.

xvi
 Introduction to the second edition
Krishna Kumar

Education impacts people, both in the way they live and the way they interact with the world.
The collectives of nation, state, and family and how they manifest are a result of these larger
interactions between individuals while following group norms. Any inquiry into education can
help make sense of the role it plays in shaping the larger collective in which the life story of an
individual unfolds.
In order to probe the role of education in individual lives, we can look at the knowledge and
the skills that schools, colleges, and universities promise to provide and the opportunities they
open up thereby. The other role of education, i.e. in the collective life of the young, can be stud-
ied by looking at its relation with our system, to the economy, politics, and culture. This hand-
book aims at enabling readers to recognise and pursue both of these dimensions of education. It
may look like a tall order, given the modest space that educational studies occupy in the wider
field of social sciences in India at present. It is a relevant point to make. But this handbook draws
upon the corpus of knowledge available within India and elsewhere about education. As a field
of study, education in India has joined the social sciences quite late, and its entry is still disputed
over matters of turf, status, methodology, and institutional space. It remains poorly understood
and unappreciated despite being a subject of much public concern. Education is widely believed
to be a means of social change, but this belief hasn’t translated into adequate efforts to grasp the
nature of the change that it has brought about and is going to encourage further.
The growth of educational studies in India as a whole has been sluggish and the overall body
of knowledge generated so far is neither balanced nor adequately contemporary. Relatively
more research exists on elementary education than on secondary and higher education. Much
of the research now available on elementary education relates to the significant changes and
reforms that have taken place since the 1990s. The economic reforms that started in the 1990s
have resulted in changes at all levels of education, including elementary, but the scholarship that
explores the complex and varying relationship between the new economy and education is
limited. Attempts to analyse the new economic policies or reforms have seldom included a seri-
ous engagement with education, both in terms of policy and details of execution. The National
Policy on Education (NPE), originally drafted in 1986, did not explicitly anticipate the new
economic agenda; rather, it carried an agenda to address the contradictions and contrary demands
on education that had been growing since India’s independence from colonial rule in the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-1 1
Krishna Kumar

mid-twentieth century. In any case, in the late 1980s, no one could have guessed the implications
that the new economic policy would have on children, youth, and their education. Between
then and now, the unfolding of the economic scenario has significantly affected education, but
this has not received the kind of research that would illuminate the two dimensions of education
mentioned earlier, i.e. its meaning in an individual life and its impact on the collective. Moreover,
education presents a paradox for someone attempting to study it. If we isolate it as a focus of
study, we miss its dynamic relationship with structures and circumstances, particularly economic
circumstances. On the other hand, if we view it as an outcome of circumstances, we miss its own
power to make a long-term impact on the context. Educational inquiry can neither afford to get
subsumed in a general study of society, nor should it risk its own reduction to the regurgitation
of dominant schlock.

Using this handbook

The readers of this handbook can use it in two different ways. First, it can serve as a means of
exposure to significant issues that India faces at different levels of its system of education. It is
convenient to make this use of the handbook because most of its contributors focus either on
schools or on colleges and universities. The overlap between the two levels is important too,
particularly in terms of knowledge and procedures of evaluation. In the areas of science, math-
ematics, and the social sciences, therefore, the handbook provides the opportunity to examine
the overlap or continuity between the school and the university. Nearly all authors have used
some amount of historical information to develop an explanatory framework. This general
approach will help the readers recognise, in the context of the stage that might interest them,
where things are ‘now’ and how they got ‘here’.
Second, this handbook can be used for locating the major debates that have shaped India’s
educational climate. As a democratic country with a vast, highly diverse and stratified popula-
tion, India is a land of debates, and education is both a major site and subject of debates. The
quest for equality and justice underlies the daily bustle of collective life, and educational activi-
ties occupy a sizeable part of this bustle. In education, key debates are over the meaning of equal-
ity and ways in which institutions pursue or hinder this important modern value. Knowledge,
its design and distribution, acquire a central place in the larger debate over equality. Readers will
notice that the relation between knowledge and the struggle for equality forms the underlying
theme of several chapters. The list of references given by their authors will assist the readers to
track this meta-theme of educational writings and debates.
Readers will also find in its chapters a considerable diversity of style and approach. This is
because the contributing authors are located in diverse disciplinary and institutional settings and
the subject matter of their contributions requires specialised treatment. In a few cases, a survey
of existing knowledge is necessary; in other cases, the reader’s interest is best served by narrating
a trajectory that explains the present. Why science education in India is not as popular as one
might expect or why engineering education does not address community needs are questions
that require both systemic and historical knowledge. It is expected that readers will find the
insights provided in one chapter useful for reading others. The distribution of the chapters into
five parts is meant mainly to draw attention to the commonality of concerns. Thus, the exami-
nation of the Right to Education Law will enable the reader to appreciate the challenges posed
by older laws that govern urban planning. Contributors who have dealt with curricular con-
cerns have been placed in a single part. One part is devoted to a sample of higher professional
education in engineering, management, and teaching. Chapters concerning the structure of
higher education and its capacity to address social inequalities, specifically those related to caste,

2
 Introduction to the second edition

tribal groups, and women, are placed together. The final part consists of chapters dealing with
the underbelly of the system – where activities conducted with limited legitimacy proliferate.
The range of disciplinary orientations reflected in the handbook is quite wide. It includes
history, sociology, anthropology, law, engineering, management, science, and education itself.
Despite the variety of themes and disciplinary specialisation of the authors, the handbook can
hardly claim to be exhaustive. It is neither a compendium nor a comprehensive guide. Were it
either of these, it would reduce a subject like education in contemporary India to jargon and
numbers. The handbook aims at arousing the reader’s curiosity about education in a country as
deeply diverse and as politically charged as India is. To make sense of the experience called
learning in such a society, one needs conceptual tools and information drawn from different
disciplines. One also needs examples of expert handling of such tools. This is what the hand-
book attempts to offer – a sample of discussions with the fluidity necessary to mix different
insights and develop new ones. As the editor of this volume, I was anxious to spare the reader
the burden of absorbing too many statistics about a system that has been expanding quite rapidly,
thereby rendering all statistics of transitional value. Only essential statistical information is pro-
vided; otherwise, the emphasis is on theory-building to interpret and to explain progress towards
unequivocally set goals, and the problems that resist solutions.

Schools
The role of education in shaping childhood is a story of historic importance in modern India.
Although historical scholarship on pre-British education for children remains sparse and some
of the debates surrounding this research are far from being settled, there is consensus on the view
that the nineteenth century forms a watershed in the history of Indian education (Kumar 2014;
Shahidullah 1984). The varied schools and systems that existed across India prior to British
colonial rule did not survive the new institutional order that took shape in the middle decades
of the nineteenth century. What replaced it is usually referred to as the ‘modern’ system of edu-
cation. How modern it was, in a normative sense, cannot be easily judged, but it did encourage
both economic and geographical mobility, and triggered the articulation of demand for social
justice by the lower-placed groups in the complex caste system. This impact of education needs
to be studied with careful consideration of socialisation processes operative at the level of the
family and kinship. And socialisation is inevitably an inter-generational story. The economic and
cultural functions of education are normally associated with the advent of modernity in India’s
mainly agrarian society, and they have continued to shape the experience of childhood and
schooling ever since they set in. The social and cultural turmoil that characterises India’s every-
day political life can be seen as an outcome of the expansion of access to education over a period
spanning the last seven generations. Without studying education, both as it is individually expe-
rienced and as a system closely interacting with the economy, we cannot make much sense of
contemporary India’s public life. Nor can we assess the plausibility of the pronouncements made
about the future by specialists of economy and politics.
As an institution dispensing knowledge, skills, and opportunities, the school is no single insti-
tution. Unlike many countries where the school creates bonds of commonality, the school in
India reinforces existing groups and strata, and then permits the schooled members of these
groups to compete for opportunities for further education and employment. The school as a
state institution continues to coexist with the school as a social institution, implying thereby that
the hierarchical caste system that characterises the Indian social order is not necessarily threat-
ened by the dispersal of new forms of knowledge and skills that permit members of essentially
unequal groups to compete with each other. The socialisation of children that the school brings

3
Krishna Kumar

about avoids a direct conflict with their socialisation – into caste and religious identities and
gender roles – at home. Thus, schooling performs, in some of its roles, the function of bringing
about modern forms of contest among different strata, while, in some of its other roles, it allows
the maintenance and reproduction of stratifying social institutions.
As an institution of the state, schooling of children partakes of the vision encoded in the
Constitution that took effect after the end of British rule some seven decades ago. The vision
was egalitarian and transformative, but initially it had little legal force. It has taken the Parliament
exactly six decades after the promulgation of the Constitution in 1950 to modify it in 2009 so
as to make eight years of elementary education a fundamental right of every child. Archana
Mehendale examines this important change in terms of the challenges new laws face in influ-
encing the reality on the ground. Undoubtedly, this will be a prolonged process, and this chapter
helps us grasp the reasons why the process cannot be smoother or more predictable. The reasons
analysed in this chapter are the ones entrenched in the system itself. But there are others that
have to do with social conditions, such as poverty that encourages child labour and sharp
regional variance in the economy that compels the rural poor to migrate to big cities. Nalini
Juneja looks at the historical legacy that dominates provision for schooling in urban India. Her
chapter shows why privatisation of schooling is common in cities and how it affects the children
of the poor. Padma Sarangapani presents the main findings of her study aimed at explaining dif-
ferential quality in schools in the city of Hyderabad. Her chapter demonstrates that schools
functioning in a stratified social environment pursue different aims. These aims derive from the
school owners’ view of the needs and priorities of the particular stratum they serve.
The impact of modern education in rural India over the last 150 years has not been studied
as such, but it has been a major theme in literature. The young hero’s desire to return to the
village and improve life there after receiving higher education is a prominent theme in modern
fiction. Hindi novelist Phanishwar Nath Renu’s 1955 novel, Maila Anchal, offers a richly emotive
portrayal of this theme in the character of a doctor. General education is conventionally believed
to alienate village youth and encourage migration to cities. Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbaari (1968),
a voluminous satire, deals with this theme in a compressed story of a young educated man’s visit
to his village during vacation. At the end of his visit, during which he gets a thorough exposure
to the murky world of local politics, the hero wants to run away back to the city although he
has been offered a job at the local intermediate college. These two fictional accounts indicate
how crucial education has been to the village: whether we see it from the perspective of state-
sponsored ‘rural development’ or as proof of its irrelevance to the village (Kumar 2015; Thakur
2014). The latter perspective informed Mahatma Gandhi’s Nai Talim (literally, new education)
and constituted a major critique of modern colonial education. Schooling based on Gandhi’s
ideas was highly innovative and continues to be practised in a few institutions. Nidhi Gaur pres-
ents a glimpse of one such institution in her chapter.

Colleges and universities

How the system of education works at higher levels demands a grasp of the historical conditions
in which the present institutional order originated and the shape it acquired under those condi-
tions. We need to refer specifically to the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Prior to the
creation of the first three universities in 1857 in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, bachelor-level
courses in arts, i.e. BA courses, had started in a handful of colleges. The newly set-up universities
were meant to affiliate these existing colleges for the purpose of examination. This architecture
of an examining body holding together a number of affiliated colleges suited a society charac-
terised by vast and varied geography. Means of transport were scarce, and aspirations of the

4
 Introduction to the second edition

higher strata to gain eligibility to the new modes of salaried employment under the expanding
colonial state apparatus were high. Affiliated colleges were to prove a lasting feature of the Indian
higher education system. Despite being criticised in every major review report commissioned
by the state, they have proliferated, apparently because they are rooted in India’s varied regional
and economic geography.
Contributions covering higher education look at the Indian scenario from the perspective of
changes that are shaping the global picture, especially the economy. As a large economy, and one
that is widely believed to share, with China, a crucial space and role in the world economy, India
naturally arouses the expectation that its policies in higher education, particularly in research and
advanced technology, will reflect its global status. Comparative research has pointed out that
China and other East Asian countries have taken education as a whole, and higher education in
particular, far more seriously than India has. In this volume, Philip Altbach draws on this compara-
tive knowledge to point towards the considerable gap between the space that India occupies in
the global economy and its educational preparedness to maintain that. Altbach believes that
higher-order centres of research are necessary for India to stay competitive, especially in science
and higher technology. He also points out the inefficiencies that are built into the administrative
structure of Indian higher education, i.e. in the vast component of affiliated colleges controlled by
a relatively small number of universities. Altbach also discusses why privatisation has so far failed
to provide a credible alternative. In the specific context of science and technology, this volume has
two comprehensive contributions that explain the nature of the problem Altbach has pointed out.
Social inclusion is an important concept that provides us the means to notice a different kind
of systemic imbalance. How higher education could be made inclusive has been a subject of
considerable debate. This debate has by and large focused on issues pertaining to access, and has
remained somewhat oblivious to issues that relate to the character of knowledge and intellectual
training that higher education is supposed to provide. It is not surprising that access has served
as the core of the debate on inclusion, considering how major and how visible access as an aspect
of institutional life at any level of education is. At another level, the debate on inclusion has
remained concerned mainly with ways to provide greater access to marginalised sections of
society, such as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, religious minorities (particularly
Muslims) and women.Ways to overcome regional disparities have also been a concern addressed
under the debates on inclusion. Relatively less attention has been paid to issues pertaining to
teacher–student relations, the character of knowledge imparted in courses, and the ethos of
institutions. Under the policy of reservation, institutions of higher education have attempted to
provide proportionate representation to marginalised groups in enrolment. Close to half the
available seats in public institutions are routinely filled by candidates who belong to the three
major categories covered under the quota system; namely, the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled
Tribes, and the Other Backward Classes. Procedures of ensuring that all reserved seats are duly
filled have stabilised over the years in all major universities. From this point of view, one can say
that Indian universities have a more inclusive look today than they did half a century ago.
If we go beyond admission or enrolment, and look for deeper signs of inclusivity, we come
across a reality that frequently erupts across the routine life of Indian academia, sometimes caus-
ing national-level upheavals of the kind that occurred in Hyderabad Central University recently.
In this episode, a Dalit research scholar committed suicide after facing expulsion from hostel and
other common facilities in a case where it is difficult to separate ideological issues from purely
administrative ones. In his chapter on the reservation policy for the Scheduled Castes, Satish
Deshpande raises a wide range of issues that make the policy in its present form look rather
nominal. Virginius Xaxa has similarly examined the progress made in the context of the
Scheduled Tribes, the other major grouping of the intended beneficiaries of the reservation

5
Krishna Kumar

policy in higher education. The analysis offered by Deshpande and Xaxa indicates that progress
towards the goal of making Indian universities and colleges inclusive has been confined mostly
to access. In terms of achieving retention and success of students from the reserved categories,
significant obstacles remain and many of them have not been recognised. Discrimination on the
basis of caste is perhaps just as widespread in Indian campuses as it is in elementary and second-
ary schools. The only difference between the school and higher levels is that at the former level
it has been recognised and certain measures, however inadequate, have been taken to prevent it.

Knowledge and the curriculum

This handbook introduces the reader to curriculum policies and wars in Indian education as a
major theme across different levels of the system. Several chapters throw light on the struggles
over the choice of appropriate knowledge that the system of education has witnessed. In this
respect, professional higher education offers no exception. Why knowledge has proved to be so
contested a domain of education can be understood in the context of the colonial rule under
which the system was born and shaped.What deserves to be examined and grasped with deeper
interest and attention is the range of reasons that have blocked or, in some cases slowed down,
reform in curriculum since the end of colonial rule. India’s difficulties in this respect were per-
haps not as great as Africa’s. There, as Mamdani (2007) has interpreted, the legacy of colonial
rule meant a vacuum at higher levels in many independent colonies. The Indian story started,
so to speak, with the construction of a higher education system before there was a primary
school system in any substantial sense. This did, to an extent, solve the problem of knowledge
choices, but only to an extent. Needs of the colonial state placed the general arts degree at the
commanding and popular height of the new system. A surfeit of BA pass or fail youth perhaps
gave a sobering factor to society as a whole, though it also brought an endemic kind of educated
unemployment. The term ‘sobering’ is meant to convey the accumulated impact of prolonged
exposure to language, literature, and subjects like history, politics, geography, and economics.
The higher education system that the British created and promoted in the second half of the
nineteenth century was mainly an examining and certifying system, but it served several other
purposes and had consequences that may not have been part of the original design. As a means
of certifying individuals for eligibility for various jobs and careers that the new colonial state was
going to offer to Indians (who would work for lower salaries than Englishmen with similar
qualifications), higher education accommodated new aspirations among the colonised. It set the
targets for school education to achieve at different levels both in terms of the content of knowl-
edge to be expected and the skills and aptitudes to be cultivated.While office skills, such as précis
making, would be more common among the educated class of Indians, mathematical skills and
the capacity to learn basic technical skills would also be imparted to a smaller segment, to be
employed in the slowly expanding engineering apparatus of the colonial state through depart-
ments like public works, railways, police, and the armed forces.
Science and technology are two major areas of knowledge and skill where modern education
systems carry the burden of national development, and not merely social demand. This was
apparent enough in the early days of independence, and the Kothari Commission (1964–66)
was an epic articulation of this expectation. Two chapters illuminate these areas in a critical
manner. Shobhit Mahajan’s chapter deals with science and mathematics in secondary and ter-
tiary education, and Milind Sohoni’s chapter examines engineering education. Some aspects of
the analysis these two chapters offer are similar, but several crucial aspects apply very differently
to the two areas. The obvious difference lies in the types of institutions where education in these
areas is provided. Mahajan’s focus is on science in undergraduate colleges, while Sohoni’s chapter

6
 Introduction to the second edition

concerns professional colleges and institutes of engineering. In many colleges that offer science
at the undergraduate level, classroom teaching is poorly served by functional laboratories. The
reasons lie in financial and institutional capacity as well as in procedural constraints. Sohoni’s
chapter, interestingly, reminds us of the conceptual constraints that have their roots in colonial
history and relations of knowledge. They form a web of factors, including social and political,
that we need to take into account in order to grasp why engineering education is now so wide-
spread, yet so barren in terms of its capacity to address social and economic needs. If we combine
the insights of Sohoni’s chapter with a picture of the inner workings of a teacher training institu-
tion drawn by Latika Gupta, we can comprehend and assess the constraints that a poorly func-
tioning system of higher professional education places upon the productivity of education itself
and of the economy.
These chapters also indicate how tough and prone to distortion and corruption the official
attempts to control and regulate the higher, including professional, education system can be in an
era of state withdrawal and growth of private commercial interests. Engineering and teacher
education are among more than a dozen areas of higher professional education that the govern-
ment attempts to regulate and control by means of powerful statutory councils. The malfunc-
tioning and failure of these councils have been evident for quite some time, but the regulatory
procedure has by itself become a factor of vested interest. The regulatory system overlaps with
the older affiliating system, and together they choke what little urge any single institution might
have for innovation and change. The central government’s mechanism of regulating the flow of
funds and policies through the University Grants Commission has also evoked considerable criti-
cism since the 1980s (Singh 1988). Its role overlaps with that of the Ministry of Human Resource
Development that has been found, rather frequently in the recent past, to be involved in cases
where affairs of a central university indicated a crisis of one kind or another. A parallel and some-
what different kind of case is presented by Pankaj Chandra in his chapter on management educa-
tion. This is an area of knowledge and professional training marked by an absence of colonial
legacy. This fact can be rightly perceived as a major factor of the ostensible vibrancy of manage-
ment education in India, at least among the top-end institutions.Yet, as Chandra points out, the
adverse effects of the regulatory system are beginning to surface in management courses too.
Readers of the handbook might find a deeper question worth contemplating with regard to
management education and its availability at a so-called world-class level of quality in at least the
apex institutions set up to provide it. The deeper question is why the knowledge and training
these institutions have been imparting did not influence the structures and procedures designed
in the state’s capacity to govern universities, colleges, and schools. If the reason lies in the orienta-
tion of management education towards private business, the cause of this orientation can be
traced to the influence of Amer­ican institutions and advisers from the earliest days of this sector.
Attempts to tilt management education towards public governance at the grassroots level needs
to form an important segment of the history of this sector even though these attempts are not
part of its active memory. The Jawaja experiment spearheaded by Ravi Mathai was a major inno-
vation in management education (Mathai 1985). It is true, of course, that this remarkable experi-
ment could not influence, let alone alter, the general character of management education or the
teaching of social sciences in India at the higher level. Hari Vasudevan’s chapter on social sciences
alludes to the pedagogic constraints of this vast area of undergraduate and later education.

Systemic imbalance
The growth of access to different stages or levels of education is one of the important factors
shaping the systemic organisation and the relation between education and economic

7
Krishna Kumar

opportunities. The overall balance in terms of size and quality at different stages not only
explains the functional efficiency of a system of education, but also the nature of its relationship
with the social and cultural milieu in which the young live and study. Problems arising from
systemic imbalance have, therefore, been of great interest to scholars of education in different
countries. In India, however, the issue has not received much scholarly attention, although the
Kothari Commission’s report had drawn attention to the various kinds of gaps that it had
noticed between school education and the higher education system. The gaps this commission
had noticed, and that many educational planners of the 1970s had warned against, have grown
wider over the last three decades, thereby exacerbating the problems caused by systemic imbal-
ance. In a country with a vast population deprived of literacy, one might expect the primary
level of education to grow more rapidly than higher education. But progress of primary educa-
tion remained sluggish during the early decades after India gained independence. The number
of institutions serving higher education multiplied, and not surprisingly, many of these institu-
tions faced serious problems in maintaining their quality. This situation became more serious
when, from the 1980s onwards, elementary education witnessed a rapid increase in both its
public demand and in the state’s response to it. Over the last decade, significant pressure has built
up on the secondary stage of school education and on institutions of higher education. If we
isolate higher education as a sector and notice the growth of institutions within itself, we might
get the impression that their number has multiplied quite remarkably. Within itself, secondary
and higher secondary education may create a similar impression. These impressions are errone-
ous because neither of the two stages have grown at a pace sufficient to accommodate the far
higher growth in the number of children crossing elementary education. Although India’s case
is not as extreme as that of Sri Lanka, where primary education became universal while second-
ary education remained limited, the Indian story does represent a case of serious systemic imbal-
ance. Up until the 1980s, dropout rates at the primary level were high, so the pressure on
secondary education remained weak. That scenario has changed, and now the pressure of a radi-
cally expanded base level is manifesting at each level placed above it.
The pressure of numbers on the infrastructure of educational institutions has remained a
constant object of concern for administrators and planners of higher education in India.
Insufficient financial resources to cover all different aspects of institutional needs has been con-
sistently cited, since colonial days, as a major reason why the system does not reach general levels
of excellence. This line of argument is reflected in a great deal of writing on the two major
functions of higher education, namely teaching and research. That India does not spend public
funds comparable to many other countries is mentioned as a refrain, and the reference point of
this refrain is the recommendation made by the Kothari Commission half a century ago that
India should spend at least 6 per cent of its GDP on education. This has not happened. Both the
advocacy for exhorting the state to remember that goal and the debate over state vs private
financial responsibility have remained alive. If one views the state’s priorities and decisions as a
reflection of the social world, then it is not difficult to see that the state–private debate has effec-
tively kept the planners’ demand or pressure to increase public expenditure somewhat weak.
Not just the debate, the economic and social divide that exists in India between the better-off
and articulate upper caste strata and the poorer lower caste society also diffuses the pressure that
might build up for rational or sensible public expenditure on education from time to time.
Additionally, there is the culturally embedded suspicion of the state and doubt about the integ-
rity of its institutions. This doubt has historically nourished an attraction for private provision
and a cynical mindset towards government institutions. Certainly, the post-1980s phase of

8
 Introduction to the second edition

development has boosted this mindset, leading to an increase in the layers of privately managed
institutions at all levels of education.
These socio-cultural factors are not particularly palpable, and in a climate dominated by a
neo-utilitarian ideology, it is politically incorrect to mention these factors. Indeed, the mention
itself bolsters privatisation by way of casting doubt on the state’s capacity to improve its effi-
ciency. So, private provision has been growing – and much of it is commercial in nature – by
leaps and bounds, in all sectors of education, including English-medium schooling and general
as well as professional higher education. The market is truly the dominant player in this story. It
has altered the meaning of quality in education, by commoditising it so as to make it measurable
in different ways. The state’s role is now believed to be mainly of a regulatory nature, and the
Indian experience so far suggests that regulatory institutions in the field of education are either
irrelevant or corrupt. Thus, the federal regulatory body, the UGC, has become irrelevant to the
growth of private universities approved by provincial assemblies. In vocational or professional
education, private finance now covers a far bigger proportion of enrolment. The state is unable
to keep pace with this growth even with the basic function of maintaining an official registry or
count. In a rare case, the Supreme Court brought to light the scale of the growth of private
university when it struck down the validity of nearly 200 such so-called universities in the small
state of Chhattisgarh. The case was initiated in the public interest by Yash Pal, whose great stat-
ure as a scientist and visionary educationist imparts to this episode the extraordinariness that
makes it virtually irreplaceable and, therefore, somewhat marginal to currently dominant trends.
Since the early 1990s, privatisation has grown at a rapid pace, not merely in professional and
vocational areas, but in general education as well. Private colleges presently constitute 75 per
cent of the total number of institutions offering higher education in different areas of knowl-
edge and skill, accounting for about 65 per cent of the total enrolment.
On its own, this reality may not carry the same negative value for all observers. There are
perhaps as many enthusiasts of privatisation as there are strong critics. This is simply one more
site of sharp disagreement and polarised debate in contemporary India. In his chapter added in
this revised edition of the handbook, Furqan Qamar portrays the current overall scene of private
participation. As he reminds us, private initiative in Indian higher education is nothing new, but
the nature of present-day entrepreneurship in education is different from its earlier variant. The
new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 demands this awareness from its readers. Its proposal
for a ‘light but tight’ regulatory regime also suggests a difficult terrain India’s system of education
faces now. NEP favours a centralised system of regulation, performing several different functions
including financial, administrative, and standard-maintenance roles. The idea of a single regulator
is not new; its persistence in policy in increasingly virulent forms, with digital surveillance power
added now, indicates the continued difficulties that liberalisation poses in the field of education.
Market-friendly policies were expected to boost post-secondary vocational and technical educa-
tion. Why this has not happened is the subject of the chapter by Santosh Mehrotra, which has
been added to this revised edition of the handbook. This chapter shows why the new national
policy does not arouse much hope for this long-neglected sector of India’s system of education.
Its low status in policy-making reflects the social strata of the students it seeks to accommodate
and prepare for jobs that the economy fails to generate despite overall growth. The COVID
pandemic, during which the new policy was announced, has jeopardised the continued educa-
tion of a vast, unknown number of the young, especially girls belonging to the most vulnerable
sections of society. The new policy offers little realistic hope for mitigation of the systemic
imbalances discussed earlier. The likelihood is that the pandemic will exacerbate it.

9
Krishna Kumar

References
Kumar, Krishna 2014. Politics of Education in Colonial India (New Delhi: Routledge).
Kumar, Krishna 2015. ‘Education and Modernity in Rural India’, in Edward Vickers and Krishna Kumar
(eds) Constructing Modern Asian Citizenship (London: Routledge) pp. 31–49.
Mamdani, Mahmood 2007. ‘Higher Education, the State and the Marketplace’, Indian Educational Review
43(1): 134–143.
Mathai, Ravi J. 1985. The Rural University:The Jawaja Experiment in Rural Innovation (New Delhi: South Asia
Books).
Shahidullah, Kazi 1984. From Pathsalas to Schools (Calcutta: Bagchi).
Singh, Amrik (ed.) 1988. Higher Education in India (New Delhi: Konark).
Thakur, Manish 2014. Indian Village: A Conceptual History (Jaipur: Rawat).

10
 Part I
Logic of access

The opening section of this handbook focuses on access to education. As a term, ‘access’ gener-
ally refers to availability of an opportunity. In the context of education, access depends on provi-
sion, implying the availability of institutions where education is available. The core idea for any
discussion of access to education is the state, its policies, and the will to execute them by provid-
ing for appropriate institutions within the reach of families and children. Geography of institu-
tional provision, by itself, would mean little for assessing the adequacy of access unless it is
matched with the economic condition of families and the age of children for whom the provi-
sion is being made. This is why the question of access has proved so difficult for India. Despite
the fact that India has a political system based on the principles of liberal democracy, making
primary education available to all children has taken a hundred years – after it was first
attempted – to be accepted as a legal goal. The term ‘primary’ is currently being replaced by
‘elementary’, referring to a recently enacted central law that makes education from the age of
six to fourteen a fundamental right of every child. The first chapter in this handbook examines
the complexities of this law, including the problems its execution is likely to face. Archana
Mehendale, the author of this chapter, discusses the background of this law by taking the reader
into the implications of federal governance in children’s education. She also helps the reader to
examine the new law in the context of poverty, especially the widely prevalent use of children
as a source of income for the family.
The second chapter, by Nalini Juneja, takes us into the tangled issues of poverty and schooling
in the urban context. Her analysis reveals how urban demography intersects with spatial planning
and the political economy of privatisation of education. This subject rarely figures when policies
of education per se are discussed. How the land demarcated for schools in model plans made for
urban development passes into the hands of private bodies is a story that normally does not
belong to educational research. But it is a highly relevant narrative today because privatisation of
education is occurring at a rapid pace at all levels of education, including the higher ones. The
value of education as a saleable commodity is rising fast in response to the current tendency in
the state to withdraw and transfer its educational responsibility to private providers. In turn, the
status of private schooling – and now, universities too – is impelling the state to proceed more
adroitly in this direction. This is a theme many readers will recognise as a global phenomenon,
rooted in the ideological formation known as neo-­ liberalism. Global though it is, the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-2 11
Logic of access

phenomenon needs to be analysed in local contexts of nations and regions if one wants to study
the modus operandi of the capture of children’s education by private capital.
Though the term ‘private’ distinguishes fee-­charging schools from the ones run by the govern-
ment, there are sharply differentiated schools within both categories.While state schools differ on
many counts such as ‘central’ and ‘state’ (i.e. provincial) and within each of these, private schools
also differ on several counts, such as the fees they charge, the language they use as a medium of
teaching, and the types of bodies that run them. Padma Sarangapani studied these different types
in the city of Hyderabad. Her chapter attempts to develop a typology, then relate it to the question
of quality and unravel the concept of quality. The chapter makes us aware of how problematic it
may be to simplify the Indian urban educational scene, especially if we conflate private schooling
with quality. This assumption has consistently gained popularity over the past three decades.
During this period, ‘quality’ has emerged – or has been propagated – as a discourse. It has helped
to deepen the reach of the neoliberal framework of analysis and its influence on state policy. In
educational theory too, the discourse of quality has enabled a stolid perspective to gain currency.
How does the system of education, with such bewildering variety of schools and diversity of
policies in 29 states, function and survive? How does it accommodate the expectations of a
sharply stratified society? The answer to these questions is: ‘With the help of a public examina-
tion culture.’ Although public examinations are part of the system of education, they have served
the system for well over a century by imparting to it a firm, annually reinforced coherence. This
is why it is correct to call the public examination system a cultural construct that has its own
customs and rituals recognised and observed across India’s vast geography. The most important
among the various examinations that Indian children take through their educational career is
the Grade XII ‘Board’ examination. This exam ends the higher secondary stage, and it serves to
dispense eligibility for further education. Those who appear in it are already stringently filtered,
so to speak, by the Grade X examination, traditionally known as the ‘high school’ exam. Both
of these examinations are taken by ‘Boards’, an institution that exercises tremendous power over
the curriculum, how it finds expression in syllabi and textbooks, but most importantly, how
teachers teach in the classroom. The ‘Boards’ that arrange or ‘take’ the exams are of two types.
One category functions in 29 states of India; the other category has just two, the ‘central’ board
that affiliates the few schools run by the central government all over India and a much greater
number of private schools with a certain elite status. The complex story of the examination
system is presented in the last chapter of this part. Disha Nawani, the author, offers a historical
background to the secondary examination system, and also presents valuable statistics showing
the ‘results’ of each Board in the past few years. These data enable us to get a glimpse into the
magic of the exam system, its capacity to allocate success and failure on the basis of a one-­time
performance, and thereby to offer a meritocratic handle to the social system to manage diversity
of backgrounds, interests, and aspirations.
The various systemic and social factors that shape the logic of access to different stages of
education are mentioned and discussed in other sections of this handbook as well. While access
at the elementary level is now a legal right, going beyond this level involves competitive capacity
and socio-­economic wherewithal. Thus, the crucial transition from Grade VIII to IX contains,
as an object of inquiry, a complex story in which social stratification in terms of caste and
income levels, and gender, play crucial roles in shaping individual educational mobility. These
factors accumulate greater power as an individual looks towards higher education. Access at
these higher levels is no longer just about the availability of a college to enrol in; it is also about
the capacity to face a mixture of systemic and social factors. These factors form the subject mat-
ter of the chapters included in Part IV. These chapters enable us to realise how important it may
be to comprehend systemic resistance to social inclusivity in the Indian society.

12
 1
Compulsion to educate
Archana Mehendale

The Constitution is regarded as a ‘superior or supreme law’ (Wheare 1966) that reflects the
normative structure and ideology of a sovereign and guides the state’s relationship with its citi-
zens. The Indian Constitution is ‘partly flexible and partly rigid’ (Kashyap 1986), allowing it to
be amended through its representative democracy. The Constitution (86th Amendment) Act,
2002 (hereafter referred to as the 86th Amendment) was a significant milestone. Adopted after
both Houses of Parliament had unanimously voted in its favour and receiving the President’s
assent thereafter, the amendment inserted a new Fundamental Right, amended a Directive
Principle of State Policy and inserted a new Fundamental Duty.
The new Article 21A under Part III Fundamental Rights of the Constitution, states: ‘The
State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to 14 years in
such manner as the State may, by law, determine.’The revised Article 45 under Part IV Directive
Principles of State Policy states: ‘State shall endeavour to provide early childhood care and edu-
cation for all children until they complete the age of six years.’ The new Article 51A (k) under
Fundamental Duties recognises the duties of ‘who is a parent or guardian to provide opportuni-
ties for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and 14 years’.
The enactment of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (here-
after referred to as the RTE Act) and its coming into force in 2010, operationalised the funda-
mental right to education for children between the ages of six and 14 years. The RTE Act is a
central legislation on a concurrent subject, and state governments are empowered to formulate
rules to execute the legislation. Using these delegated legislative powers, the state governments
have prepared rules which are applicable in their jurisdiction and are meant to guide the imple-
mentation of the RTE Act. These are subordinate to the RTE Act and are thus expected to
adhere to the provisions of the RTE Act.
The government is now legally bound to provide free and compulsory education to children
being a justiciable Fundamental Right, and ordinary citizens can directly approach the High
Court or the Supreme Court if the government fails to fulfil its mandate. Such a firm legal
accountability of the government was missing before the amendment when it was classified as a
non-­justiciable Directive Principle of State Policy. This recent law-­making on education has
percolated into public imagination and discourse through a new acronym, ‘RTE’, which has
become the new reference point of education policy, a new peg on which all ideological,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-3 13
Archana Mehendale

pedagogical, administrative, and social questions related to education and educational spaces are
left to hang. The ‘RTE’ pitch has been extended to areas that are not technically covered by the
86th Amendment, the RTE Act, or the rules notified by the state governments. Regulation of
fee hikes in private schools is one example where the RTE Act does not directly make any pro-
vision, but it is drawn upon to justify arguments for lower fees. The RTE buzzword is periodi-
cally used by education administrators and teachers to draw attention to the changed regime
within which education has to be transacted and their roles enacted.
The chapter first describes the context within which the right to education became a con-
stitutional and a statutory right in India by highlighting its historical, administrative, and legal
significance. The idea of compulsion implied in the right is then explored in order to locate the
contradiction within historical and contemporary ideas surrounding free and compulsory edu-
cation. The chapter concludes with a brief account of the contestations and debates on various
legal provisions, which point to the gaps and issues that remain unresolved within the official
agenda and public discourse.

Context and significance of the legislation

The framers of the Indian Constitution had committed to providing free and compulsory edu-
cation to children below the age of 14 years within ten years of commencement of the
Constitution (see Article 45 before it was amended in 2002). Although this commitment was
placed under Part IV Directive Principles of State Policy, this was the only provision that had a
time frame of ten years mentioned in the Constitution. This commitment was neither taken
seriously nor was there any kind of parliamentary review or debate in 1960 when the goal was
supposed to have been achieved. The increase in the illiterate population during this decade
from 294.2 million in 1951 to 325.5 million in 1961 confirms that elementary education was
not a political priority.

Context
The National Policy on Education (1968) and the National Policy on Education (1986) were
also committed to universalisation of free and compulsory elementary education in a time-­
bound manner, but they failed to meet their targets. The first official recommendation to
include the right to education under the Fundamental Rights was made by the Acharya
Ramamurti Committee (Ramamurti 1990), which was constituted to review and recommend
policy revisions. But these recommendations were ignored and the revised policy of 1992 stated
‘it shall be ensured that free and compulsory education of satisfactory quality is provided to all
children up to 14 years before we enter the 21st century’. In the early 1990s, three different fac-
tors influenced the decision to make education a fundamental right in India.
First, the Education for All Initiative, which was kick-­started during the World Conference
on ‘Education for All (EFA): Meeting Learning Needs’ held at Jomtien, Thailand in March
1990, saw the adoption of the ‘World Declaration on Education for All’ along with the
‘Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs’. It held that ‘education is a fundamental
right for all people, women and men, of all ages, throughout the world’ (Inter-Agency
Commission 1990). The initiative was significant in the Indian context because it opened the
possibility of external donor assistance for basic education. The government, which had delib-
erately opted not to seek external financing for primary education till then, sought external
funds from the World Bank for supporting its new programme, called the District Primary
Education Programme. The EFA also started a new era of international monitoring through

14
 Compulsion to educate

observable and measurable targets, thereby placing the government under pressure to demon-
strate its commitment to international observers. Second, judicial directions in two landmark
cases related to the role of the state in higher education actually paved new jurisprudence on the
right to education. In 1992, while hearing a case of capitation fees in professional colleges, in
Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka,1 the Supreme Court held that ‘right to education’ is concomi-
tant to fundamental rights enshrined under Part III of the Constitution and that ‘every citizen
has a right to education under the Constitution’. In 1993, a five-­member bench of the Supreme
Court in the landmark case of Unnikrishnan, J.P. v. State of Andhra Pradesh2 reviewed the earlier
judgment and held that ‘though right to education is not stated expressly as a fundamental right,
it is implicit in and flows from the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 … [and] must be
construed in the light of the Directive Principles of the Constitution’. Thus,

right to education, understood in the context of Article 45 and 41 means: (a) every child/
citizen of this country has a right to free education until he completes the age of 14 years
and (b) after a child/citizen completes 14 years, his right to education is circumscribed by
the limits of the economic capacity of the State and its development.

Third, large-­scale mobilisation and civil society advocacy drew upon the Supreme Court judg-
ments and demanded that the right upheld by the judiciary be enshrined in the Constitution to
give it political and legal permanence.

Significance of a justiciable right

In their recent work on studying Constitutions of 191 countries, Heymann et al. (2014) found
that 81 per cent of the countries recognised the right to primary education and 53 per cent of
them provided it free at the primary stage. The newer Constitutions, particularly those adopted
in the developing and middle-­income countries since the 1990s, were more likely to include the
right to education.3 Legislation in countries like China, Japan, and the United Kingdom imposes
obligations on the state to provide funds for free and compulsory education.4 International
human rights law classifies education as an economic, social, and cultural right that can be
attained as per the maximum availability of states’ resources and in a progressive manner.5 India,
as we discussed earlier, was committed to providing free and compulsory education since 1950,
but it was only in 2002 that this was elevated to a justiciable right. The significance of making
education a justiciable right can be accounted for at historical, administrative, and legal levels.
The division of justiciable and non-­justiciable rights under Part III and Part IV respectively
of the Indian Constitution builds on the idea of a hierarchy of rights that makes the first genera-
tion of civil and political rights privileged because they are legally enforceable, while the second
generation of social, economic, and cultural rights are meant to direct the governance and state
policy and be progressively realised. Juneja (2003) has argued that the Constituent Assembly
debated about the inclusion of education up to the age of 14 years as part of Fundamental
Rights, but this was relegated to the Directive Principles. The amendment reinstates the right
under Part III on Fundamental Rights of the Constitution after it remained unimplemented as
a Directive Principle of State Policy. It is also historically significant given that it is the first time
that a positive right having significant resource implications has been introduced under Part III
of the Constitution. By inserting it as Article 21A, it has reinforced the Supreme Court observa-
tions in Unnikrishnan, where the right to education was linked to Article 21 on the right to life.
At an administrative level, having a central legislation on a concurrent subject has opened
newer challenges to federal relations. There are significant inter-­state variations in terms of

15
Archana Mehendale

economic, political, and education levels, and state governments are faced with a number of
challenges while implementing centrally laid norms. The dependence of the state governments
on the central funds, particularly funds allocated through the District Primary Education
Programme (DPEP) in 1994 and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in 2003 while trying to
retain their autonomy in policy matters such as teachers’ appointments, service conditions, cur-
riculum and assessments, is one example. Even after the RTE Act came into force, state govern-
ments expressed their inability to adhere to its mandate without the financial support of the
central government. Significant funding from the central government for over a decade of
DPEP and SSA has neither resulted in achievement of goals on access and quality of education,6
nor has it enabled the state governments to deliver the programme on their own. Concurrency
of education has largely tilted towards a centralising trend putting the principles underlining the
federal structure under strain. Evidently, a number of state governments have not made use of
their available jurisdiction to formulate state-­specific policies. For instance, rules notified by
some state governments under the RTE Act are replicas of the rules framed by the central gov-
ernment. The state curriculum frameworks also do not express the distinct imaginations of state
governments on education and its aims and are closely modelled on the National Curriculum
Framework. Another area of administrative significance is that of decentralisation in education.
The RTE Act provides for decentralisation by outlining duties of the state governments and
local authorities. Additionally, state governments have notified rules that further elaborate on the
roles mandated for sub-­statal bodies. Although education was required to be decentralised by
state governments after the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution, state governments
had not devolved funds, functions, and functionaries to the local levels. By providing a uniform
minimum framework of sharing of duties among the state and the local authorities, the RTE Act
effectively suggests a top-­down approach of decentralisation.
The third area where the RTE Act has necessitated administrative changes is that of the imple-
mentation mechanism. Since the early 1990s, the governments have adopted a ‘mission mode’7
style of functioning that runs parallel to the education departments, and is designed to ensure
greater efficiency and streamlined implementation. The RTE Act requires that the focus is shifted
again to the education departments and goes beyond a programmatic mode of realising a funda-
mental right. Although the Anil Bordia Committee (Ministry of Human Resources Development
2010) suggested a revised framework for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) that was aligned with
the RTE Act, the implementation of the Act requires state departments to perform their conven-
tional functions of funding, provisioning, and regulation, that are not limited to the scope and
tenure of the SSA. In other words, RTE would require state education departments to be present,
and rebuild their administrative capacities and orientations to deliver on the legal mandate.
The legal significance of education as a justiciable right is that violation of rights or its inad-
equate protection can be challenged in the courts. This itself has resulted in the interpretation
of the scope and applicability of various provisions. One of the significant legal features intro-
duced by the RTE Act is that of horizontal application of rights. In a general sense, fundamental
rights are enforceable only against the state and are meant to protect citizens from the actions of
the state. Thus, if a fundamental right is being violated, action would rest against the state as it
is duty bound to protect these rights. Article 21A does not refer to the private institutions in any
way. However, Section 12(1)(c) requires private unaided schools to provide 25 per cent of their
total seats to children from disadvantaged and weaker sections. The horizontal application of
rights which extends the duties created under the RTE Act to non-­state actors was challenged
by private schools in the Supreme Court.8 The apex court said that the principle of reasonable
restriction on the right to carry out business or profession (Article 19(1)(g))9 is not an absolute
right and the state can restrict it in the interest of the general public (Article 19(6)).10 Thus,

16
 Compulsion to educate

Section 12(1)(c) provided under the RTE Act that flows out of Article 21A would justify restric-
tion on the right to carry on business that is enjoyed by the private schools as per Article 19(1)
(g). One of the earlier drafts of the constitutional amendment bill had specifically prohibited the
state from making ‘any law, for free and compulsory education … in relation to the educational
institutions not maintained by the State or not receiving aid out of State funds’. However, the
provision was removed as it was considered fit to leave it to the judiciary to decide on the scope
and width of Article 21A and the extension of duties to private institutions. This unique legal
feature of the RTE Act has also been a subject of legal contestation requiring the judiciary to
comment on the hierarchy of fundamental rights.

Nature of compulsion
The international legal framework on human rights recognises the right to education, which
encompasses an entitlement to free and compulsory education at the primary school level. This
is enunciated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) and the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (1989).
In the General Comment No. 11 of the International Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (1999), the term ‘compulsory’ has been explained to refer to the ‘fact that nei-
ther parents, nor guardians, nor the State are entitled to treat as optional the decision as to
whether the child should have access to primary education’. It also notes that the provision of
compulsory primary education in no way conflicts with the right of parents and guardians to
choose for their children schools other than those established by the public authorities. Thus, a
reference to ‘compulsion’ in the expression of the human right to education is not new and
hints at the legacy of compulsory education in Western countries that had helped to establish
universal education systems in those regions; an approach that was forwarded and reaffirmed as
a universal method of respecting and fulfilling the right to education.

The idea of compulsion

Compulsion is linked with the idea of duty and has typically been used with a connotation of
‘enforcement’ by the state on its citizens. Similar ideas of compulsion are related to compulsory
conscription for military service in some countries, compulsory licensing (regulation) of enter-
prises, compulsory taxation, and so on that are practised in democratic societies. However, given
the inherent conflict between human rights and the state’s exercise and imposition of its author-
ity, compulsion has been questioned on the grounds of infringement of personal freedom and
liberty, while arguing that public interest alone cannot justify making certain actions compul-
sory. For instance, voting, although necessary for a healthy functioning democracy, is not made
compulsory because it is seen as an imposition that goes against the exercise of fundamental
freedoms.When the compulsion is on the state, it is seen as an extension of the duty of the state.
However, questions related to the nature of compulsion – what does it require of the parties on
whom it is imposed? Who imposes compulsion? Is it adequate to realise the right? – remain
largely unanswered even in the international normative articulations.

What has compulsory education meant in India?

The earliest effort to introduce free and compulsory education was Gokhale’s Bill in the Imperial
Legislative Assembly in 1911, which proposed abolition of child labour among boys and imposed

17
Archana Mehendale

taxation to provide free education for poor families. This was defeated because it would create
a problem of availability of cheap agricultural labour. Moreover, the elite did not support the
taxation of the rich for the education of the masses (Kumar 1991). The origins of legislation on
compulsory education can be traced to the colonial period when, like other British colonies,
India also adopted legislation on free and compulsory education almost alongside legislation
outlawing employment of children in factories and mines. These were promulgated at the pro-
vincial level and worked on a schema wherein local authorities had the discretion to notify the
applicability of free and compulsory education in their jurisdiction. In some provinces, local
authorities could put in place exemptions on the basis of gender or other criteria. These legisla-
tions were modelled on truancy law and compelled children to attend school. Parents and
employers could be penalised for keeping children away from school. The legislation provided
bureaucratic procedures including issuance of show-­cause notices to parents and levying fines
and penalties against them. Although this idea of compulsion was linked with imposition of
force and authority, the legislation also provided for ‘reasonable excuses for non-­attendance’ that
allowed children to stay away from school. These included lack of educational facilities, condi-
tions of physical and mental disability, and other circumstances that may require children to stay
at home.
After Independence, these legislations remained in force in several states,11 but their imple-
mentation remained weak (Law Commission of India 1998: 70). Weiner (1991) explained this
lack of implementation as being a result of the deeply entrenched caste system. He argued that
by not providing free and compulsory education, differentiation among social classes was being
maintained with the aim of preserving the existing social arrangements. Weiner’s main theory
about lack of political will to implement free and compulsory education legislation can be sum-
marised as:

India’s low per capita income and economic situation is less relevant as an explanation than
the belief systems of the state bureaucracy, a set of beliefs that are widely shared by educa-
tors, social activists, trade unionists, academic researchers, and, more broadly, by members of
the Indian middle class. These beliefs are held by those outside as well as those within
government, by observant Hindus and by those who regard themselves as secular, and by
leftists as well as by centrists and rightists. At the core of these beliefs are the Indian view of
the social order, notions concerning the respective roles of upper and lower social strata, the
role of education as a means of maintaining differentiations among social classes, and con-
cerns that ‘excessive’ and ‘inappropriate’ education for the poor would disrupt existing
social arrangements.
(Weiner 1991: 5)

Juneja (1997) showed how the officials responsible for enforcing the legislation were not
aware of the provisions and their mandate and how the enforcement of compulsory education
was ‘actively discouraged’ from the early 1960s. In other words, free and compulsory education
failed to have any impact in India, and compulsion on parents and employers was rarely enforced.
What is important to note is that the state itself was not duty-­bound to provide education in any
way, and the legislation was merely enabling in nature.
The 86th Amendment and the RTE Act brought a paradigm shift in the schema of the leg-
islation, although the phrase ‘free and compulsory education’ continues to be used. The consid-
erable confusion that surrounds the use of rather contradictory terms such as ‘right’ and
‘compulsory’ can be attributed to the ambiguity related to the nature of compulsion imagined
in the ­legislation. When the Parliamentary Standing Committee (1997) deliberated on an

18
 Compulsion to educate

early draft of the constitutional amendment bill, it held that reference to compulsion in the
language of a fundamental right can cause confusion and there is a need to clarify on whom
does the compulsion lie under the ‘fundamental right to compulsory education’. It recom-
mended that the compulsion should lie on the state, which is duty-­bound to fulfil and protect a
fundamental right. The Saikia Committee (1996) had earlier observed that if compulsion is
placed on the state, it will open the floodgates for litigation and state education departments will
be overburdened with court cases. The Law Commission of India, in its 165th report (1998),
had recommended a different approach to compulsion and the legislation as a whole. It had
suggested that the central government adopt a minimal skeletal legislation leaving the state gov-
ernments with guidelines to amend existing state legislations or enact new ones. It recom-
mended making it compulsory for the parents and guardians to send their children to school.
Furthermore, it recommended that the state legislation should provide for ‘permissive compul-
sion’, which would allow state governments and local authorities to enforce the law selectively
in a phased manner, grounds for exemption from compulsory schooling, and minimum and
maximum punishments that can be imposed on defaulting parents. It observed that persuasion
and incentives are not enough and some amount of compulsion is necessary. It clarified that ‘a
statute imposing compulsion is no encroachment on any fundamental right, for no one has any
right to remain ignorant and illiterate’. The report also extended the idea of compulsion to
obligation on the state, parents, and society as a whole. These ambiguities around the nature and
meaning of compulsion continued to remain unaddressed even in the legislation itself.
It is argued that the state that had failed to enforce compulsory education through its local
authorities and attendance authorities would be ineffective in discharging its duties of providing
education to all.Yet, compulsion has been imposed on the state. As the explanatory note provided
under Section 8(1) of the RTE Act clarifies, the compulsion is on the state and not on the parents.
Since the local authorities are required to ensure free and compulsory education of all children, it
is not clear how the local authorities will ensure that all the children are in school without bring-
ing in an element of compulsion. The new legislation works on the assumption that all children,
if given a chance, would like to be in school, that children have stability in their lives and have a
place to stay, and that they are interested in formal schooling and investing in their future.
Moreover, there is no reference to the child and her agency. The legislation, which provides chil-
dren a right, does not factor in possibilities that children may exercise their agency and not wish
to attend school. Therefore, children effectively are also under the compulsion to attend schools.

Is compulsory education free?

National and international law prescribe that compulsory education is also ‘free’. This implies
that while parents are under the compulsion to send their children to school, the state is under
the obligation to provide such education free of charge. Even though ‘right to free and compul-
sory education’ is a universally established legal norm,Tomasevski (2006) argues that in develop-
ing and transition countries, up to 35 per cent of the cost of education is borne privately. This
goes against the principle that education should be free for the users because getting educated
is mandatory for all children. Her review of education law and practice in 170 countries shows
that more than 20 different charges can be imposed on children, and children are pushed out of
schools as the costs of schooling increase.Wherever countries have compensated families for lost
revenue in sending children to school, there has been better retention of children in education.
Even though India has the highest number of child labourers in the world, the notion of free
education in India does not include the idea of compensating parents for the opportunity costs
involved in sending their children to school instead of sending them to work as wage labour.

19
Archana Mehendale

Free education has meant that government schools would not charge fees at the elementary
level. Tilak (1996) shows how this entitlement of free education even in a restricted sense is
violated by government schools. Using National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data, he
shows that households spend large sums of money on acquiring primary education, and students
pay tuition fees, examination fees, and other fees even in government primary schools, and
incentives are not available for all students. Against this background, it is pertinent to note that
Section 3(2) of the RTE Act provides that ‘no child shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or
charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing the elemen-
tary education’. This is applicable in government schools and in unaided non-­minority private
schools for children admitted under the provisions of Section 12(1)(c),12 unlike the colonial
education legislation which guaranteed free education only in government schools. Although
state rules have reiterated that no charges or fees should be levied by private schools on children
admitted through this provision, evidence shows that schools have imposed various kinds of fees
on these children. Furthermore, most private schools have not received timely and complete
reimbursements from state governments, resulting in the schools passing on these charges to the
children (Mehendale et al. 2015; Sarin and Gupta 2014). An important underlying principle on
which the provision of free education rests is the premise that education is a charitable activity
and cannot be run as a profit-­making enterprise.13 Yet, the RTE Act shies away from applying
this principle in the regulation of private schools and does not deal with the issue of high fees
charged by private schools.
To summarise, the 86th Amendment and the RTE Act use the term ‘free’ and ‘compulsory’
in a manner very different from the colonial legislation on free and compulsory education. The
entitlement to free education is now extended to unaided non-­minority private schools, but
what constitutes ‘free education’ in these private schools is left widely open-­ended. While the
compulsion was clearly on the parents (and partially on the employers) in the older legislation,
the new legislation places compulsion primarily on the state (at all three levels – centre, state,
and local authorities), on private schools, parents, and effectively also on children. The idea of
compulsion does not fit into the new vocabulary of rights and entitlements. The term is a
superfluous remnant. As the legislation provides for duties of the state, it was not necessary for
the legislation to carry the term compulsory in order to convey that the compulsion is on the
state. On the other hand, by keeping an anachronous term such as compulsion, it has left room
for ambiguities in interpretation and subtly underlined the idea of ‘shared compulsion’, wherein
the compulsion is in fact placed on not just the state but also on the private entities (schools as
well as parents) and the children themselves.

Gaps and issues

The process of policy-­making is essentially a political one, which entails balancing and mediat-
ing between contesting interests, values, and priorities. This is true of the process of law-­making
in India, wherein democratic processes such as expression of political contestation do not come
to a close with the formulation of legislation, but carry over and resurface during the continuous
processes of interpretation and implementation. A number of ambiguities (both conceptual and
normative), gaps, and questions that remained unsettled, negotiated, and ignored during the
process of the formulation of RTE, have surfaced between 2010 and 2015, a period when RTE
was being tested as a ‘living document’. The scope and applicability of the RTE, its limits and
significance, the meaning of its provisions, and its relation to other legislative norms have been
elaborated upon by all three arms of the government. Parliament amended the RTE Act in 2012
and specified a definition of children with disabilities, their right to home-­based schooling, private

20
 Compulsion to educate

unaided schools, and minority institutions with School Management Committees playing an
advisory role. The state legislature of Rajasthan and Karnataka have contemplated amending the
RTE Act for their respective states.14 Five years after having supported the adoption of the origi-
nal Act, these state governments are considering amendments that will address their specific
requirements and concerns about the RTE Act. The proposals for such amendments underline
the fact that RTE is subject to testing and amendments through a process of continued contesta-
tions among various stakeholders. The executive has utilised its powers to give directions under
Section 35(1) and has issued a number of explanatory advisories and guidelines on matters such
as neighbourhood schools, screening procedures, grievance redress by local authorities, and so
on. These directions have intended to clarify the scope of specific provisions and put some of
the controversies to rest. The third arm of the government, the judiciary, has played a crucial role
in interpreting the scope of duties and rights enunciated in the RTE Act, particularly the exclu-
sion of minority-­run schools from the purview of the RTE Act.15 This brief comment on the
role of the three arms of the government in dealing with enduring tensions and contestations
about the RTE Act reflects the discordance that prevails between these institutions. For instance,
executive actions (and inactions) pertaining to Teachers’ Eligibility Tests have been challenged in
the courts.16 Although the legislature intended that certain provisions such as recognition of
private schools17 and provision of qualified teachers18 be time bound, the state governments have
not implemented these provisions within the stipulated timeframe, thereby diluting the legisla-
tive intent.
While the RTE Act passes through a course of re-­interpretation and revisions, two distinct
streams are evident. The first stream consists of different issues and questions pertaining to the
legal provisions that are on the ‘official agenda’. These are questions and problems that the gov-
ernment itself recognises as being worthy of review and reconsideration. These are backed by
interest groups and stakeholders, including school managements, parents, teachers, and others.
These issues straddle and find space between the official agenda and review, as well as the public
discourse, which is largely shaped by the media. One example of the issues falling under the first
stream is that of the application of the RTE Act to the minority-­run institutions, which was not
mentioned in the legislation itself. Given that religious and linguistic minority schools have a
constitutional right to establish and administer institutions without state interference (Article 30
of the Constitution), the imposition of, particularly, Section 12(1)(c) requiring private schools
to offer admission to children of disadvantaged and economically weaker backgrounds was chal-
lenged in the courts. In a way, the silence of the legislation on this matter necessitated the courts
to interpret and settle it.19
Another example is that of quality of education, which is not explicitly defined although all
schools are required to ensure particular standards of infrastructure, duration of class hours, quali-
fied teachers, curriculum, and evaluation (Mehendale 2014). In a system governed by the prin-
ciples of New Public Management and goal-­driven regulation (Dale 1997), quality is construed
as production of minimum learning outcomes; the fact that the RTE Act does not guarantee
these measures of quality is being questioned. Data from the National Achievement Survey
(Government of India, n.d.) and Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER 2014) show that a
large number of students are unable to demonstrate minimum competencies in language and
mathematics, and it is contended that the RTE Act is unable to address this paradox. States like
Gujarat and Kerala have tried to bring in references to learning outcomes and independent
assessments within the state rules, thereby attempting to guarantee right to ‘quality’ education.20
The issue of corporal punishment in schools found a place on the official agenda, with the
guidelines issued by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights in response to
increasing cases of corporal punishment in schools. Being a recommendatory body, the

21
Archana Mehendale

enforceability of its guidelines is limited, yet it has brought to light the inadequacy of existing
legal provisions on corporal punishment. Not only is there no separate offence under the Indian
Penal Code on corporal punishment meted out by those who are in loco parentis, but in fact it
takes a lenient view, with Sections 88 and 89 providing immunity to a person inflicting corporal
punishment on a child if such punishment is inflicted ‘in good faith for the child’s benefit’
(NCPCR, n.d.). There has been a lot of contention around the no-­detention provision and the
requirement of continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE), bringing these matters back
to the drafting table. The Gita Bhukkal Committee (Ministry of Human Resources Development
2014) objected to these provisions and recommended that learning outcomes are measured in
schools, that ‘performance-­driven culture’ is catalysed in the schools, and no-­detention is imple-
mented in a phased manner.21 The Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), the highest
federal advisory body on education, recommended that the no-­detention policy under the RTE
be revoked.22 The state of Rajasthan has proposed to amend the RTE Act to delete the
­no-­detention clause in its application within the state.23
The second stream consists of issues and questions pertaining to the RTE Act that remain on
the periphery and have not yet become part of the official agenda. Despite the backing of inter-
est groups and civil society organisations, these issues have neither received serious attention and
consideration of policy-­makers, nor have they been at the forefront in the public discourse and
media coverage. They continue to remain on the periphery as ‘gaps’ or agenda issues-­in-­waiting.
For example, the definition of teacher and her status is not included in the RTE Act. In fact, it
remains silent on who is a teacher, particularly with reference to her status and position within
the school, the education system and effectively within society as a whole. Although it specifies
the minimum qualifications that a teacher has to fulfil and the duties she is bound to perform,
it does not deal with the differentiated working realities of elementary school teachers in India.
The presence of various categories of teachers, referred to by different names, appointed by dif-
ferent authorities (both public and private), on different service terms and conditions, with dif-
ferent kinds of job requirements, has not been acknowledged by the RTE Act. The fact that the
state governments are primarily responsible for decisions on teachers’ service matters has been a
convenient ‘escape hatch’ for the central government.
Another example is that of the rights of young children to early childhood care and educa-
tion, which was debated during the formulation of the RTE Act, but was included only as a
discretionary obligation of state governments. Since then, the issue has remained on the periph-
ery despite advocacy groups demanding its inclusion through an amendment. Given that differ-
ent parent ministries are responsible for school education and early childhood care and education,
the matter has remained unresolved within the government itself. Similarly, lack of inter-­
ministerial coordination around child-­related legislation, particularly children with disabilities,
child labourers, children in need of care and protection, and children allegedly in conflict with
the law, has pushed the right of education of these categories of children to the margins. Even
though these categories together account for the majority of out-­of-­school children and hence
deserve to be seen as primary beneficiaries of the right to education, the existing legal provisions
are inadequate in addressing their actual needs. Another key matter that has seen state indiffer-
ence is the establishment of effective mechanisms for grievance redress and monitoring. The
local authorities and the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights at the central and state
levels, although meant to dispense with cases and violations under the RTE Act through a more
accessible administrative channel, have remained non-­functional, thereby leaving the right-­
holders with the sole option of taking a judicial recourse. Given that such an option of approach-
ing the High Court or Supreme Court is beyond the reach of those whose rights stand violated,
the right remains largely unexercised by the primary right-­holders.

22
 Compulsion to educate

The location of issues in either stream is not on account of their ‘merit’ in terms of how
critical they are to the fulfilment of the objects of the RTE Act. On the other hand, they reflect
the political process of balancing between the competing interests that continue to be deter-
mined by complex factors. In a democratic society, the constant shaping and re-­shaping of
public opinion and political preferences and the slow, iterative response of policies/legislation to
such processes ensure that no change is drastic and unimplementable. The RTE Act, although
appearing only as an aspirational piece of legislation, shows the way in which school reforms are
headed.

Conclusion
The recognition of the right to education as a justiciable Fundamental Right is a milestone in
the history of education in India because of its legal, political, and administrative significance. It
has heralded a significant departure from the earlier colonial legislation in terms of the way in
which ‘free’ and ‘compulsory’ have been understood and defined. This corresponds to the
changing education scenario and emerging role of private actors in education provision, which
the new legal regime tries to simultaneously accommodate and regulate. The process by which
the right to education became a constitutional right and the ensuing enactment and implemen-
tation of the RTE Act manifest the underlying contestations and tensions. A selective surfacing
of some of the issues on the official agenda, while sidelining other critical ones and the resulting
reviews, revisions, and reimagination of the original legislative intent, indicates that the RTE Act
remains a constantly negotiated instrument. Lack of acknowledgement of the complexity of
implementation and the resulting slow pace at which the legal provisions are interpreted and
mediated at the local level could result in summarily dismissing the workability of specific legal
provisions or the legislation itself. Given the significance of this Fundamental Right, there is a
need to guard against any such premature dismissal of the established statutory norms.

Notes
1 AIR 1992 SC 1858.
2 (1993) 1 SCC 645.
3 For example, the South African Constitution, which provides for the right to basic education, including
adult education.
4 The Compulsory Education Law of People’s Republic of China (1986, revised in 2006) provides
nine years of free and compulsory education and mandates the state to guarantee funds. The Japanese
Constitution and the Basic Act on Education (2006) and the Basic Plan for Promotion of Education
guarantee nine years of free and compulsory education. In the UK, the Education and Skills Act 2008
was amended so as to guarantee state-­provided free and compulsory education to children of 5–18 years.
5 See Article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 and the
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), General Comment No. 13: The
Right to Education (Art. 13 of the Covenant), 8 December 1999, E/C.12/1999/10, available at: www.
refworld.org/docid/4538838c22.html (accessed 27 October 2015).
6 The Performance Audit Report (Report no. 15 of 2006) of the Comptroller and Auditor General of
India highlighted that
the objective of SSA was to enroll all out-of-school children in school, education guarantee
centres, alternate schools and back to school camps by 2003. The date was revised to 2005 only
in March 2005. However, out of 3.40 crore children (as on 1 April 2001), 1.36 crore (40 per
cent) children in the age group of 6–14 years remained out of school as on March 2005 four
years after the implementation of the scheme and after having incurred an expenditure of Rs.
11133.57 crore.
(Para. 7.3.2)

23
Archana Mehendale

7 ‘Mission mode’ refers to projects such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan that have clearly defined objectives,
scope, implementation timelines and milestones, as well as measurable outcomes and service levels.
These were donor-­supported and were implemented by a structure that ran parallel to the state struc-
ture in terms of funding, accounting, and monitoring, but was run with members from the state educa-
tion department and consultants.
8 Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India (2012) 6 SCC 1.
9 Article 19(1)(g) is a fundamental right which provides freedom to practise any profession, or to carry
on any occupation, trade, or business.
10 Article 19(6) is a fundamental right which states that nothing provided for in Article 19(1)(g) can
­prevent the state from making any law imposing, in the interests of the general public, reasonable
restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by said subclause.
11 Nineteen states and Union Territories had legislation on free and compulsory education as per the
165th report of the Law Commission of India (para. 6.2). These were adopted between 1917 and
1995 and were loosely modelled on the Delhi Education Act, 1960 with some state-­level variations.
See also Juneja (2003) for a list of pre-­Independence and post-­Independence legislation on compulsory
education.
12 Section 12(1)(c) provides that private schools should allocate 25 per cent of their seats starting Grade 1
or preschool, whichever is earlier, to children belonging to disadvantaged and economically weaker
sections. This is supplemented by Section 12(2) which mandates state governments to compensate
the private schools to the extent of per-­child expenditure incurred by the state or the actual amount
charged due to the child, whichever is less.
13 See Supreme Court decision in P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharasthra decided on 12 August 2005 and
reported in (2005) 6 SCC 537.
14 State amendment of a central legislation is possible within the framework of Article 254 of the
Constitution. States can bring in an amendment as education is a concurrent subject, but they will have
to seek the President’s assent if it has to survive a challenge of repugnancy with the Central Law as per
Article 254(2). If they don’t seek the President’s assent, the bill will be hit by Article 254(1) and can
be challenged on grounds of repugnancy. The proviso of Article 254(2) allows Parliament to bring in
legislation that can even repeal such a legislation brought by the state.
15 See Pramati Educational & Cultural Trust v. Union of India (2014) 8 SCC 1.
16 A large number of cases filed at the High Court level come from aggrieved candidates who are chal-
lenging the state decisions on eligibility criteria, relaxation of norms on pass percentage, declaration of
results, and appointments.
17 As per Section 19 of the RTE Act, schools were given three years after the commencement of the Act
to meet the infrastructure norms as specified under the Schedule of the Act.
18 As per Section 23(2) of the RTE Act, state governments were given five years after the commencement
of the Act to put in place adequate teacher educational institutions in the state.
19 See Pramati Educational & Cultural Trust v. Union of India.
20 Rules notified by Gujarat and Kerala both refer to provision for independent periodic assessments to
present school quality reports (Gujarat Rule 27 and Kerala Rules 7(i) and 20(3)). Gujarat allows schools
seeking recognition to relax the infrastructure norms as long as they are able to demonstrate learning
outcomes (Rule 15). Kerala only prescribes setting up norms and standards on quality (Rule 7a).
21 Opinions of experts and politicians were divided on this crucial issue.
22 This recommendation was made during the 63rd meeting of the CABE held on 19 August 2015.
23 See The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment Bill), 2015 (Bill no. 34 of
2015), introduced in the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly.

References
Annual Status of Education Report (ASER). 2014. New Delhi: ASER Centre (accessed at http://img.
asercentre.org/docs/Publications/ASER%20Reports/ASER%202014/National%20PPTs/aser-
2014indiaenglish.pdf on 22 June 2015).
Dale, R.1997. The state and governance of education: an analysis of the restructuring of the state–educa-
tion relationship. In Education: Culture, Economy, Society, edited by A.H. Halsey, Hugh Lauder, Philip
Brown, and Amy Stuart Wells. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Government of India. n.d. National Achievement Survey (accessed at http://mhrd.gov.in/?q=nas on 22
June 2015).

24
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Heymann, J., Raub, A., and Cassola, A. 2014. Constitutional rights to education and their relationship to
national policy and school enrolment. International Journal of Educational Development 39: 131–141.
Inter-­Agency Commission. 1990. World declaration on Education for All and framework for action to
meet basic learning needs.
Juneja, N. 1997. Right of the Child to Education and issues in implementation of compulsory education:
perceptions of education administrators. New Frontiers in Education, 27(1).
Juneja, N. 2003. Constitutional amendment to make education a fundamental right: issues for a follow-­up
legislation. Occasional Paper 33. New Delhi: NIEPA.
Kashyap, S.C. 1986. Constitution Amendment in India. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat.
Kumar, K. 1991. Political Agenda of Education: a Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas. New Delhi: Sage
Publications.
Law Commission of India. 1998. 165th Report on Free and Compulsory Education for Children. New Delhi:
Law Commission of India.
Mehendale, A. 2014. The question of ‘quality’ in education: does the RTE Act provide an answer? Journal
of International Co-­operation in Education, 16(2): 87–103.
Mehendale, A., Mukhopadhyay, R., and Namala, A. 2015. Right to Education and inclusion in private
unaided schools. Economic & Political Weekly, 50(7): 43.
Ministry of Human Resources Development. 2010. Report of the Committee on Implementation of The
Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and the resultant revamp of Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan.
Ministry of Human Resources Development. 2014. Report of CABE Sub-­Committee on Assessment and
Implementation of CCE and No-­Detention Provision (under RTE Act, 2009) (accessed at http://
mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/document-­reports/AssmntCCE.pdf on 15 October 2015).
National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). n.d. Eliminating corporal punishment in
schools (accessed at www.ncpcr.gov.in/view_file.php?fid=108, on 15 October 2015).
Ramamurti, A. 1990. Report of the Review Committee on the National Policy on Education 1986. New Delhi:
Government of India.
Sarin, A. and Gupta, S. 2014. Quotas under the Right to Education. The Economic & Political Weekly,
49(38): 65.
Supreme Court of India. 2008. Judgment, Ashok Kumar Thakur v. Union of India, 10 April.
Tilak, J.B.G. 1996. How free is free primary education in India. The Economic and Political Weekly, 31(5):
355–366.
Tomasevski, K. 2006. The State of the Right to Education Worldwide. Free or Fee: 2006 Global Report.
Copenhagen: n.p.
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. General Comment No. 11: Plans of Action for
Primary Education (Art. 14 of the Covenant), 10 May 1999, E/1992/23 (accessed at www.refworld.org/
docid/4538838c0.html on 1 June 2015).
Weiner, Myron. 1991. The Child and the State in India: Child Labor and Education Policy in Comparative
Perspective. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wheare, K.C. 1966. Modern Constitutions. London: Oxford University Press.

25
 2
Education in urban areas
Nalini Juneja

The urban population worldwide exceeded, for the first time, its rural population in 2009. In
India, although only 27.8 per cent of the population is as yet ‘urban’, the growth of urban popu-
lation also exceeded rural growth for the first time in the Indian Census of 2011. Theoretically
this urban population is spread among 7,935 towns.1 In reality, however, the distribution is ‘top
heavy’ (Kundu 2014: 202), with about a quarter of the urbanites concentrated only in five ‘mega’
cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, and Bengaluru. The rest are distributed among towns
and cities of varying sizes. Fifty-­three of these cities are large enough, with populations exceed-
ing one million, to be called metropolitan cities.
In India, urban areas are generally assumed to be well resourced and privileged – a logic which
suggests that policy interventions might be more useful if focused on the real problems of educa-
tion of those residing in villages. Any ‘theory’ of rural location of educational problems would
soon find itself at odds when confronted with the enrolment data of urban schools (Table 2.1),
showing that their share of enrolment in the private sector (comprising the aided, unaided, and
unrecognised) far exceeds enrolment in government ones. Among them, unaided schools have
the largest share of both schools and enrolment, while the enrolment share of aided schools (18
per cent) is remarkable in comparison to their much lower share of schools (11 per cent).
Table 2.1 is also testimony to ‘trouble in (the urban) paradise’, for it shows that privately
managed schools, which nationally constitute only 23 per cent of all schools in India,2 consti-
tute over 63 per cent of all schools in urban areas, and accommodate over 70 per cent of enrol-
ment. In the ‘believed-­to-­be-­privileged’ urban areas, government schools – which are the only
ones providing free and accessible education to the poorest – are far fewer than fee-­charging
private schools, despite 26.4 per cent of the urban population (in 2011–12) estimated to be
living below the poverty line (Rangarajan 2014: 5) and the presence of huge slum populations.
According to the 2011 census, the slum population is estimated to be 41.3 per cent of all
households in Mumbai; 29.6 per cent in Kolkata (Municipal Corporation (MC)); 28.5 per cent
in Chennai (MC).
The Census information, along with Table 2.1, provides a glimpse of much that one might
expect to see in cities in India – high population density, congestion, large numbers living in
poverty, slums, a disproportionate ratio of free government schools to fee-­charging private
schools – and hence, inequity and disparity next to abundance for some.

26 DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-4
 Education in urban areas

Table 2.1 Elementary education: urban schools and enrolment 2014–15

Management Schools Enrolment

Government 83,320 (36.3%) 21,169,853 (29.8%)

Private aided 25,196 (11.0%) 12,793,024 (18.0%)
Private unaided 111,419 (48.5%) 35,489,823 (49.9%)
Others (Madrasas, recognised and unrecognised; 9,559 (4.2%) 1,655,665 (2.3%)
unrecognised schools)
Total 229,494 (100%) 71,108,365 (100%)

Source: As on 30 September 2014. Table obtained by special request to DISE, NUEPA.

In order to understand the origin of some current issues in education belonging uniquely to
the cities in India, this chapter will take a brief look at the developmental history of Indian cities
with a focus on education. From this perspective, in subsequent sections it will first attempt to
present as inevitable the growing stratification among schools; it will then highlight the conse-
quences of a unique and surviving pattern of education imposed on the ‘presidency cities’ dur-
ing the British Raj; and finally, it will throw light on the effects of city master plans on the
education scene and on the RTE Act of 2009. At the outset, however, this chapter attempts to
clarify the terms ‘urban schools’ and ‘urban education’, which in American educational journals
may carry a meaning rooted in the history of US cities, but are interpreted and used very dif-
ferently in India and in this chapter.

‘Urban education’ (USA)

The terms ‘urban schools’ and ‘urban education’ carry different meanings in the USA and India.
In the American context, reference is made to ‘inner city schools’ attended by children of the
poorer sections, usually of ‘colour’ (a euphemism for African-­ Americans and Asians) and
migrants, whereas the better schools attended by the socio-­economically privileged usually lie
outside the city ‘in the suburbs’. In Indian cities, on the other hand, it is the poor who tend to
live on the outskirts of cities in slums, while the so-­called posh areas and the ‘best’ schools may
be found in the heart of the city. These differences might be ascribed to the processes of urban-
isation and to the funding pattern of schools in the USA.
Public schools in the USA were truly public in the way they served their local communities
and, at least initially, were usually financed by voluntary contributions and later through local
property taxes. ‘This tradition had real advantages because many families were living in small,
relatively isolated communities with similar standards of living’ (Biddle and Berliner 2002: 49).
With increasing urbanisation, people from these small communities moved to cities.When these
cities became overcrowded, those who were well-­off moved to the expanding suburbs and in
doing so reduced the tax base of the cities. It was at this point, according to Biddle and Berliner,
that the system developed faults:

Parents who moved to affluent suburbs were generally willing to fund well-­equipped,
well-­staffed public schools for their own children, but – familiar only with the tradition
that public schools should be funded locally – they saw little reason to pay additional taxes
to fund equivalent schools for the impoverished students left behind in city centres or
rural towns.
(Biddle and Berliner 2002: 49)

27
Nalini Juneja

With those who were better-­off moving to the more desirable living environments of the
suburbs, the ‘urban schools’, as the schools in the cities came to be known, were left to serve
neighbourhoods ‘in which there were high concentrations of poverty … accompanied by the
concentration of undesirable conditions to which children were exposed, such as education
failure, violence, crime, welfare dependency, and family disruption’ (NCES 1996: 3).
Adding insult to injury as it were, ‘children raised in these surroundings were labelled
“deprived” or “disadvantaged” and … depicted as requiring special educational interventions’
(Rury and Mirel 1977: 61).
One may wonder if it is merely a coincidence that the term used in the Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan (SSA) for children needing special educational interventions in cities in India is ‘urban
deprived’, whereas there is no corresponding label for children needing special interventions in
rural areas.

Development of cities and education in India

The process of India’s urbanisation differed from that of the West. Patel (2006) points out that
cities were first developed by the colonial state, and later through the intervention of the inde-
pendent nation state. Under the British Raj, caste and hierarchy in new forms were created
when the traditionally landed elite became the propertied class in the new cities as well (Patel
2006). Thus cities like Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras ‘became the prime cities which were also
the seats of imported culture’ (Das 1981: 54).
In the creation of these cities, the intention of the colonial rulers, according to Kundu (2014),
was to provide high-­quality civic amenities to themselves, to the elites linked to them, and to
those who could afford high prices. Consequently ‘public facilities were concentrated in towns
and cities and were available to the privileged sections of the urban community with access to
the rural population being negligible’ (Kundu 2014: 194). Cities in India continue to have better
social and physical infrastructure, including more educational facilities,

as is reflected in a higher percentage of literate and educated persons in these cities and
[they] are also able to attract educated migrants from all over the country seeking higher
education or skilled employment in modern and capital-­intensive activities that have grown
significantly in recent years.
(Kundu 2014: 209)

Schools, concentrated in urban areas, underwent an administrative change when the manage-
ment of government schools, following the recommendation of the Indian Education
Commission (1881–82), was transferred to district and municipal boards with the view that
primary education of the masses should be the first charge in the care of the state, while all
government secondary schools should be transferred to local, native management. Soon, under
a system of grants-­in-­aid, the government devolved greater responsibility of the direct manage-
ment of education by handing over its primary schools to municipalities and the secondary ones
to private institutions in the urban areas. At that time, the large municipalities were those of the
presidency cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.
From the presidency cities, this pattern of municipal primary followed by private-­aided pro-
visioning of secondary education spread to all municipal corporations in the provinces in which
these cities were located, and continued thus even after Independence. For example, primary
education first became a municipal function in the presidency city of Bombay, then in all other
municipal corporations in the province of Bombay (which at one time included Gujarat); and

28
 Education in urban areas

ultimately after the reorganisation of states, this pattern continued in all municipal corporations
in both Gujarat and Maharashtra, even though the arrangement outside of such cities was dif-
ferent. Thus, in some cities, the educational devolution to municipal corporations had been a
reality for almost 100 years by the time primary education was devolved to rural local bodies.
After Independence, one of the features distinguishing cities as they evolved was the idea
during the third plan period that their spatial development should be guided by a ‘master plan’.
The city master plans that evolved during this period created a rightful place, literally, for schools
within the planned cities by providing for land allotments, virtually free of cost, for public pur-
poses such as schools (Juneja 2005a).
Today, as will be seen in the sections that follow, these historical characteristics of cities con-
tinue to bear on education in the urban context in India.

Section I

Stratification
Despite the global trend towards the adoption of market-­led ideas and growing popularity of
private schools,Table 2.1, showing the share of private schools to be over 63 per cent of all urban
schools in India and their enrolment share to be exceeding 70 per cent of all urban enrolment,
does indeed generate concerns for equality and equity of educational opportunity, especially in
cities where private schools are concentrated. Cities especially have seen increasing economic
differentiation, linguistic dichotomisation, and segregation among schooling opportunities. In its
largest cities, the variety of schools to be seen in India perhaps leaves behind almost every city
in the world. The variation among schools has been oft described and commented upon by
Juneja (2003, 2005a, 2010, 2014).
The type of school attended, and the medium of instruction, apart from being signifiers of
status, have important implications for life outcomes, a fact well-­recognised by ‘the affluent and
the middle class [who] had forsaken state-­run schools in the 1960s and 1970s’ (Farooqui 1998:
329), and increasingly by the poor seeking to enrol their children in one of the ‘mushrooming
private schools, aimed at the urban poor whose key selling point is often the provision of English
as a medium of instruction’ (Miller 2005: 115); or in an elite private school through admission
by lottery under the quota reserved under Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act 2009.
English has been the language of power since colonial times; even now, with market forces
and globalisation, since ‘English functions as a major business tongue’ (Nilekeni 2009: xii) and is
seen as key to economic success and getting a good job; this trend, Miller (2005) notes, has con-
tinued and even been reinforced in post-­colonial India, especially in large urban centres, as
confirmed empirically by Munshi and Rosenzweig (2006) in the city of Mumbai.

Private schools
Private schools can range from the large elite ones to unrecognised, low-­fee ones in the bylanes.
The elite schools, many set up before Independence, were once usually either missionary schools
or the ‘public schools’ established in the colonial tradition to ‘adapt the good things of British
public school life and administration to the Indian ways of life’ (Srivastava 2005: 3). In cities like
Delhi, according to Farooqui (1998), even in the 1960s ‘private enterprise in a key area like
school education was a reality of life long before liberalisation became fashionable’ (p. 328).
Now, increasingly the most prestigious schools in cities tend to belong to national or even inter-
national chains of schools, and could even be affiliated to foreign boards such as the International

29
Nalini Juneja

Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge International Examination (CIE). Such is the popularity of
these international schools that their numbers have seen tenfold growth in the past decade
(Panda 2015).

Low-fee private and unrecognised schools

Not all of the urban children attending private schools are enrolled in elite schools. Of late, a
large number of new, non-­elite, low-­fee, and often unrecognised private schools have arisen in
cities, towns, and even in rural areas to accommodate the demand that government schools can-
not or do not meet. De et al. (2002), in a study conducted in three northern states, found that
117 (70 per cent) of the 167 unaided private schools that had come up in recent years were in
urban areas, where ‘in the last 10 years, no new government schools have been set up’ (De et al.
2002: 5231). These schools served the less privileged sections of the population who were left
with little choice because ‘government schools are few in number and hard to find’ (Noronha
et al. 2005: 107). In urban areas especially, they held the government to blame for the spawn and
spread of private schools:

What children have today in these towns is a government primary system in which little
investment is being made, in spite of the new demands of Education for All. Schools are
dwindling in quantity and often in quality, ignoring the problems of constant inmigration
to urban areas. It is no wonder that children are flocking to the new private cram schools….
All kinds of shoddy arrangements are flowering in the name of private schools.
(Noronha et al. 2005: 111)

A study by Juneja (2001a) bears out the tardy pace of growth in government provisioning in
cities. This study found that in Kanpur, over a four-­year period, no new government school had
come up although 80 new private schools had been established. Similarly, in Surat, 81 per cent,
in Nagpur 70.6 per cent, and in Indore, 55 per cent of new schools were in the private sector.
A major attraction of these low-­fee private schools is that they purport to teach in English
as a medium of instruction; Noronha et al. (2005) report ‘much imitation of elite private
schools not only in belts and ties and benches but also in the teaching of English’ (p. 105), a
finding supported by other researchers on private schools in towns and cities across India
(Miller 2005; Ohara 2012; Srivastava 2008; Tooley 2009; Tooley and Dixon 2003). Nilekeni
(2009: xii) sees in the low-­fee private schools an instrument ‘for not just more choice, but also
greater power’.
Although schools in India are ‘non-­profit’ organisations, or at least by law they are supposed
to be, efforts are reportedly underway to study how low-­fee private schools catering to the city
poor can function as tools of ‘social capitalism’.3 Research by Tooley and Dixon (2003) and
Tooley (2009) made no secret of their profit motive and their search for a business model for use
across India and in other developing countries. Similar research in other parts of India and advo-
cacy of for-­profit private schools for the poor through state-­supported vouchers to enable chil-
dren to access schools of their choice has also grown – a phenomenon perceived by Nambissan
and Ball (2010) and Nambissan (2015) as part of organised attempts to ‘institutionalise market
principles in education’ and to create ‘pressure for legal changes for for-­profit schooling and
vouchers’ (Nambissan and Ball 2010: 17).
As it is, about 4 per cent of urban schools were identified in Table 2.1 as ‘unrecognised’ – i.e.
not registered by local authorities. (Madrasas are included in that category on account of their
exemption from registration under the RTE Act 2009.) It is generally believed, however, that

30
 Education in urban areas

the number of unrecognised schools is far greater than officially estimated, and the fact that these
schools are able to attract students further testifies to the ability of such schools to cater to
demand not met by the government despite the RTE Act 2009.

‘Quasi-government’ schools
Another category of schools identifying themselves neither as straight-­forwardly ‘government’
nor plainly ‘private’ has emerged in the past few decades. These could be referred to as ‘quasi-­
government’ (Juneja 2010: 21) which, despite the availability of schools under the cantonment
board and central government for children of transferable employees (these schools now increas-
ingly being left to the patronage of lower ranks) were established by registered societies for
children of ‘officers’ of the defence, police, and civil services.

Government schools and differentiation

The label ‘government school’ too can cover a broad range of schools, often in the same city. Of
late, even government schools have been diversifying and differentiating hierarchically in an
unconcealed mimicry of ‘public’ (elite private) ones. In Delhi, for example,‘Sarvodaya Vidyalayas’
were created after the fashion of private whole schools with the justification of providing educa-
tion from grades 1 to 12 ‘under one roof as is being provided in the private public schools’.4 Then in
1996, ‘In order to have at least some government schools, to begin with, having standards com-
parable to those available in the so-­called better public schools’,5 the government provided one Rajkiya
Pratibha Vidyalaya in each of the districts of the state to which children were admitted at pri-
mary by selection. The differential infrastructure, finances, clientele, and even the prestige
enjoyed by these different types of government schools ensures they have little in common other
than the label ‘government school’.

Absence of a ‘school map’

The presence and functioning of such a large and differentiated variety of schools each catering
to a niche clientele inevitably precludes the possibility of the operation by educational authori-
ties of a ‘school map’ which determines ‘school zones’ and restricts schooling choices, if any, to
within these zones. Consequently, it is common in all towns and cities in India to find large
numbers of children being ferried from one end of the city to the other in order to attend the
school chosen by their parents, or as is more likely to be the case, the school to which they have
been able to secure admission. ‘It is not uncommon for children to daily traverse a distance of
50 km to and from school’ (Farooqui 1998: 328).
This large-­scale movement of children has in turn given rise to yet another set of phenomena
related uniquely to education in the city, namely the school transport lobby, road accidents, and
toxic fumes causing lung diseases among children.

School transport lobby

According to a news report of Delhi (Bhatnagar 2013), an estimated 4,200 school buses are
involved in the daily task of ferrying 1.6 million children, using enormous amounts of fuel and
time. This does not include the numbers of children who use other means of transport such as
public buses, vans, cars, taxis, autos, two wheelers, rickshaws, etc. to reach school – a task which
‘often acquires greater significance than the activity related to actually imparting education and

31
Nalini Juneja

the charges for which far exceed tuition fees – which are by no means nominal in private
schools’ (Farooqui 1998: 328).

Road accidents
The costs of lack of operation of school catchment areas are not limited to time and money
alone. According to the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013 (WHO 2014), India has the
highest number of road accidents in the world. Most of these accidents happen in cities. Despite
an estimated 30 per cent of accidents going unreported, the child traffic death rate in India is
4–5 times higher than in other developed nations; 41 per cent of child deaths every year are in
transportation accidents (Mahajan 2014). These alarming statistics are despite the fact that these
do not take into account injuries or cases in which death occurred a few days after the
accident.

Toxic fumes and lung diseases

According to the WHO, 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India, with Delhi
being the worst among them (CSE 2014; WHO 2014). Children are at greater risk as their vital
organs are not mature enough to deal with it, the worst affected being those who commute in
unpacked (open) vehicles as they are more exposed to dust particles in the air. A recent report
in 2015 on child lung health found that about 35 per cent of all school children tested across
metropolitan cities in India fared badly in screening tests, indicating poor air quality across India
(‘Delhi’s children have the weakest lungs’ 2015).

Section II

Devolution of upper primary to the private sector

The pattern of provision of education can differ from that of the state in many cities. These
cities are mainly those which owed their educational pattern to the ‘presidency city’ tradition
– under which, as presented earlier, in addition to devolution of primary education to municipal
bodies, post-­primary education was similarly devolved to private schools with grant-­in-­aid from
the government. Consequently in such cities, a transition6 to the private-­aided secondary schools
was (and still is) required of all children for the completion of elementary education – now their
fundamental right. It was neither noted nor studied until recently that such a pattern could be
implicated in the large-­scale decline of primary school enrolments in cities (Juneja 2005b, 2007).

The blocked chimney syndrome

Juneja (2001a; see Figure 2.1) noted in studies from nine metropolitan cities in a research project
coordinated by her that trends of enrolment in government primary schools were positive in
some cities (Delhi, Indore, Jaipur, Coimbatore, and Gwalior), but negative for the other cities
(Mumbai, Nagpur, Surat, and Vadodara). These inconsistent growth trends defied conventional
explanation such as of differential demographic growth.
History and serendipity led to the realisation that negative trends corresponded to the ‘presi-
dency city pattern’ of ‘municipal primary–private aided post-primary’ education, whereas in
cities with a positive primary trend the secondary schools were run directly by the government

32
 Education in urban areas

6
Annual average growth rate

0
Mumbai

Surat

Vadodara

Indore

Colmbatore

Colmbatore
hr.ele.

Delhi
Nagpur

Gwalior

Jaipur
–2

–4

–6
Cities

Figure 2.1 Government primary school enrolment trends in cities.

Source: Juneja 2001a.

and not devolved to the private sector. In the absence of state intervention to ensure access to
subsidised private-­aided secondary schools, children left free municipal schools for the fee-­
charging primary stage of aided secondary schools. A study of Calcutta (Nambissan 2003) also
confirmed a much lower dropout rate among children in schools offering classes beyond the
primary stage.
This phenomenon was termed by Juneja (2005b) as the ‘Blocked Chimney Syndrome’ (using
the metaphor of smoke in a chimney, which tends to ‘back flow’ (dropout) if its upward path is
blocked).
The city of Delhi, on the other hand, after a Delhi High Court Order in 2002 (CWP
4400/1997) has designated all municipal primary schools as ‘feeder schools’ to a ‘parent’ govern-
ment secondary school within a neighbourhood admission plan. Now, every child completing
grade five in a municipal school, knows she has a secured seat in grade six of a nearby state
government secondary school.
However, despite the RTE Act 2009, there is still no such transition plan operational for
children in the municipal schools of Mumbai, or other such cities where primary education has
been devolved to the municipal corporations, even though the state continues to pay for sec-
ondary education in its aided schools. Kingdon (1996) had raised the issue of misplaced subsidies
as early as 1996. Kamdar (2002) too had raised this question for, in a situation where the poor
do not complete primary education, it also means that the poor do not benefit from subsidies
to secondary and tertiary education.
Juneja (2011) conducted a study in Delhi and in Mumbai to find out whose education was
being subsidised in private-­aided schools if the poor are not able to take advantage of these (see
Figure 2.2). In both of these cities, primary education is provided by municipal corporations but,
as seen above, the Delhi government provided secondary education but, unlike Mumbai, had
also instituted a transition plan. Data from 4,100 children in 42 secondary schools showed that
the children in grade six in government secondary schools in Delhi (where a transition plan had
been operationalised) came predominantly (almost 85 per cent) from its municipal schools
where they had availed of free education. In Mumbai, however, instead of the imagined large-­
scale crossover of children from the municipal schools to the private-­aided sector, less than 15
per cent in grade five (the first post-­primary grade) came from municipal primary schools.

33
Nalini Juneja

Delhi: children from municipal schools Mumbai: children from municipal schools
constitute 84.5 per cent of enrolment in the constitute less than 15 per cent of enrolment
post-primary grade of state-provided in post-primary grade of state-provided
secondary schools. secondary schools.

State Govt. Mumbai: Grade 5: Standalone

Delhi: Standalone secondary schools secondary schools

Pvt. Mun/govt.
15.5% 14.9%

Mun/govt. Pvt.
84.5% 85.1%

Figure 2.2 C
 hildren from municipal primary schools in Delhi and Mumbai in the lowest grade
of state-provided secondary schools.
Source: Juneja 2011.

Section III

City master plans

City master plans are another distinct and historical feature of Indian cities. The first ‘model’
master plan of Delhi (1960) envisaged an egalitarian and integrated society, as did the Educational
Commission (1964–66), which had expected education to bring ‘different social groups and
classes together’ (Educational Commission 1966: para 1.36).
The preparation and implementation of the ‘model’ master plan was supported by foreign
experts, bylaws, and regulations for implementation (Das 1981; Shaw 1996; Wood 1958). The
foreign professional planners, according to Shaw (1996: 225), had a distaste for congestion,
crowded cities, and ‘an obsession with order and homogeneity …, [and a tendency] to erase
slums because of their unsightly presence and the preference for low-­density spread out cities’.
Nevertheless, the demarcation of land for different planned activities created spaces also for
schools – both government and private.
This section briefly touches upon issues in education arising out of such notions of legiti-
macy, and then goes on to a more recent bequest of master planning in India – Section 12(1)(c)
of the RTE Act 2009, better known as the clause that sought to reduce educational segregation
by making it mandatory for every private school to admit and give free education to 25 per cent
of its enrolment from economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups.

Land and privilege

Today, the spread of slums beyond planned city boundaries is calling into question the planning
models borrowed from the West. As cities grew, they tended to become more segregated, and as
seen in the previous section, so did the schools. Many schools in the heart of the city now
occupy valuable real estate, while increasing land prices have relegated the poor that would

34
 Education in urban areas

attend the government schools in the cities to its peripheries. Even the SSA does not seem
immune to the idea of the city as a legitimate space only for the privileged. Against all norms
of holistic planning, the SSA ‘city plan’ appears to be an exercise not of mapping all educa-
tional provisioning in the city, but to devise innovative schemes for the education of those
arbitrarily categorised as ‘urban deprived’, and therefore living not in ‘the city’ but in its slums
and on the streets.

Slums, the poor, and education

While finding land for school sites poses a problem in cities, so does the problem of what to do
with emptying schools in the heart of cities whose clientele has moved to cheaper housing on
the city outskirts. On the other hand, classes become overcrowded in the few schools that come
up on the fringes of the city, and teachers who normally come from a different socio-­economic
background are reluctant to be posted to new schools (Juneja 2001a).
In Delhi, Tsujita (2013) found schools to be situated outside slums, but all children from the
same slums do not necessarily attend the same school, and hardly any children from slums attend
private schools.
Banerji (2000), in her study of Mumbai slums, found that the ‘non-legal’ nature of slum
dwellings adds to the precariousness of existence for the poor and keeps children away from
schools, while teachers are less than supportive of their problems. Even those who do attend
schools often find no peaceful place to study because of constant noise and sounds (Desai 1989).
Similar findings continue to be echoed in the work of Tsujita (2013) in relation to children liv-
ing in slums; the work of Monika Banerjee (2014) in the context of the SSA and children of the
urban poor; and of Ramachandran (2005), Mooij (2008), and Dalal (2015) in the context of
teacher social distance and its manifestations in classroom situations.

Street children, children out of school

As if born of the city, some children are known as ‘street children’ and are a common sight even
today in almost all cities in India. They are engaged in occupations such as rag picking, street
vending, begging, and working in roadside repair shops and dhabas and in manufacturing units
(Bhaskaran and Mehta 2011; Kaur and Javed 2015). Notoriously numerically underestimated, a
recent study (Bhaskaran and Mehta 2011) found only 50,923 such children in Delhi. ‘Street
children’ are not necessarily without families, nor do all of them live on the street. Typically
these children, as found by Bhaskaran and Mehta (2011), are not even literate (50.5 per cent),
although about one-­fifth of them had had some formal education, while one-­quarter had
received some kind of non-­formal education.

Exclusive ‘colonies’
Despite the lofty ideals of master plans and education policies, ‘planned’ colonies and private
schools in cities share in common the belief that neither are for the poor. An RTI supplication7
in 2012 revealed, for example, in the case of Faridabad, one of the oldest planned cities in India,
that across three planned ‘sectors’ for the privileged, the only school accessible for free to chil-
dren of domestic servants and petty tradesmen who serviced the posh houses was a three-­
roomed dilapidated primary one about 3 km away, while all the school sites in the sectors had
been given to fee-­charging private schools.

35
Nalini Juneja

Similarly, in a colony in Delhi with 12 elite private schools there was not a single municipal
primary school to be found in any of the ‘sectors’ of the colony. One of the highest officers of the
municipal corporation revealed under conditions of anonymity that they had indeed planned to
set up municipal primary schools in the sectors, but the RWAs (Resident Welfare Associations) told
them not to do so, for they did not want the presence of the children of the poorer sections of
society causing ‘disturbances’ in their colony when none of ‘their own’ children would attend such
schools. The municipal primary schools were finally set up only in the urban villages in that area.

School land/valuable real estate

A recent news report (Siddiqui 2015) tells of school land being grabbed in the outskirts of
Kanpur by land mafia, of chopping down of trees in the yard, uprooting of swings in the play-
ground, and intimidation of children and parents, resulting in the school having a deserted look
as the children stay away in fear.
Another rare instance of documentation of diversion of school land for commercial ventures,
as city land prices escalated, was reproduced by Verma (2004) in her blog, quoting from a book-
let produced by activists protesting against closure of schools in the heart of Indore city:

Well-­attended and well-­equipped schools have been closed down for merger in the name
of ‘rationalisation’ in areas where, incidentally, massive commercial development is pro-
posed. Commercialisation of school premises has been trumpeted as a necessary ‘radical’
way of raising resources for education, even as state allocations for the purpose have lapsed
and earlier similar exercises have not ploughed profits back to schools. And for doing all this,
the administration has won plaudits simply because it has ‘opened 103 new schools’ in the
city’s slums by writing ‘school’ in chalk on the door of each of the existing community halls.
(Verma 2004)

From master plan to RTE Act: breaching the barriers of private schools
The city master plans, implemented by the urban development authority of the state, provided
for the allotment of free land to educational institutions subject to terms and conditions specified
in the land allotment letter (Juneja 2005a, 2007, 2014). One of these conditions was that schools
receiving free land would admit and give free education to 25 per cent of their enrolment.
From the late 1960s until January 2004, although schools continued to obtain land, the exis-
tence of the conditional clause appeared to have been forgotten till the matter was brought up
in a public interest litigation (PIL) in 2002.
The issue of cheating the poor out of the seats due to them being in private schools made
newspaper headlines and ultimately influenced the insertion of a similar clause mandating inclu-
sion of the poor into private schools all over India – see Section 12(i)(c) of The Right of
Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009. This clause in the national Act has
evoked enormous research interest (Juneja 2014; Mehendale et al. 2015; Sarin and Gupta 2013).

Section IV

Researching the city

Research with an educational policy focus is limited; policy research on education in urban areas
even more so. There could be at least three reasons for this. First, as mentioned at the beginning

36
 Education in urban areas

of this chapter, urban areas are generally assumed to be privileged, and not so much in need of
research as the rural where the real problems in Indian education may be found.

Urban: not seen as a ‘problem’

Support for the unassailability of such rationale comes from the exclusively rural focus of ‘the
state’, as seen for example in the educational data presented through the official educational
statistics system, ‘DISE’ – an acronym for District Information System for Education. This rural
focus of DISE constitutes the second impediment to educational policy research in towns and
cities. DISE, save for two separate publications on aggregated ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ educational data,
disaggregates its sub-­district data on its ‘School Report Cards’ site only by levels of rural habita-
tion and rural administration, while ignoring their urban equivalents. Similarly, centrally spon-
sored educational schemes such as the DPEP and the SSA are ‘district’ focused. (Although the
latter did concede an arbitrarily defined segment called ‘urban deprived’ as a component for
funding within the district plan.)

Confusion between ‘urban’ and ‘city/town’ statistics

The average researcher, attempting to study education in cities, such as Indore, may find confusing
the fact that the Census of India offers population statistics for the district using four different
terms. There are data for ‘Indore District’,‘Indore District Urban’,‘Indore Urban Agglomeration’,
and ‘Indore (M.C.)’ (Table 2.2; Figure 2.3).
‘District urban’ comprises the total population of all the towns of various sizes within Indore
District, separated by rural areas – represented in Figure 2.3 by blobs of different sizes. The
implications of this diagrammatic representation become meaningful when one realises that
from the child’s perspective, aggregating information for separate towns even within one district
is of little value considering that for most children schools are accessible, or not, only within a
‘local area’ within easy access.

Lack of disaggregated educational data

The third problem is presented by the type of educational data available. According to the Census
of India, ‘Village or Town is recognised as the basic area of habitation. In all censuses throughout
the world this dichotomy of Rural and Urban areas is recognised and the data are generally
presented for the rural and urban areas separately.’8 Official educational statistics (from DISE), on
the other hand, publish educational data for national, state, and district levels only, while ‘School
Report Cards’ data can be aggregated online for state, district, block, a special SSA categorisation
known as a ‘cluster’, and for the village level, but not for urban sub-­district levels such as towns

Table 2.2 Population Indore 2011

Indore population 2011

Indore District 3,276,697

Indore District Urban 2,427,709
Indore Urban Agglomeration 2,170,295
Indore (M.C.) 1,964,086

Source: www.census2011.co.in/census/metropolitan/242-­indore.html.

37
Nalini Juneja

Fig. 2.3a. Fig. 2.3b

Indore population 2011

3,276,697

2,427,709
2,170,295
1,964,086

District District U.A. (M.C.)

urban

Figure 2.3 (a) Showing difference between populations of district, district urban, urban
agglomeration, and municipal corporation areas. (b) Diagrammatical representa-
tion of Indore District Urban comprising 11 towns.
Source: www.census2011.co.in/census/metropolitan/242-­indore.html.

and cities. Thus the official presentation of educational statistics in India permits only the rural
to be observed, while rendering towns and cities invisible.
Had data been readily available for towns and cities, ‘the blocked chimney syndrome’ that
could manifest itself in city data but is subsumed when aggregated with district data, might have
revealed itself much earlier.
Town-­/city-­specific data are important for use within districts. Private schools are concen-
trated in cities. For example, a study of Indore showed that while district educational statistics
revealed the share of government schools in Indore district to be 73 per cent, in Indore city the
share of government schools was only 33 per cent due to the greater concentration of private
schools (Juneja 2001b). The same study also found that there was little increase in the number
of government schools within the city, whereas at the district level government schools showed
a healthy growth in the same period.
Some districts in India are fully urban and could spell hope for the urban researcher.
Unfortunately, this hope is belied if trying to study Mumbai, comprising two fully urban dis-
tricts in the Census – Mumbai and Mumbai Suburban. For DISE, however, ‘Mumbai Suburban’
is not a ‘district’ but a code, and contains data not of schools in the Mumbai suburban area, but
only of municipal schools across both districts. Similarly, for reasons best known to itself (and kept to
itself, for nowhere is this ‘coding system’ revealed), for DISE, ‘District Mumbai’ contains data of
private schools, i.e. schools recognised by the State Directorate of Education in both districts.
Thus, even the organisation of official educational statistics can put a spanner into the works
for educational policy research efforts in urban areas.

Conclusion
The vicious cycle of assumptions of ‘all is well’ in education in urban contexts diminishes the
likelihood of research attention to towns and cities, and reinforces the disinclination to provide
disaggregated urban educational data. This cycle impacts ultimately the availability of research

38
 Education in urban areas

on towns and cities, thus reinforcing and perpetuating the belief that all is indeed well in urban
areas. Schooling problems are therefore believed to be negligible here except perhaps for prob-
lems of a segment known as the ‘urban deprived’ – already being ably addressed by the SSA.
However, as seen in this chapter, the concept of the ‘urban deprived’ is imported and ill-­
fitting when viewed in the historical context of educational development in cities under colo-
nial rule in India – a policy path that continues to shape education in cities today. The remarkable
diversity of schooling opportunities masks the disparity of availability, accessibility, and afford-
ability of these schools, while contributing to stratification and inequity in education. The right
to choice enjoyed only by some adds risk to children’s lives and lungs due to accidents and toxic
fumes caused in the process of mass transportation to schools at the far end of towns.
Devolution of responsibility for post-­primary education to the private sector in presidency
cities, under British rule (seen also as the first public–private partnership in education once
grant-­in-­aid was instituted) continues, as seen in this chapter, to affect children’s access to free
primary education on the one hand, and the perception of municipal primary schools as failing
on the other.
City master plans demarcated school spaces and made land available to schools, both govern-
ment and private, in cities. Even so, lands and schools continue to be at risk due to tendencies
towards segregation and greed, while forces which rose up to counter them gave birth to a revo-
lutionary clause for inclusion of the poor and private schools in the 2009 historic legislation for
the right to education in India and continue to be a beacon of hope in the neoliberal, privatised
educational cityscape.

Notes
1 Analogous to ‘village’, which is the basic unit of rural habitation; ‘town’ is the basic unit of urban habi-
tation. In terms of population, habitations having at least 5,000 inhabitants, living in densities of at least
400 persons per square kilometre with 75 per cent of males engaged in non-­agricultural occupations
may be classified as urban.
2 http://dise.in/Downloads/Trends-­ElementaryEducation-­2014-­15/AllIndia.pdf.
3 A term said to have been used by Bill Gates to describe ‘the use of the profit motive to solve social
problems’ (Ball et al. 2015: 22).
4 www.edudel.nic.in/welcome_folder/aboutdep.htm (accessed 19 April 2015).
5 Cabinet Note No. F.DE-­15/Act/140/97 dated 27 March 1997 of the Government of National Capital
Territory of Delhi (GNCTD), quoted in the High Court of Delhi CM No. 5202/2012 in W.P.(C)
No. 7796/2011. http://delhicourts.nic.in/July12/Social%20Jurist%20Vs.%20govt.%20of%20NCT.pdf
(accessed 19 April 2015).
6 The term transition is applied only for change of stage of education such as between the terminal stage
of primary to the beginning of the upper primary stage; between the terminal stages of secondary to
the beginning of the tertiary stage, etc. Thus it usually refers to movement of a whole class (i.e. cohorts)
of children, or groups of children rather than one child. For this reason, ‘transition’ requires planning
and monitoring in order to ensure successful transition at critical points such as between sub-­cycles in
elementary education, using indicators of transition such as ‘Transition Rate’.
7 Appeal Case No. 5016 of 2012: letter No. RTI/13/357 dt.4.7.13.
8 http://censusindia.gov.in/Data_Products/Library/Indian_perceptive_link/Census_Terms_link/­
censusterms.html.

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New Delhi: Penguin.
Tooley, J., and Dixon, P. 2003. Private Schools for the Poor: A Case Study from India. Reading: Centre for British
Teachers.
Tsujita,Y. 2013. ‘Factors That Prevent Children from Gaining Access to Schooling: A Study of Delhi Slum
Households’. International Journal of Educational Development, 33(4), 348–357.
Verma, Gita D. 2004. Indore Zila Sarkar’s Interventions in School Education: Betraying Our Children in the Name
of Decentralization and Universalization of Education. New Delhi: Architexturez Imprints (accessed on 5
May 2015 from http://architexturez.net/doc/az-­cf-­21855).
WHO. 2014. Air Quality Deteriorating in Many of the World’s Cities (accessed on 5 May 2015 from www.who.
int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-­quality/en/).
Wood, J. 1958. ‘Development of Urban and Regional Planning in India’. Land Economics, 34 (4), 310–315.

41
 3
Institutional diversity and quality
Padma M. Sarangapani

The research and discussion on quality in Indian education has been disproportionately shaped
by the government vs private school war and focused on primary schools for the ‘poor’.We have
little or no formal knowledge of the vast and growing private sector of schools. A few surveys
conducted on schools that cater to the middle class segment, such as the ones carried out by
magazines like Education World and India Today from time to time are more in the nature of being
marketing exercises of quality reputation, and are based on self-­reporting and perceptions, which
reveal more about what the middle-­class values in its schools. In contrast, key studies on schools
catering to the lower socio-­economic segment that have informed our understanding of this
sector have either taken learning outcomes and parental choice or else have chosen a few input
parameters as metrics and proxies of quality (see, for example, Centre for Civil Society 2015;
Jalan and Panda 2010; Karopady 2014; Mehrotra 2005; Tooley et al. 2007). These studies tend to
‘plug into’ and add grist to the government vs private schools war with assumptions on how
quality is produced by the state (bureaucracy) vs the market, highlighting features such as teach-
ers’ accountability and cost efficiency/value for money or what is to be valued as an education
outcome.
For the moment let us set aside the effects these studies intend to have on the government
vs private schools for the poor debate, and take the findings of the studies at face value.What we
have are segmented and partial pictures that do not tessellate to cover the landscape – we are not
able to understand the schools as a part of a societal ecosystem within which they function in
relation to each other. This partial picture of the landscape allows stereotypes to persist which
draw on and reify prejudices regarding the culture of schools, of teachers and their work (see, for
example, Centre for Civil Society 2015). Apart from anecdotal personal knowledge, we don’t
know of the types of institutions that exist, how diverse they are, and if this diversity is of any
educational consequence in terms of meriting attention and explanation or having an explana-
tory potential.We have little comprehensive knowledge on what their education qualities are, or
what diversity exists in ‘quality’ and why. We don’t know who goes where or what kinds of
teaching take place in different settings. We don’t know what typology may be most useful to
characterise and explain the diversity of quality, and how these qualities are produced and
maintained.

42 DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-5
 Institutional diversity and quality

In this chapter I propose answers to some of these questions through an analysis of data that
was gathered in a survey of all schools in one education block of the city of Hyderabad,Telangana
(Sarangapani et al. 2013; forthcoming). The survey was designed to gather data collected by
trained education researchers on every single school in the block. The block was selected as it
had a demographic range from slum areas to upper middle-­class localities, and a relatively high
concentration of schools of all types including aided, private, government (Telugu and Urdu
medium) and madrasas (according to DISE1). The survey design was aimed at understanding the
school: management and finances, clientele, and ‘quality’.
The concept of ‘quality’ was operationalised as a ‘master concept’ following the works of
Naik (1975) and Winch (1996). Elsewhere I have noted how their construction and commen-
tary on ‘quality’, although set apart by close to 30 years, in different social and historical milieu,
and in response to different issues, are remarkably similar in scope (Sarangapani, unpublished
note). Based on this work we developed the concept of quality as having six dimensions that
need assessment and comment in order to be able to judge and compare quality of education of
schools in a public school system. The six dimensions that enable a comprehensive understand-
ing of quality when taken together include (1) aims and relevance; (2) provisioning (infrastruc-
ture and staffing); (3) curriculum; (4) pedagogy; (5) standards and outcomes; and (6) efficiency
and accountability. In this chapter I will be examining school diversity through the lens of aims
and pedagogy.

The city of Hyderabad and Block A

The city of Hyderabad, with a 400-­year history, has become well known in education and devel-
opment literature through the studies of James Tooley, who has written extensively and appre-
ciatively of the low-­fee-­paying schools that cater to the poor, particularly in the Muslim-­dominated
parts of the old city (see for example, Tooley and Dixon 2003; Tooley et al. 2007). About 30 per
cent of the city’s population is Muslim, with Urdu as its mother tongue.2 From 2003 onwards
Tooley conducted a series of studies and surveys through which he claimed to have gathered
evidence that private schools for the poor fared better than government ones, even if the private
schools were not recognised. Such schools, it is being claimed, produce better value for money
than the government schools on account of the market discipline that makes them oriented to
meeting parents’ expectations for quality and keeping the wages of teachers low (Tooley 2009).
In 2003, when Tooley began his work in the city, Hyderabad had already disproportionately
benefitted from about ten years of an IT-­savvy chief minister who was able to draw several IT
businesses into the city, convey a climate of receptivity to business, corporate houses and the
World Bank, and deregulate services such as health and school education (Mooij 2003). The
1993 School Regulation Act3 deregulated salary fixation for teachers, requiring only that a pri-
vate unaided school must earmark 50 per cent of its income for staff salary and an additional 15
per cent for the Provident Fund and health insurance. The state already had a booming, success-
ful chain of coaching classes training students for a range of competitive examinations involving
science and mathematics, engineering, medicine, and pharmacology, etc. From 1993 onwards,
many of these institutions had re-­invented themselves as schools. At the time of our survey, the
city had several such chain ‘corporate schools’ – which typically admitted students in middle
school and combined state board studies with high-­intensity study of mathematics and science
problem-­solving and speed-­oriented coaching.
Mandal ‘A’ (Figure 3.1) is known by a busy retail commercial hub nestled in it. A few arterial
roads run through the Mandal, connecting the centre of Hyderabad city to an industrial estate,
to new development to the north, and to the city of Secunderabad to the north-­east. The area

43
Padma M. Sarangapani

Ind. Est.

C
A Slum

Figure 3.1 Sketch of Block A.

Source: rough sketch (not to scale) by author.

includes a range of socio-­economic groups from upper middle classes – professional, bureaucrats,
and police etc. – to lower middle class, working class and a few slums with migrants from North
Telangana. Sections of the population include old residents of the city, Muslim and Dalit-­
Christian residential areas, and also newer migrant communities from diverse linguistic and
regional backgrounds.
Driving through these roads it is difficult to miss the schools and coaching and tuition centres
amidst the shops and restaurants, all crowded along the main roads.With their brightly coloured
walls and hoardings advertising the school’s name with photographs of their top student ranks
from the most recent class X examinations, the schools seem to have positioned themselves so
that they can catch the eyes of passers-­by, like any shop selling its wares in the marketplace.
Between July and October 2011, 84 schools were identified and surveyed by a group of 12
trained researchers, using tools developed for this purpose. This chapter presents findings from
the survey in three parts. In the first part, the schools are introduced. In the second, the ‘educa-
tion market’ is introduced based on a discussion of the management and the clientele of the
schools. The third part discusses quality, drawing on findings pertaining to ‘aims’ and ‘pedago-
gies’ of these schools.

An introduction to school diversity

Of the 84 schools surveyed (see Table 3.1), 71 were in Mandal A. Additionally, eight schools
(including six unrecognised) were in the areas between Mandal A and B and of uncertain juris-
diction, and five were in a large slum area bordering Mandal A.
Conventionally used typology – Government, Aided, Private Unaided Recognised, Private
Unaided Unrecognised, and Madrasa – reflects first the ‘ownership’ of the school, i.e. its key
management/decision making – government or private/non-­government – and second the
core financing of the school – government funded or not receiving government funds/­supported
directly.4 This categorisation is useful for a majority of government purposes around financing

44
 Institutional diversity and quality

Table 3.1 Schools surveyed

Management type and funding Mandal A Mandal A/B Mandal C Grand total

Government 8 1 9
Aided 5 5
Government aided 3 3
Government aid and charities (religious 2 2
mission/CSR/grants)
Private unaided recognised 45 2 1 48
Charities (religious mission/CSR/grants) 1 1
Fees and charities (religious mission/CSR/ 2 1 3
grants)
High-­fee-­based 10 10
Low-­fee-­based 33 1 34
Private unaided unrecognised 12 6 2 20
Charities (religious mission/CSR/grants) 1 1 2
Fees and charities (religious mission/CSR/ 1 1
grants)
High-­fee-­based 6 6
Low-­fee-­based 5 5 1 11
Madrasa (unrecognised) 1 1 2

Grand total 71 8 5 84

Source: data for all tables in this chapter are compiled by the author.

and regulation. Literature discussing school quality has tended to follow this categorisation. The
main effect of this categorisation is that only funding and regulation emerge as the key (explana-
tory) variables when comparisons between schools are made. This is convenient for neoliberal
institutional theorisation of the school, which approaches school functioning with the assump-
tion that ‘accountability’ and ‘value for money/cost optimisation’ are adequate to explain what
schools do or don’t do, what they do well or do poorly and which schools ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’. In
what follows, I introduce the 84 schools, drawing attention to additional distinctions that bring
to the fore characteristics that give a more differentiated sense of the educational range and types
of schools.
The nine government schools included six primary and three high schools (grades six to ten).
Of the five aided schools, three were managed by religious trusts.
There were a total of 48 private recognised schools: ten were high-fee-charging, 33 were
low-fee-charging, three included support from charities along with their fee and one was CSR
(corporate social responsibility) funded. There were 20 private unrecognised schools of which
two ran on charities, one had a combination of fee and charities, six were high-­fee charging, and
11 were low-­fee charging. Two madrasas, both unrecognised, were funded fully by religious
charity. Of the schools that were run by a combination of fee and charity, two in Mandal A were
partially supported by religious missions. Three others (of which two were not recognised) were
special schools – dealing with impairments and with learning difficulty.
Fifty-­five per cent of schools could be accessed and studied with great ease, accepting us at
face value or after seeing our official letters; 19 per cent required an official introduction by the
Mandal officers; 15 per cent of schools, even after such an introduction and a great deal of time,
were obstructionist and gave us limited access or made access difficult and took up a lot of time
and repeated visits; 11 per cent obstructed our entry through various tactics of excuses, delay,

45
Padma M. Sarangapani

rudeness and in a few cases point blank refusal. In the case of the Central Board of Secondary
Education (CBSE) affiliated schools, the Mandal Education Officers said they were helpless;
these elite schools refused to deal with the local education authorities, claiming that their affili-
ation to the CBSE gave them this immunity.
The schools were unevenly spread over the area of the Mandal – in what seemed to be
related to their potential clientele base; 57 per cent of the schools were located in residential
areas; 33 per cent in commercial areas; and 7 per cent in slums. The schools along the main road
seemed to be vying for attention from passers-­by.
The schools were established in the block from the 1930s onwards. The oldest schools in the
area were two for girls, established by a Hindu reformist mission in the 1930s with the aim of
promoting girls’ education in the memory of the daughter of a founding trustee. Both of these,
after Independence, became aided schools. One, however, closed down the previous year, and
the other continued under a new related ‘Marwari women’s trust’ that had expanded to voca-
tional training, a pre-­university (PU) college for girls, and had recently also established a fee-­
paying English-­medium school for low-­income children in the same premises. Between the
1950s and 1970s, most schools in this Mandal were government and government-­aided ones.
After the 1980s, no new government or government-­aided schools were added to the Mandal.
Instead there was a rapid expansion of private ones, with as many as 16 from the 1980s and
growing at a steady rate, with over ten being added each decade. In the year of our survey as
many as seven new schools were added to the Mandal, of which six were ‘high-fee-paying’. The
emergence of relatively more high-­fee-­based schools from 2010 onwards was indicative of the
new and changing aspirations of the residents of the area.
A few new primary government schools were added in the decade of the 2000s under the
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mission (SSA) in the slum areas of the block. A number of low-­fee-­based
private unrecognised schools at the time of the survey were in existence from the 1980s onwards.
Ninety-­three per cent of the schools were coeducational. One Madrasa was only for boys and
one had segregated classes for boys and girls. The other coed segregated school was also one
based on Islamic faith values. The other three girls-­only schools were all run by religious missions
(two by a convent). In all the coed schools, boys and girls were seated in separate sections of the
class. One recognised school and three unrecognised schools catered to children with special needs.
English-­medium education was offered in 90 per cent of the schools – 100 per cent of the private
recognised schools and 90 per cent of the unrecognised private schools were all English-­medium
only. Additionally, eight of the nine government schools offered English-­medium teaching in
addition to Telugu-­and Urdu-­medium teaching. This was following a recent government policy
decision. The teachers told us that admission into the English-­medium section was based on
parental choice. We found equal class strengths in both English-­and Telugu-­medium sections of
the schools. The teachers told us that there were parents who had decided against English
medium as they felt that they may not be able to cope with its needs. Aided schools were required
to be only Telugu medium. The management of three of these five aided Telugu-­medium schools
had also begun an English-­medium fee-­paying branch. There were only four other schools that were
not English medium – all funded by charities. Two of these were Urdu madrasas, one Telugu-­medium
school was an evening school centre funded by a Christian mission, while another Telugu-­
medium school was a Shishu Mandir, affiliated to the RSS and funded by a Hindu mission for
whom education in the mother tongue was an ideological choice.
The sizes of the schools varied widely, from fewer than 50 students (five schools) to very large
schools with 2,000–3,000 students (one school). Twenty per cent of schools that were surveyed
had enrolments of fewer than 100 (35 per cent with enrolments of fewer than 150). These small
schools are of interest as the small size raises questions about their stability. About 20 per cent of

46
 Institutional diversity and quality

schools in the area had enrolments between 150 and 400. An enrolment of about 400 seemed to be
a ‘tipping’ number for stability, giving an average class size of 33 in 12 levels starting from pre-­
school to class X. Thirty-­eight per cent had enrolments of more than 400, with three schools
being very large with enrolments of more than 1,500.
Based on the reports of the heads of these schools, their enrolment trends were noted: in 15
per cent the enrolment was growing and the institutions were sought after and well established.
Forty-­two per cent were steady; 25 per cent were struggling to keep their enrolment intact and
to survive with regular fee collection; 14 per cent were shrinking and steadily losing their
clientele.
Seventy per cent were neighbourhood schools drawing their catchment from surrounding
areas; this included all the low-­fee-­paying schools. About 15 per cent drew children from a wider
area and ran school buses and vans. Eleven per cent of schools, almost all from the high-­fee-­
paying group, drew their clientele from the entire city. One exceptional case was that of a high-­
fee-­paying school whose catchment was largely the neighbourhood and area. This had been
established by a reputable and charismatic maths and science teacher who had become very
successful and had built up a reputation for the school – it was among the older private schools
of the area and had secured the patronage of established professionals living there. The special
school and its unrecognised branch centre drew clientele from very far, clearly on account of the
exclusive service they provided.
Forty-­nine of the 84 schools (58 per cent) had the full range of levels from pre-­primary to
secondary school. All of the private recognised schools except for three followed this model,
with pre-­primary also being the key stage for admissions. The three exceptions had only upper
primary and secondary (i.e. classes VI to X) and were among the ‘coaching type’ schools with a
focus on class X exam results in mathematics and science. The government and aided schools
did not have a pre-­primary grade and were from class I onwards. Three primary government
schools included a pre-­primary cohort; this group sat in the corridor and was minded by a
teacher funded by an NGO. (This enrolment has not been included in the figures.) The govern-
ment high schools were from grade VI to X. Urdu sections in particular in the government
school were multigraded, with only two teachers for classes I to V.
Twenty-­eight were classed as ‘small schools’ with an enrolment of fewer than 150. Of these,
17 were low-­fee-­based, of which seven were recognised and the remaining ten were unrecog-
nised (accounting for 90 per cent of all unrecognised low-­fee-­based schools). In other words,
low-­fee-­based, unrecognised schools in the area were very small (average enrolment fewer than
100). Twenty-­one out of the 29 small schools (with enrolments fewer than 150) were found to
be struggling to survive or with shrinking enrolments – this included all 17 small low-­fee-­based
schools. The only small schools that were steady or even growing were the ones that were gov-
ernment funded or which had the support of charities. Aided schools, which had not secured
any other source of funding, were struggling and shrinking.
Fifteen of these small schools which were running on fees had children in a range of grades – all
the way from PP till secondary school. The class cohorts were not mono-­g raded; there were not
enough students or teachers for this. These schools had multigraded classes: a teacher would be
surrounded by students from different grades sitting in groups, who she taught, rather than
tutored, by turns.

The education market: school management and their clientele

The government schools in the Mandal were all under the District Education Officer (DEO) of
Hyderabad and managed by the systems of the DEO. On a day-­to-­day basis they were under the

47
Padma M. Sarangapani

supervision of the Block Education Officer, who had an office in the campus of one of the
government schools of the block. Each school had a headmistress (HM; primary school) or
principal (high school) who was appointed to this post, or the acting HM who was from among
the senior most teachers of the school. All other recognised schools that were not directly under
the Department of Education were required legally to be under the management of a trust or
society with education in its mandate. This included the aided institutions and the fee-­or non-­
fee-­paying institutions. However, in reality many schools were not managed by collectives of
trustees or office bearers, but by individuals or families. Some were created by and managed in
the style of ‘corporates’. Schools were legally required to be ‘not-­for-­profit’, but understandably
for all schools, finances were important. Fee-­based schools had to be more concerned about
fixing the level of the fee as well as ensuring the regularity of monthly collection as the fee was the only
source to finance various expenses of the school. For non-­fee-­based schools also, managing with
the available resources was a concern, because the loss of all clientele would lead to closure of
the institution – an undesirable eventuality for those whose livelihoods depended on it. However,
in addition to finances, there were other considerations that were also found to inform each
institution’s educational ideals and the design of its offerings and provisions – i.e. its unique
academic identity and the qualities of the education it offered.

Managements
In addition to the Department of Education, ten distinctive types of private management forms
were identified which were found to be useful in understanding aspects of the financing, aca-
demic identity, and education qualities of schools (Table 3.2). Each of these management forms
represented a distinct education ideology – defining their purpose in being in education and their educational
imagination and their intentions. Inherent was also an imagination of their clientele – as representing either
a particular community (socio-­economic (‘poor’ and in need of charity) and/or religion) which they wished
to serve and/or a particular economic group defined by the amount and regularity with which they would
be able to pay a fee.

Table 3.2 Types of management

Type of management Classification Total number Break-­down

1 Department of Education (District Government 9

Education Office)
2 Corporate social responsibility CSR philanthropy 1
(CSR) trust
3 Non-­government organisation NGO or expert 2
(NGO) specialised group
4 Charity (linked to religious group) Religious organisations 12 1
5 Mission (religious – Hindu, 5
Christian, Islamic)
6 Religious trust 6
7 Family trust Family trusts 7
8 Teacher entrepreneur Individual entrepreneurs 41 19
9 Tuition teacher–entrepreneur 5
10 Entrepreneur 17
11 Corporate Corporates 12
Total 84

48
 Institutional diversity and quality

The 12 corporate management schools in the Mandal were all branches of statewide chains
(in two cases nationwide), and were known for competitive examination coaching. Corporate
management was characterised by hierarchical control in matters such as teacher appointments,
curriculum, textbook selection, assessment and reporting, and even daily lesson plans, across all
branches from the central control office. New corporate schools were professionally run, while
old corporate schools used family to extend and keep control of finances, fee collection, and
parent relations. There were three such family-­based corporates in the block. The professionally
managed groups had refined their ‘product’ beyond engineering competitive exams towards
higher-­level aspirations in the competitive coaching space – oriented to very high-­stakes com-
petitive examinations such as the IIT entrance, private ‘Olympiads’, and a global competitive
world. These institutions used IT in their management more intensively.
Family trust-­run schools were among the oldest in the area. Some of these institutions had
been started by individuals with close involvement in the national movement and who regarded
education as important in developing their communities – Muslim, Hindu, and Dalit-­Christian.
They had been active in local politics, and began these institutions at a time when there were
few schools in the area. Two family trust schools were relatively new and established in the
1980s, and both had grown into successful large schools, one of which was CBSE affiliated and
had a strong Hindutva character. Most of these older family trust schools were now managed by
the second generation of the families and also included some family members who had qualified
as teachers and were active in teaching and managing the schools as heads. If not, the families
kept direct control of the school through their presence on a daily basis.
Fifty per cent of all schools (61 per cent of all fee-­based) were started as entrepreneurial ventures.
Almost all of the entrepreneurial schools were low-­fee-­based. Nineteen (i.e. 23 per cent of all
schools) were by teacher-­entrepreneurs. Typically they had started their career as teachers in the same
local area and had decided to set up their own school. They frequently cited the desire ‘not to
work for someone else and to be independent’ as the key motivation for this move. Eight of these
teachers had established their reputation as maths and science tutors at the time they took this
leap. Having an established tuition clientele seems to have given them the confidence that they
could run their own establishment. Four of these teacher-­entrepreneurs were women who had
decided to establish their own school so that they could run it according to their education ideals.
Eight of the schools started by teachers were stable, having achieved a size of 400 pupils or more.
Schools that had been established by tuition teachers and business-­entrepreneurs tended to cater
to the lowest socio-­economic groups (mostly groups 4 and 5). Such schools tended to be very
small and were run like home tutorials. Seventeen such schools were started as businesses by
entrepreneurs, including three women. Most opted for the school business on the advice of fam-
ily and friends, thinking it would be easy for them to establish and run, and because they had an
apartment or house as an initial investment. One had seen an advertisement for a school for sale
in the newspaper and had decided to buy it. There were at least seven such cases of the school
registration and recognition having been bought by the current management. A few entrepre-
neurs held more than one school registration, but ran only one school, leading to anomalies
between the DISE record and reality on the ground. In the low-­fee-­charging group, 19 were
managed by families – husband-­and-­wife teams who had to run the school like a family enter-
prise in order to manage funds and make ends meet. They struggled as they could not raise the
fee too much and at the same time had to collect it regularly from parents. Some reported that
when parents could not afford the fee any more, they simply stopped sending their child to the
school and sought admission elsewhere.
A total of 28 schools in the Mandal had distinctive religious affiliations and to varying
degrees incorporated religious instruction directly into the curriculum. At the very least they

49
Padma M. Sarangapani

included religious prayers at assembly and had displays of religious symbols prominent in the
school. These included Christian, Islamic, and Hindu religions.
Twelve of these schools had religious purposes and ideals. These institutions drew from religion
and connection. For 11 of these their own religious community was their primary focus. Only
one Christian charity served the poorest of the poor working children through an evening
school. Five institutions were directly under a religious mission – a Christian convent, mosque
(madrasa), and the RSS (Saraswati Shishu Mandir); these institutions had a religious purpose and
offered religious instruction along with formal schooling. One of the two madrasas provided
only religious instruction. The teachers of the madrasa schools, the charity school, and the
Shishu Mandir (all very small unrecognised ones) were inspired by their religious ideology to
work for the local poorest of the poor of their community. The two Christian convent schools
had minority status. Six schools were run by religious trusts. These aimed to offer modern
schooling, but drawing on and informed by faith – Hindu and Islamic – in their educational
ideals. These institutions were thus deeply committed to serving their religious constituency and
community through education. Religion was also evident in as many as 16 of the entrepreneur-­
run schools: four had a Christian affiliation, five had Islamic affiliation, and one was linked to a
gurudwara. Six had Hindu affiliation: in two, students were even expected to participate in pujas
that were held in the school, and one of them actively discouraged Muslim parents from admit-
ting their wards to his school, saying that this enabled him to appeal to Hindu parents.
There was a professionally run non-­fee-­paying school run by a CSR-­funded trust with a
non-­religious approach to working with the poorest of the poor. This school had many branches
all over the city. There were two ‘NGO’ special schools – so designated as it was a specialised
expert group offering education to children with a disability. These schools were run by an
expert who raised funds and research grants from numerous sources and involved parents of the
children and volunteers in running the school.
As can be seen from the above description, the niche occupied by the school was a combina-
tion of considerations of relevance to a particular clientele group (its needs and aspirations) and
extent of dependency on fee, in turn leading an assessment of ability to pay, and being able to
pay regularly. To convey relevance and desirability, a range of considerations were invoked or
cultivated involving school financing and client–vendor relationship management: being English
medium; being a known successful neighbourhood tutor with a reputation; being an institution
with an association with a religion; offering maths and science competitive exam preparation;
offering special education; or serving to enable children to pass.

Clientele
The socio-­economic characteristics of the clientele were constructed based on detailed accounts
of management on the occupations of the parents. Five groups were constructed based on these
occupations: Group 1 comprised professionals, doctors, bankers, IT professionals, and govern-
ment administrators; Group 2 comprised small businessmen, lawyers, and shop and hotel owners;
Group 3 comprised clerks, teachers, accountants, and electricians; Group 4 comprised domestic
workers, watchmen, auto-­drivers, fruit vendors, bakery workers, carpenters, and mechanics;
Group 5 comprised rag pickers and scavengers. Group 5 represented the poorest of the poor in
the area, and included migrants from Dalit communities with ‘polluting’ occupations and
extremely poor Muslim families living in slum areas surrounding a mosque.
Schools in general had a noticeable homogeneity in clientele (see Table 3.3). Mostly this was a
homogeneity of socio-­economic classes as represented by the occupational groups. Only two
schools had clientele from socio-­economic groups 1, 2, 3, and 4. This was the Christian evening

50
 Institutional diversity and quality

centre and the NGO centre for children with a learning disability. Two schools had clientele from
Groups 2, 3, and 4 (white-­, pink-­, and blue-­collared groups): one was the recognised special school
run by a disability-­focused NGO and the other was a religious Islamic school. The special school
earlier used to admit children without disability but was subsequently prevented from continuing
this practice by the government on the grounds that they were recognised as a ‘special school’.
Most schools catering to the high socio-­economic groups were large ones with 400 pupils
or more (14 out of 18), while the four schools catering to the low socio-­economic group (i.e.
which included Group 5) were all small and had enrolments of 150 or fewer. Fifteen schools had
clientele from Group 3. A total of 35 private fee-­based schools had clientele from the socio-­
economic Group 4. Twenty-­four schools catered to children coming from Groups 1 and 2. This
included all the CBSE and ICSE board-­affiliated schools.
The schools that catered to children from Groups 4 and 5 were of special interest as these
were the groups who are at the centre of the government vs. private school debates – i.e. parents
who worked in irregular and manual work including domestic help, etc. This group patronised
a range of schools – including government, the aided, private recognised, and private unrecog-
nised. A total of 53 schools admitted students from Group 4. Twenty-­five of these were unaided
recognised schools of which six were small, with enrolments between 100 and 150 students. Ten
were unrecognised and all were very small schools with enrolments of fewer than 100 (including
two with fewer than 20). Fourteen private unaided recognised schools had enrolments between
400 and 1,500, which may be regarded as fairly large. All of these schools had a clientele from
Groups 3 and 4, rather than only 4 or 4 and 5. Eleven of these schools had been established in
the 1980s and 1990s and were among the older and more established ones of the area.
Government schools tended to cater to Groups 4 and 5.
Ten schools catered to the poorest of the poor, of which only two were government and one
aided, started by a Christian charitable trust. Two were private recognised schools: the first,
which was fee-­based, had started to shrink when the second, which was CSR-­funded, came up.
There were five unrecognised schools, started and managed by religious organisations/organisations
with strong religious connections, all catering to this segment. One was a Christian evening
learning centre, another was a Shishu Mandir; three others had Islamic support (including two
madrasas). Thus the majority of the schools serving this group were charitable and had a strong
religious backing from all three major faiths.
In as many as 20 of these, teachers reported that the children worked before and after school
hours. Girls mainly assisted their mothers as domestic workers and all had duties at home,
including sibling care and cooking. Boys often worked as mechanics, delivering newspapers, or
vending fruits and vegetables, and in local hotels.

Quality
As noted in the introduction to the chapter, quality has been taken as a ‘master concept’ involv-
ing six dimensions. The literature has largely discussed the dimensions of provisioning, out-
comes, and accountability for the schools catering to Groups 4 and 5. In this last section, I discuss
diversity in school ‘quality’ in relation to two of the quality dimensions: educational aims and
pedagogy. Examining aims and how they vary across schools invites attention to the relationship
between quality, clientele type, management form and school finances for survival and profit-
ability in explaining this variation, and in reflecting on the consequences of the variation.
Pedagogy involves looking at how institutions shape teachers and their practices through inter-
pretation of educations aims and the expectations and assumptions schools have regarding home
support for schooling.

51
Table 3.3 School clientele

Groups Group 2 Groups 2 Groups Groups Group 3 Groups Group 4 Groups Group 5 Ni
1 and 2 and 3 1–4 2–4 3 and 4 4 and 5

Charities (religious mission/CSR/ 4 1

grants)
Private unaided recognised 1
Private unaided unrecognised 1 1
Madrasa 2
Government funded 7 1 1
Government 7 1 1
Government aided 2 1
Aided 2 1
Government aid and charities 1 1
(religious mission/CSR/grants)
Aided 1 1
Fees and charities (religious 1 1 1 1
mission/CSR/grants)
Private unaided recognised 1 1 1
Private unaided unrecognised 1
Low-­fee-­based 3 4 2 1 2 9 21 2 1
Private unaided recognised 1 4 2 1 2 9 14 1
Private unaided unrecognised 2 7 1 1
High-­fee-­based 13 2 1
Private unaided recognised 7 2 1
Private unaided unrecognised 6
Grand total 16 6 3 1 2 2 12 31 7 3 1
 Institutional diversity and quality

Educational aims and the school business plan

Most schools had a narrative that established the unique niche they saw themselves occupying
in terms of what they aimed to achieve for their students and what they had to offer as institu-
tional objectives. While overall educational aims were formulated in general terms, institutions
reflected more specifically on what they offered to parents – their ‘unique selling proposition’
which defined their academic identity both for themselves and for their clientele – i.e. how they
represented themselves and how they were viewed. Usually the school’s business plan was
formed around this ‘USP’, which defined its attraction and desirability for its clientele, and
additional activities and services it provided usually from a financial angle. Such narratives
became available to us from more than one source: the head of the institution (leadership/man-
agement), senior teachers, school documents such as the school diary, magazine, and publicity
materials, and their website.
Eleven schools did not articulate or formulate any specific educational ideal to define them (eight
recognised and three unrecognised). All of these were struggling and shrinking, low-­fee-­based
schools run by entrepreneurs and tuition–teacher entrepreneurs. Several of these schools were
facing management crises following family problems: in one case the head had run into debt
after investing in a film production that starred her son. In others, there were inheritance dis-
putes. Four schools were being run by naïve entrepreneurs who were new to the business and
seemed clueless. Three ran tutorial centres, with flexible timing for students and teachers based
on mutual convenience, and multi-­grade grouping based on how many teachers and how many
students turned up. Only one actively pursued fee collection from parents; the others had trou-
ble with even this; they were struggling to simply retain their students, as with any talk of fee
they stood to lose the students altogether. All the schools catered to children from Group 4 (and
one included Group 5). The only aim seemed to be to stay afloat by functioning within means.
As one of the entrepreneurs put it, with this fee no good education can be provided.
For eight schools, the raison d’être derived from serving a particular ‘community’ group: in the case
of three it was ‘girls from poor families’ and for five it was ‘community needs/poorest-­of-­the-­
poor of that community’. These schools serving the Muslim community wanted to provide
modern education opportunities with Islamic values. The social learning component was also
important in the case of the madrasas which served the poorest of the poor (Group 5) – and
strived to offer an education opportunity of privately passing exams, along with learning
‘­hukumat and manners’ for both boys and girls. The Dar-­ul-­Uloom Madrasa was not offering
the community a modern education opportunity, but was serving the religious needs of the
community through a purely religious education. In the case of the girls’ schools, two wanted to
provide a Christian education through which girls would become God-­fearing and Jesus-­loving:
one in Telugu medium serving lower socio-­economic status groups and one in English medium
for higher socio-­economic status groups. The third (also aided Telugu medium) drew from early
nationalist ideas of citizenship and patriotism appropriate to girls from poorer sections of soci-
ety. The management said that they had limited ability to offer good education as they could
not press parents to pay fees beyond a point and lose them, as it was important for them to serve
their community.
Nineteen schools drew their educational identity and unique purpose from the fact that their
clientele was poor. These schools were oriented to serving the needs of the poor as interpreted by
them. For eight of these schools, access to modern education was central to the needs of the
poor. For two – one recognised and one unrecognised, both of which ran on fees – the focus
was on providing English-­medium education in which the students would succeed. They func-
tioned like tutorials and were flexible in their timings to enable participation. They also

53
Padma M. Sarangapani

prepared students to take examinations privately. Both schools were very small and with multi-
graded classes. The remaining six ran on aid or charity and spoke of the importance of giving
the poor an opportunity to succeed with modern education that stressed upon overall values
and character, particularly traits such as resilience, self-­ confidence, autonomy, independent
thinking and problem solving. Three of these institutions were run by religious missions and
linked the development of these attributes to being rooted in the community, religious value
education and education in the mother tongue. One, which was a CSR-­supported English-­
medium school, aimed at providing social mobility through education which prepared poor
students to succeed in examinations but with all-­round development of understanding and
self-­confidence.
In the three government primary schools (two of which were in slum areas and of SSA ori-
gin), the aims of education were dominantly of ‘domestication’ and ‘civilising the poor’. The
school teachers here spoke of the poor needing education in order to become ‘civilised’. In
eight schools – government and aided – multiple aims seemed to be in operation, and were
dependent on the views of individual teachers regarding the social situation of their stu-
dents. Teachers of the Urdu-­medium sections regarded the aim of education to be domestica-
tion and their own work as ‘service to their community’. A few teachers of grade 1 particularly
focused on domestication and conventional rote-­based literacy instruction. Other teachers
aimed at learning with understanding and students becoming self-­confident, self-­reliant, and
independent. In three schools, the key focus was on learning social norms – to adjust to society,
to be God-­fearing, and to learn to live with others. These were run by entrepreneurs – in two
cases the schools were not recognised.
‘Affordable and good education’ was the aim of 13 private low-­fee-­based schools. ‘Unlike cor-
porate schools, we want to give a good education … we want to develop children to do some-
thing for the country.’ ‘English and marks. This is what parents want.’ ‘We give duller success.
Hard work and discipline leads to success.’With the exception of three of this group which were
struggling to retain their client base, with a focus on negotiating fees and cajoling parents to pay,
these schools had achieved a ‘steady’ state of loyal parents. Some of these schools resorted to
humiliating children in various ways for non-­payment of fees, including making them miss their
examinations, or standing outside their class. What chiefly distinguished this group of schools
was that they did not promise high results in maths and science. At the low end, these schools
supported ‘weak’ students and ensured they passed the examinations. They explained that they
admitted children who were rejected by other schools and enabled them to study and pass
exams by focusing on their self-­confidence and character. They spoke of values such as punctu-
ality and regularity and character building. At the upper end of the spectrum, the aims were
elaborated beyond ‘good education’ and ‘values’ to include ‘all-­round development’ of children,
learning English, and becoming able to secure a job. A second group of schools aimed to provide
affordable maths and science scores and exam success. These schools had been started by suc-
cessful maths teachers. Twelve of the schools in this group had been started by teachers and were
managed by teacher entrepreneurs or family trusts. At least four of the schools in this group were
anxious about the emergence of the new corporate schools that were threatening their client
base. They complained that these schools lured their best students away.
A group of nine ‘corporate’ schools all aimed to make students successful in science and
mathematics-­based competitive examinations. Unlike the affordable group that only promised results
in the high school maths and science exams, this group aimed at the competitive examinations.
One ‘old’ family-­run corporate school, which ran as a chain, was focused on entrance exam
success. Other new corporate schools combined the importance of success in these engineering

54
 Institutional diversity and quality

exams with ‘all-round development’. With the exception of one, all of these schools were part
of multi-­institutional chains that had started as coaching schools – mostly at the state level, but
also including national coaching schools for elite engineering entrance exams. ‘The vision to
prepare students for professional courses at the school level itself.’ ‘Imparting concept-based
analytical thinking.’ ‘National building through science and mathematics.’
Nine schools emphasised all-­round development with success in examinations as their key aim,
adding the importance of values as well as coaching to succeed in examinations as their USP.
These schools were all oriented to educating children from Groups 1 and 2. They emphasised
values such as obedience, respecting elders, being God-­fearing, cultivating love for the country,
and being able to stand on their own feet. The schools in this group aimed to achieve this
through investing in curriculum. Most schools in this group said they preferred the CBSE for
this reason. ‘We develop personality through scientific testing’, was the claim of another. The
claim ‘Not an engineer or doctor but an IAS officer who can hire any engineer or doctor’ sug-
gested that these schools were preparing students for a wider range of white-­collar employment
opportunities. Table 3.4 offers a summary.
While there is a diversity in educational aims, this diversity was across schools catering to dif-
ferent social groups/classes. More ‘progressive’ and ‘holistic’ aims of education were found in
schools catering to the highest income bracket, while lower down the spectrum the focus
shifted to very discipline-­based rote learning for either exam success or to be able to learn
English. Teacher entrepreneur-­run schools attempted to move pedagogy and aims in the direc-
tion of textbook learning with understanding as compared with other management types. The
only exception was in the case of schools dealing with children with disability or in the lowest
socio-­economic group where the aim was for all-­round development and autonomy and self-­
reliance – but this seems to be linked to the expectation that these children would not gain
access to ‘mainstream’ channels of employment and success and would need to chart their own
way. There was relatively limited diversity seen within social groups.

Table 3.4 Aims of education

Aspects of aims Groups 4 and 5 Groups 3 and 4 Groups 1 and 2

‘Domestication’/‘Civilising’ mission X
Social learning, social norms X
Citizenship and patriotism X X
Values – respect, punctuality, working X X
hard
Values – religious X X X
Autonomy, resilience and independence X X
‘All-round development’ – personality and X X
interests, self-confidence, ‘soft skills’
English In a few cases X Taken for granted
Science and Mathematics (high school X
exam)
Science and Mathematics (competitive X X
exams)
Securing a job/being employable X
Having a career X

55
Padma M. Sarangapani

Pedagogy
The processes of teaching and learning that were being followed attempted to achieve the edu-
cational aims of the institution, but also specific educational purposes that the teachers intended.
An understanding of the distinctive work being carried out in each classroom was characterised
by drawing on five dimensions: (1) teachers’ expectations and intended aims of education for the
children they were teaching and what they expected them to achieve; (2) their expectations of
the home, particularly in terms of support for schooling; (3) a ‘method’ they employed for teach-
ing; (4) the ‘method’ that they intended by which students would learn; and (5) the method of
discipline/moral regulation that was prevalent in the school. The composite of these five dimen-
sions was reviewed and again synthesised into seven broad types of pedagogy. It was found that
pedagogy was characteristic of a school, rather than of an individual teacher – the only excep-
tion being the government school where, as in the case of educational aims, there was a great
deal of variation from teacher to teacher.
Teachers’ expectations about learning referred not generally to expectations of some abstract
learner, but more specifically to expectations about what these children who she was expected
to teach could be and should be expected to learn. This constituted an educational aim that
informed her pedagogic focus and effort. These ranged from expectations that were teacher-­referenced
to those that were textbook-­referenced to those that were society-­referenced. Minimal expectations took
the form of the teacher-­controlled and -defined learning of literacy and obedience, or expecting
children to learn answers as defined by the teacher. The textbook-­centric expectations involved
learning answers to questions in the textbooks – from exact reproduction of textbook answers
moving to answers which reflected the understanding of concepts and comprehension of the
textbook. A last group referenced expectations of learning that was more widely valued in soci-
ety, beyond school: learning of concepts and solving competitive exam papers, and in a few cases
also the production of reasoning, independent autonomy, creativity, and novelty, reflecting
understanding.
With regard to expectations about home-­support, teachers had an implicit or explicit understand-
ing of the home cultural and economic resources that supported the child’s ability to learn
school knowledge. At the lowest end, teachers had no expectations of home and viewed a child’s
home circumstances with empathy; in others a tense relationship prevailed vis-­à-­vis a child’s
home, particularly where there were difficulties in securing the school fee. The home of the
child was viewed negatively as contributing problems that had to be countered in school and
where no support could be expected. In a middle group, the sense was that although the home
could not directly contribute useful things on its own, it could be influenced to support the
child and the school and they could together support children towards meeting more and more
expectations. Finally, there were institutions in which there was a cultural continuity between
the home and school, in which the home provided valuable cultural capital – particularly
knowledge of English. The expectations about home support thus varied on an axis of expecting none in
a situation of cultural division to full support in a situation of cultural continuity.
Method of ‘teaching’: the dominant pattern of teaching in Indian schools is ‘whole-­class
instruction’, where the teacher engages and addresses the whole class and the entire group is
basically doing the same thing. Also, following a set lesson is the dominant trend. Within this,
variations were noted in the extent to which teachers did not give explanations, asked questions
from children, and expected them to either repeat what was said, articulate in their own words,
and expected and allowed children to ask questions – moving from overall silence in children to
more dialogic situations with them. Teaching varied from massified to approaches which focused on
individual learners. In the former, where there was little or no differentiation and engagement

56
 Institutional diversity and quality

with what children were understanding, teachers primarily defined the objects of learning by
marking portions and items to be learned without any discussion or explanation. The teachers
here rarely made eye contact with the children and would ignore them even if they said some-
thing. In approaches where teaching was more individualised, teachers tried to monitor individual
children’s learning of prescribed knowledge in overall competitive settings. There were many
schools, particularly the new corporate-­managed ones, where pedagogy was scripted and tightly
controlled by a centralised office. Here, teachers followed a detailed microplan and had fixed
targets to meet in each lesson. The participation of children in these classes was also part of a
script. There were schools where the teaching seemed to demand higher-­order thinking from
children and a few which were more dialogic and individualised. Children were often heard
saying things on their own and asking questions. It seemed that their understanding was appreci-
ated and their independent contributions valued and incorporated into an ongoing lesson.
Method of learning: a method of learning also was a part of the pedagogy. Each teacher seemed
to be functioning with an implicit view of how children would learn and remember what there
is to be learned or what they had been taught. These ranged from learning by rote – i.e. repetition – to
learning by thinking, understanding, and review. This was a part of the pedagogy adopted by all
teachers, where making sure that children had learned by testing and making them learn by
spending time in the class on this was a part of their overall pedagogy. In other words, complet-
ing the time and effort in ‘teaching’ was time and effort spent also on ‘making children learn’:
practice, rehearsal, assessment, and feedback. This ranged from rote memory-­based learning
methods in which the children were expected to repeat – and the teacher made them repeat
over and over again – to making children think and express in their own words, revise, and
attempt to apply their knowledge to answer new types of questions.
A disciplinary culture underlined the pedagogic work and in a sense the pedagogy only assumed
and worked on this moral regulation. Pedagogy and its effects were believed to be as much about
moral learning as they were about knowledge and skill development. The latter would follow
from the former. Thus pedagogy was about shaping both the moral and epistemic capability and
potential and identity of the student. At the lowest end, discipline was imposed through very
visible forms involving corporal punishment and physical control. A second level was the use of
guilt and conveying inadequacy arising out of moral failure.While there was no physical punish-
ment, this discipline was also very visible. As the disciplinary cultures moved towards more invis-
ible forms they could take the form of micro-­control through rigorous timetabling and control
of space and time of the student, in some cases for very extensive hours from early morning till
late at night. Religion and religious values were also invoked in establishing invisible controls. In
a few cases, control was expected to take the form of self-­control through the use of reason. The
axis of variation was visible – external control of the body – to invisible – internal control through reason.

Pedagogic types
Almost without exception a pedagogic form of the types described above marked the entire
institution – the institution was broadly united in its educational identity and aims; as it was
homogenous, it was largely oriented to the same educational aim and aspiration for the group
that it served. There was a common view of the home and its resources to support the work of
the school, as well as to contribute to its financial viability. The main areas in which variation
was noted were the perspectives of individual teachers in schools – this was mainly in the
dimensions of teaching and learning. Some variability from ‘drill-­and-­repetition’ in primary
classes to more elaborate teaching in high school was noted particularly in the English-­medium
schools catering to Groups 3 and 4. Here, the initial years were more narrowly focused on

57
Padma M. Sarangapani

teaching in the English medium to non-­English-­speaking students and moving to higher expec-
tations when there was a higher level of fluency and comprehension of English. In five schools,
a very wide variation was seen within the school between teachers. Some taught with high-­level
expectations and for higher-­order cognition, while others adopted a domesticating pedagogy or
drill. On one occasion, the same teacher exhibited dual pedagogy within a class, teaching one
group in a more elaborate manner and another in a drill fashion. The schools with variations in
pedagogy from teacher to teacher were schools for Groups 4 and 5, and were either government
or aided schools. Table 3.5 offers a summary.
The low-­fee-­based private unaided unrecognised schools dominantly had ‘domesticating pedagogies’ (in
7 of 11 such schools). The key focus of these schools was on ‘disciplining’ children and keeping
them quiet. The teachers felt that these children of the poor needed school in order to become
civilised, and citizenship consisted of obedience. Textbooks were of no importance in these
classes – the teacher defined what was to be learned and how, and was the final arbitrator in
whether something had been learned or not. Discipline was mostly corporal and arbitrary.
Children were constantly reminded that they were poor and that the best they could achieve
was to remain silent.
Twenty-­five of the 34 low-­fee-­based recognised schools had pedagogies involving rote and
drill. The teacher-­entrepreneur schools paid greater attention to ensuring that each child learned.
A lot of time was spent on drill and repetition, mostly in a chorus learning manner, but teachers
kept a strict watch on the children and from time to time would single out individuals and
check that they could repeat on their own.
In the entrepreneurial schools (11 of which were struggling and shrinking and seven of
which had very small enrolments), classes were multigraded and teachers did little more than
supervise this rote learning. The discipline in these schools was often both corporal and psycho-
logical. The classrooms were small and shared – children were squeezed in on benches. They
often had their large bags on their laps and their books on top. They got into skirmishes with
each other – knocking or jabbing each other. Keeping discipline and maintaining order in an
overall noisy crowded environment seemed to be uppermost on the teachers’ minds.When they
taught they made children repeat the spellings of each word and rote learn answers.
Pedagogies that favoured higher-­order cognitive capabilities, conceptual understanding, and
independent thinking and writing answers in one’s own words were both in textbook refer-
enced pedagogies (type 4) as well as in more out-­of-­textbook and progressive pedagogies (types
6 and 7). Here, teachers allowed far greater self-­expression of students and seemed to be oriented
to their ‘all-­round development’ and life outside the textbook and school. Pedagogy type 4 was
constructed around enabling children to understand and engage with textbook knowledge.
School seemed to be central to person formation in this pedagogic form. Many of the schools
with pedagogy type 4 also had more diversity in the curriculum and, while being mostly low-­
fee-­based, were aimed at giving children opportunities for all-­round development and whole-­
school activities, including sports. The disciplinary cultures of these schools was based on
middle-­class values. While some of these schools tried to combine success in examinations and
mathematics and science, this was not so in all.
Pedagogy types 6 and 7 differed in one important respect. Pedagogy type 6 catered to chil-
dren from the highest socio-­economic group of the area. These were children who all had
English spoken at home and parents pursuing elite careers – anticipating the future careers and
aspirations of the children. The schools were run by very different management types – one a
national religious mission trust, another a ‘corporate’ chain, and yet another a family trust. All of
these schools had ample space for a diverse curriculum. In pedagogic type 7, children were mostly
from the poorest of the poor and did not have any home support for schooling. The medium of

58
Table 3.5 Pedagogic types in relation to clientele type and management type

Group 1: doctors, Group 2: Group 3: Group 4: domestic Group 5: rag pickers,

software professionals businessmen, teachers, workers, mechanics, scavengers,
lawyers, shop electricians, manual labour, fruit unemployed
owners shop assistants vendors

P1: Domestication and DEO and 12

obedience-­alphabetisation entreprenuer
(unrecognised)
P2: Rote learning of answers to pass Entrepreneur 21
examinations
P3: Drill learning of textbooks to do Teacher 13
well in examinations entrepreneur
P4: Textbook learning with Teacher entrepreneur, 7
understanding family trusts
P5: SWOTT success in high-­stakes Corporates 11
competitive exams
P6: All-­round development and exam Religious and family 3
success trusts
P7: All-­round development and Aided, government, 7
self-­reliance charitable
Others (religious and special 3
education)
No information 7
Padma M. Sarangapani

instruction was the mother tongue. The teachers in these schools were keen to develop chil-
dren’s self-­confidence and ability to learn to help them stand on their own feet. For these teach-
ers, often the ability to read and understand any new text was an important aim as they felt these
children had to rely on their own abilities in order to make something of their lives – they had
neither any cultural capital at home nor parental resources to get them ahead in life. At the same
time, these teachers did not seem to be preparing the children to succeed in life through a school
examination and selection process. They would probably need to find opportunities and enter
the workforce early. This included specific government school teachers.
SWOTT type pedagogy ‘5’ was unique to Telangana/Andhra Pradesh – nine corporate-­run schools
and two established by successful math and science teacher entrepreneurs. Here, the ethos was heavily
oriented towards success in the elite engineering examinations, with curricula that drew directly
from the competitive exams. Conceptual understanding was greatly valued, but along with
speed and accuracy developed out of drill and focused study to the exclusion of all else. Learning
was heavily scripted and with frequent tests and analysis of the test results. The atmosphere was
intensely competitive. In most of these schools order was built into the regime. One of these
schools had a discipline coach posted on each floor. In this pedagogic form, success in competi-
tive examinations was the aim and students were being trained for this. For the families of the
students, maintaining and advancing one’s current social status was crucially dependent on
examination success. The pedagogy was thus not oriented towards the textbook per se, but to a
world beyond. Conceptual learning was also valued, but only as it aided solving new and
unknown problems that may appear in these examinations.
The relationship between social class and pedagogic form was striking – as the clientele of
schools changed from Group 5 to Group 1, the dominant pedagogy also changed from peda-
gogy type 1 (or domesticating type), through which children were expected to learn obedience
and to stay in their place on the lowest rung of society, to pedagogy types 5 and 6, which aimed
at locating them in a wider social plane beyond the textbook and the school.

Conclusion
The heterogeneity and diversity of schools in Hyderabad city seems to be developing on account
of both features of the state system as well as the market – indeed, on account of the comple-
mentary action of the two sectors. The 1970s to the 1980s was a turning point, with the cessa-
tion of state investment to open government schools or new aided schools and the beginning of
the growth of private schools. Today there is heterogeneity and diversity seen in the schools, but
this maps closely onto the socially stratified character of Indian society; the market has grown
around class and community stratification; added to which we see a new stratum – children with
disabilities (impairments or learning difficulties) and ‘dullers’ (i.e. ‘lower’ intelligence). Clientele
stratification is suggestive of an inherent segregation taking place in school selection along class
and community lines, as well as exclusion of children with special needs, separating them into a
class of their own. (This study was conducted before the RTE 25 per cent clause was operation-
alised in Telangana schools and it would be of interest to see whether in future this homogeneity
is disrupted.) English medium is the default language option and opportunities for education in
the mother tongue (Telugu and Urdu) are severely limited and only for the poorest of the poor,
in either government or charitable settings.
Schools for the poor run by entrepreneurs and unstable small schools are mostly ‘shrinking’,
raising questions regarding their stability. Pedagogic cultures in these schools are ‘domesticating’
or ‘drill’ based. Relationships with the home on the whole are tense and combative, with the
schools having to balance keeping an upper hand over the parents and extracting fees with not

60
 Institutional diversity and quality

losing their clientele. Those that are able to set aside such considerations are the ones that have
a community religious affiliation with their clientele. Teacher entrepreneur-­run schools have
less rote-­based pedagogies, and although they are textbook cultures, these enable thinking and
have expectations of concept development. While there are several schools for the poor which
rely on shaming students – domesticating them or treating them as immoral – there also seems
to be a widespread desire and parental investment in the ones that put students through a diffi-
cult regimen to prepare them for competitive examinations. These schools seem to be more
desirable. On the whole, there seems to be an invisible segregation operating in which the more
competent students, or at least those who can cope with the regimen, are put into high-­pressure
schools while the less competent ones – the dullers – are sent to the schools that will coach them
sufficiently to pass examinations. The poorest of the poor are served by charitable institutions.
These, along with some of the aided schools and government school teachers, also espouse peda-
gogies that promote autonomy, thinking, and student confidence, all practised in the mother
tongue.
This diversity of school types suggests the variables in the production of education quality in
these institutions: aims which are derived from the socio-­economic and community identity of
the clientele, school financing, and the type of management. There are multiple niches in the
market ecosystem that these schools occupy. It is these considerations rather than ‘private vs
aided vs government’ or ‘recognised vs unrecognised’ that provide us with a greater insight into
the educational purposes and activities of these schools. Within any given bracket, being recog-
nised vs being ‘unrecognised’ per se does not help distinguish any aspect of education quality
between schools. However, it is instructive that such ‘unrecognised’ schools are found either at
the ‘top end’ or the ‘bottom end’; both these groups seem unconcerned about and are immune
to the effects of the state or its need and ability to regulate.
The types of non-­state interests in starting schools have evolved over the decades. Largely
community-­oriented initiatives until the 1970s gave way to entrepreneurship from the 1980s
onwards. However, even in this group we see differences of quality even in the single dimension
of educational aims – between schools established by teacher entrepreneurs and business entre-
preneurs. Given how many of these schools are small and struggling, not only their quality, but
also their institutional formation and stability cannot be ignored as issues when questions of
their ability to serve the needs of the poor are debated. Moreover, in addition to the level or
quantum of the fee charged, the ability to collect fees regularly is a major concern for these
institutions, leading to their tense relationships with parents and having to resort to shaming
children as a way of ‘disciplining’ parents. Fee collection tensions are mitigated usually on
account of the simultaneous operation of charitable and communitarian considerations.
Religiously motivated trusts and institutions figure dominantly in the ‘private’ schools space.
Also, it is instructive to note that the poorest of the poor may not be getting served by the gov-
ernment institutions!
Contrary to common perception, all government schools do not have apathetic cultures, nor
are all low-fee-­paying private schools hives of industrious effort. The diversity of institutional
forms and qualities can be understood only by unpacking the categories of ‘private’ and ‘govern-
ment’ to reveal the nature of their management/leadership, their reasons for being in the business
of running schools, their educational aims, and the core finances of their operations. The school
ethos evolves in relation to these considerations within the specific niche that it occupies and
creates for itself, in the market ecosystem. Pedagogic cultures are determined at the institutional
level even though they are realised through the practice of individual teachers. The stratification
of school quality as manifested in its pedagogic form and educational aim is suggestive of the role
of schools in the stratification of the formation of consciousness and agency (Bernstein 1977).

61
Padma M. Sarangapani

The stratification between rather than within schools also provides conditions for the pedagogic
messaging to be more intense, and minimises the opportunity for children to be exposed to dif-
ferent messaging. Surely this will have a cost for the society in which children grow up without
having made friends or having been in the company of people who are different from them.

Notes
1 www.schoolreportcards.in.
2 Census2011.co.in, Hyderabad religion 2011, accessed on 14 November 2015.
3 Andhra Pradesh Educational Institutions (Establishment, Recognition, Administration and Control of
Schools Under Private Management) Rules, 1993, in http://cdn.cfbt.com/~/media/cfbtcorporate/
files/research/2003/r-­private-­schools-­for-­the-­poor-­india-­2003.pdf.
4 Schools may be benefitting from indirect government funding. For example, in Delhi many ‘private’
schools have benefitted from a land grant/lease. Now with the RTE fee reimbursement policy, a school
stands to benefit for up to 25 per cent of its fee collection.

References
Bernstein, B. 1977. Class Codes and Control Volume III. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Centre for Civil Society. 2015. Meta-­Study of Literature on Budget Private Schools in India (www.ccs.in,
accessed on 14 November 2015).
Jalan, Jyotsna and Panda, Jharna. 2010. Low Mean and High Variance: Quality of Primary Education in Rural West
Bengal. Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.
Karopady, D.D. 2014. Does school choice help rural children from disadvantaged sections? The Economic and
Political Weekly 49(51): 46–53.
Mehrotra, Santosh (ed.). 2005. The Economics of Elementary Education in India:The Challenges of Public Finance,
Private Provision and Household Costs. New Delhi: Sage.
Mooij, Jos. 2003. Smart governance? Politics in the policy process in Andhra Pradesh, India. Working paper
228. London: Overseas Development Institute.
Naik J.P. 1975. Equality, Quality and Quantity: The Elusive Triangle of Indian Education. Bombay: Allied
Publishers.
Sarangapani, P.M. (forthcoming). Hyderabad’s education market. In School Education in India: Market, State
and Quality, eds Manish Jain, Archana Mehendale, Rahul Mukhopadhyay, Padma M. Sarangapani and
Christopher Winch. New Delhi: Routledge.
Sarangapani, P.M., Manish Jain, Rahul Mukhopadhyay, and Christopher Winch. 2013. Baseline survey of
the school scenario in some states in the context of RTE: study of educational quality, school manage-
ment, and teachers. Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, and West Bengal, unpublished report submitted to the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan, MHRD, New Delhi.
Tooley, James. 2009. The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating
Themselves. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.
Tooley, James, and Dixon, Pauline. 2003. Private schools for the poor: a case study from India. London:
CfBT Research and Development (accessed from http://cdn.cfbt.com/~/media/cfbtcorporate/files/
research/2003/r-­private-­schools-­for-­the-­poor-­india-­2003.pdf on 12 September 2015).
Tooley, James, Dixon, Pauline, and Gomathi, S.V. 2007. Private schools and the millennium development
goal of universal primary education: a census and comparative survey in Hyderabad, India. Oxford
Review of Education 33: 539–560.
Winch, C. 1996. Quality in Education. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

62
 4
Examination for elimination
Celebrating fear and penalising failure

Disha Nawani1

Assessment of students forms an integral part of all educational processes. The form, nature, and
timing of such assessments varies, depending perhaps on the structure and formality of the learn-
ing spaces they are situated in and the foci and explicitness of specified objectives, learning or
otherwise. Therefore, what has been taught,2 especially in the context of formal school education,
needs to be not only learned but get manifested, reported, and assessed as well, in some form or
other. The purpose of student assessment could be either to gauge the acquisition of desired learn-
ing over a specified period of time or to use the assessment results to assist students in their learn-
ing (Pellegrino et al. 2001). It could even be to examine the effectiveness of syllabus, teaching/
learning resources and pedagogic experiences in achieving the desired learning objectives (Tyler
1949) or be something totally extraneous to learning, serving perhaps as a legitimate screening
device for selecting and discriminating between candidates for distributing or withholding of
certain rewards.
Curriculum, teaching/learning resources, and assessment share an intricately intertwined
relationship with one another. The manner in which this relationship unfolds is contingent on
several factors. For instance, in school systems, where textbooks are prescribed by the state, text-
book content often determines the ‘what and how’ of assessment (Kumar 1991). On the other
hand, there are instances where the ‘form and nature of assessment’ guides the selection of cur-
ricular resources and pedagogic processes adopted in the classrooms. This in turn influences the
meaning assigned to ‘learning’ and the way students approach learning (Willis 1993). Assessment
is also inextricably linked with the location and positioning of teachers and students vis-­á-­vis
each other and important others (textbook designers, policy-­makers, inspecting officials, etc.) in
the educational hierarchy.
These and several related issues gain prominence in the context of the Indian education
system, which was significantly influenced by the educational policies of the British colonial
era. Evaluation of students’ learning acquired a definite meaning, shape, and aura, both distant
from the traditional curricular, pedagogic, and assessment practices (Kumar 1991), and also
deeply resilient and stubborn. The external nature of a written examination system, regulatory
role and public use of its results, introduction of bureaucratic processes laced with formal ritu-
als, uniformity in treatment of students, non-­transparency in the process of evaluation, underly-
ing pervasiveness and association of ‘fear’ with learning and a complete distrust of teachers in

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-6 63
Disha Nawani

assessing students taught by them are some of the features discussed in this chapter as it attempts
to trace and examine the history, structure, and implications of the contemporary examination
system in India.
This chapter reiterates that assessment of students’ learning need not only be understood in
a pedagogic context as an objective and benign evaluation of students’ competence, but needs
to be placed in a larger societal context in which it often plays an important role in maintaining
societies and even establishing order in them. This chapter has been organised into three sec-
tions. The first traces the institutionalisation of examinations in the colonial period, consolida-
tion in independent India, and its implications. The second section discusses examination-­related
concerns and recommendations of various committees set up to examine the prevailing educa-
tion system both before and after Independence. The third section traces the debate around
specific assessment-­related reforms initiated by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education Act, 2009 (RTE) and aims to understand its ramifications for the disadvantaged child
in Indian society.

Institutionalisation of the examination system in India: history, structure,

and implications
This section briefly explains the origin, institutionalisation, and consolidation of the examina-
tion system in India. Situating the Board Examinations in a structural context, it explains the
regulatory role played by them, placed as they are at the transitional stage between school and
higher education. Finally, it highlights the impact of their institutionalisation on the meaning
and purpose of learning as well as the educational lives of teachers and students.

Brief historical overview

The process of institutionalisation of examinations in India is closely linked to the setting-up of
three universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in 1857. Set up in accordance with the
Woods Despatch, 1854, these universities were entrusted with the task of conducting examina-
tions, ascertaining candidates’ proficiency, and screening their eligibility for government service.
The institutionalisation process was strengthened after the Indian Education Commission of
1882 linked the grants-­in-­aid to schools to their examination results. Under ‘payment-­by-­
results’, the system adopted by the Hunter Commission, grants to schools were given in propor-
tion to the success and failure of students in the matriculation examination (Arasarkadavil 1963:
32). Over time, a condition was imposed based on the recommendations of the Universities
Commission, 1902, under which secondary schools came under the purview of universities.
This meant that for these schools to be entitled to register their students for the Secondary
School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examination, they needed to be recognised by universities,
wherein individual school examination results played a key role in securing such recognition. In
addition, every student desirous of entering college was required to complete secondary school
as well as pass the SSLC examination. By 1904, the character of examinations thus became
highly centralised (ibid.).
The nature of these examinations was significantly affected by the framework of education
governed by Macaulay’s Minutes of 1835. One among the several aims of the British to educate
Indians was to train them for clerical jobs with the government. Since recruitment to service
was related to an exam result, the concept of a minimum standard of proficiency and, hence, the
concept of pass and fail, automatically crept in. In all these examinations, the stress was on
memory and this was accentuated by the general background of our own teachers, traceable to

64
 Examination for elimination

the old pathshala3 technique (NCERT 1971: 12) where teachers taught orally and students, in
the absence of much written text, rote-­learned the knowledge thus communicated to them.
Another reason for this mechanical selection was the sheer number of candidates, which made
it difficult to give any importance to other aspects of students’ personality, and the percentage of
marks scored in such exams became the sole criteria for their selection (ibid.: 13).
Examining the manner in which this kind of examination system gained wider social accep-
tance can help us understand the validation and contestation around the social functions that
examinations performed, placing them within the complex matrix of state and society. Most of
the pupils studying in the secondary schools of the colonial period belonged to the education-
ally advanced classes of society, whose main objective was to obtain employment under the
government. Gradually most of the secondary schools also came to be managed by the educa-
tionally advanced classes themselves (Naik and Nurullah 1974). As the examination system
served the interests of this group, it gained social acceptance and became entrenched. However,
there was another dynamic at work as well. Being part of the colonial education system, the
examination system also represented the colonial state. It became a vehicle for the colonial state
to express the principles that it claimed to represent. In the colonial imagery, Indian society was
divided along caste and religious lines. The colonial state claimed that by virtue of its foreign-
ness, it stood above these different groups, mediated between them, and was neutral in its
approach towards them. Setting up of question papers and evaluation of students by people
other than teachers who taught them was one such measure of expressing its neutrality. Phule’s
submission to the Hunter Commission helps one notice how he viewed colonial education, of
which examinations were an important part, as promoting equity and fairness in a sharply strati-
fied society:

The withdrawal of Government from schools or colleges would not only tend to check the
spread of education, but would seriously endanger that spirit of neutrality which has all
along been the aim of the Government to foster, owing to the different nationalities and
religious creeds prevalent in India.
(Phule 1882: 9)

This perhaps also explains why the public exam system got so entrenched and acquired lasting
social sanction in India.

Structure and role of Boards of Secondary Education in independent India

The first University Education Commission appointed after 1947 under the Chairmanship of
S. Radhakrishnan gave priority to higher education. The Secondary Education Commission,
headed by A.L. Mudaliar in 1952, specifically examined problems of secondary education. It
gave a good deal of attention to matters concerning examinations. The Kothari Commission
(1964–66; Ministry of Education 1966) recommended that each state should have a Board of
Secondary Education (BSE). Till then, while some of the states did have such Boards, others did
not. Owing to the pressure of increasing student population, universities withdrew from the job
of the management and control of matriculation examinations. Thus, separate and autonomous
BSEs came up in most states. The few that existed before 1947 (the precise number being two)
took over the job of conducting matriculation examinations. Beginning with the 1920s, when
Intermediate Boards were set up in several provinces, intermediate (and also matriculation)
examinations came to be handled by them. Most of these Boards were examining Boards and
did not perform any academic function, which meant that universities continued to dominate

65
Disha Nawani

secondary school education until the 1960s, after which it began to get diluted. As the number
of students increased at a phenomenal rate, the School Boards became more important and
continue to be so, especially in the conduct of examinations and declaration of results on time.
The practice of screening large numbers of students and selecting only a few, to match the num-
ber of seats available, is followed in most states (Singh 1997a).
Secondary education, as compared with higher, professional, and elementary education,
received far less attention, even after Independence. While the states’ priorities kept fluctuating
between these sectors, secondary education was never looked upon as an independent sector of
education (Singh 1997b). Interestingly, secondary education in India enjoys a peculiar relation-
ship with college education, where the former, instead of being seen as a terminal stage of school
education, is seen as a precursor to college education. The Board Examinations organised at the
Secondary (Class X) and Higher Secondary (Class XII) levels therefore acquire special signifi-
cance in such an educational context. Given the absence of alternative avenues of employment,
when students choose to enter a college, generally speaking, it is mainly to defer unemployment;
postponing the evil day, as it is called (Singh 1997b: 882). One can see a continuity in examina-
tion results serving as criteria for limited opportunities (both admission to institutions of higher
learning and employment) in colonial as well as independent India. The data in the following
section show how aspirations of millions of students are thus scuttled and controlled by exami-
nation results (read: failure).
However, before presenting the statistics pertaining to performance of students across states
in Class X and XII examinations, it may be pertinent to briefly examine the BSE operating in
India at present. There are several educational Boards at present in the country – Central Board
of Secondary Education (CBSE), Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations
(CISCE), which is an umbrella term for ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education for
Class X) and Indian School Certificate (ISC for Class XII), National Open School (NOS), and
numerous State Boards.
The CBSE is the oldest and most prestigious Board in India and comes under the central
government. Schools recognised by CBSE fall into three categories – schools established by the
central government under its various schemes, schools run by the Delhi government, other state
governments, or by private agencies in those states, and private schools located in Delhi and
various Union Territories.
While CBSE and NOS are government-­sponsored and government-­run, CISCE is a non-­
government body. Whereas CBSE and all other Boards generally follow the curriculum laid
down by NCERT, the Council follows a different pattern of academic organisation.
While most private and prestigious public schools are affiliated to CBSE and CISCE and
enjoy a superior status, State Boards are placed low in the hierarchy. They are set up by indi-
vidual state governments in different states and follow their own syllabi and grading patterns.
They are aimed at promoting regional language and culture and regarded as being relatively
easier than other Boards.

Presenting Board Examination results (2009–2011)

This section presents data pertaining to results of Board Examinations for Classes X and XII
across three variables – states (State Boards versus CBSE, ICSE/ISC), gender (girls versus boys),
and enrolment type/category of students (regular versus private) for 2009, 2010, and 2011.
A very preliminary examination of the data reveals how every year a large number of students
are unable to pass these terminal examinations (Tables 4.1 and 4.2). It is not surprising that the

66
 Examination for elimination

Table 4.1 Result of BSEs (2009–11): Class X

Students appeared Students passed

Year Regular Private Regular Private

2009 13,257,089 1,845,177 94,66,126 (71.40%) 769,649 (41.71%)

2010 14,529,898 1,618,217 10,647,530 (73.28%) 772,904 (47.76%)
2011 14,556,735 1,320,628 10,178,487 (69.92%) 553,934 (41.94%)

Source: this is a consolidated summary of all students appearing in different state and central Board Examinations held
for that year. These data have been provided by the Council of Boards on Secondary Education (COBSE).

Table 4.2 Result of senior secondary boards of examination (2009–11): Class XII

Students appeared Students passed

Year Regular Private Regular Private

2009 7,011,131 1,026,703 5,568,157 (79.42%) 453,233 (44.14%)

2010 8,434,002 1,043,680 6,578,797 (78%) 493,725 (47.30%)
2011 10,173,781 1,180,096 7,616,545 (74.86%) 530,780 (44.98%)

Source: this is a consolidated summary of all students appearing in different state and central Board Examinations held
for that year. These data have been provided by the COBSE.

failure rate is much higher among private students (more than 50 per cent) as compared with
regular4 students (varying between 20 and 30 per cent). Thus, students who for various social,
cultural, and economic reasons are already outside the formal school system get eliminated
completely by failure in Board Exams.
Tables 4.3 (Class X) and 4.4 (Class XII) show pass percentages of students across different
Boards, including gender and enrolment category/type of students. There are significant varia-
tions in the pass percentages of students across State Boards. In Table 4.3, one can see states like
Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh consistently lagging far behind other states. Southern states
like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh perform better, with ICSE and CBSE
being among the top scorers. Children studying in schools affiliated to CBSE and ICSE belong
to relatively privileged social backgrounds as compared to children studying in schools affiliated
to State Boards. There are significant differences in the pass percentages of private and regular
students, even in CBSE and ICSE. Results of private students are abysmally low across states. On
average, girls perform better than boys. One can notice no significant changes in trends in data
across three years. Similar trends can be seen in data for Class XII as well (Table 4.4). While
failure in Class X ensures the exit of students midway through, failure in Class XII exams pre-
vents those who manage to clear the first hurdle from joining colleges (professional and general)
for higher learning.While for the majority of school students it is a two-­hurdle race, some states
previously had Board Examinations even as early as Class V.
A more sophisticated analysis of the data is required to arrive at a nuanced understanding of
the implications of these scores, which is not within the scope of this chapter. However, the data
point out: (1) the performance of the students in schools generally and exams specifically may

67
Table 4.3 Result of secondary examination of different boards (2009–11): pass percentage – Class X
Name of board 2009 2010 2011

Regular Private Regular Private Regular Private

Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total

1 Board of Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh 78.58 79.10 78.83 41.42 49.83 44.29 81.27 82.01 81.63 39.59 48.46 42.54 82.71 83.52 83.10 12.34 17.70 14.10
2 Board of Secondary Education, Assam 65.81 59.03 62.39 62.79 52.48 58.00 66.70 59.72 63.21 48.25 51.74 50.05 73.42 67.39 70.38 44.22 47.49 45.92
3 Bihar School Examination Board 65.84 60.65 63.76 72.24 68.11 70.55 71.97 67.37 70.06 78.63 73.86 76.70 71.33 59.94 66.39 77.89 62.84 71.83
4 Bihar State Madrasa Education Board 86.75 86.55 87.59 N.R. N.R. N.R.
5 Central Board of Secondary Education 89.26 91.23 90.07 44.61 36.19 40.97 89.57 92.19 90.65 38.68 32.29 36.00 98.33 98.98 98.59 23.26 19.99 22.04
6 Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education 54.34 55.41 54.84 38.06 40.79 39.21 54.61 55.57 55.07 38.17 40.90 39.29 52.38 51.40 51.90 33.88 34.13 33.99
7 Council for Indian School Certificate Exam, 97.82 98.69 98.20 60.96 54.05 59.06 98.11 98.87 98.44 67.91 72.47 69.54 98.31 99.22 98.71 65.82 72.79 68.36
Delhi
8 Goa Board of Secondary & HS Education 77.40 76.84 77.11 32.00 33.79 32.88 79.54 78.61 79.08 100.00 0.00 100.00 81.31 80.26 80.80 33.33 0.00 20.00
9 Gujarat Secondary and HS Education Board 73.48 79.66 75.85 47.03 61.09 50.75
10 Board of School Education, Haryana 84.00 85.00 84.00 45.00 40.00 44.00 79.23 80.94 79.98 67.45 75.00 70.16 64.16 69.54 66.57 60.69 65.00 62.36
11 Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education 55.44 58.11 55.75 54.82 45.48 50.18 62.3 64.18 63.19 65.29 65.79 65.53 62.01 62.42 62.20 64.09 63.75 63.92
12 Jharkhand Academic Council 81.57 76.72 79.47 75.94 72.19 74.48 79.48 76.32 78.07 70.72 67.31 69.34 74.71 69.47 72.25 58.12 55.31 56.87
13 Board of School Education, J&K 59.50 58.11 58.22 20.75 0.00 20.75 0.00 0.00 58.33 0.00 0.00 0.00
14 Karnataka Secondary Education Exam Board 74.45 77.30 75.83 12.19 23.57 14.80 66.71 71.00 68.81 5.45 14.16 7.32 78.86 82.90 80.85 8.97 21.27 11.69
15 Kerala State Board of Public Examination 89.74 93.99 91.92 N.R. N.R. N.R. 88.99 92.42 90.12 0.00 0.00 54.20 89.71 93.01 91.36 45.32 52.72 47.54
16 Board of Secondary Education, Madhya 34.09 37.19 35.33 8.38 9.96 8.90 46.65 50.31 48.15 19.85 19.82 19.84 53.85 55.79 54.68 24.01 23.82 23.94
Pradesh
17 Maharashtra State Board of S&HS Education 80.39 82.98 81.55 38.49 43.78 40.09 78.25 82.50 80.17 36.00 43.83 38.34 70.34 74.93 72.42 31.58 41.03 34.42
18 Board of Secondary Education, Manipur 85.80 54.10 60.14 35.50 28.40 31.46 67.00 55.30 61.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
19 Meghalaya Board of Secondary Education 78.62 74.16 76.29 26.53 27.06 26.80 76.53 70.83 73.53 25.07 24.90 24.99 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
20 Mizoram Board of School Education 76.12 71.01 73.50 28.88 25.30 27.10 83.54 78.23 80.84 39.48 30.71 35.11 81.65 78.05 79.83 36.84 28.51 32.55
21 Nagaland Board of School Education 72.45 67.47 69.98 71.58 68.45 69.77 68.13 64.15 66.17 26.80 25.33 26.01 72.87 70.39 71.64 32.26 26.76 29.34
22 National Institute of Open School 0.00 0.00 0.00 33.40 37.84 34.75
23 Board of Secondary Education, Orissa 51.73 49.42 50.38 40.14 43.78 41.60 72.38 69.35 70.86 53.48 56.66 54.84 66.59 63.78 65.21 33.71 36.52 34.91
24 Punjab School Education Board 75.59 82.67 78.80 61.76 72.06 66.04 67.84 73.66 70.57 41.28 54.27 46.73
25 Board of Secondary Education, Rajasthan 77.40 79.29 78.07 9.35 10.67 9.92 77.05 77.41 77.18 9.38 10.56 9.92 75.54 76.12 75.76 8.58 9.85 9.19
26 Tamil Nadu State Board of Secondary 78.67 84.29 81.53 N.R. N.R. N.R. 79.33 85.45 82.45 8.60 11.38 9.43 82.28 88.15 85.28 0.00 0.00 0.00
Education
27 Tripura Board of Secondary Education 62.11 54.57 58.65 37.04 35.43 36.36 63.71 55.82 60.05 34.77 34.78 34.77 65.03 58.64 62.07 24.61 26.22 25.38
28 UP Board of Intermediate and High School 49.00 68.10 57.29 43.60 62.96 50.59 64.52 77.76 71.35 64.21 77.29 70.79 66.83 77.55 71.66 57.56 63.05 59.11
Education
29 Board of School Education, Uttarakhand 63.17 68.67 65.73 37.34 40.68 38.34 63.74 74.85 69.04 36.56 46.59 39.82 65.84 63.51 64.75 36.93 45.40 39.76
30 West Bengal Board of Secondary Education 86.82 76.32 81.74 55.55 52.50 53.85 86.05 77.43 81.78 38.59 32.25 35.34
31 West Bengal Board of Madrasah Education 71.91 61.14 65.30 N.R. N.R. N.R.
Total 69.27 74.06 71.40 38.58 47.53 41.71 71.08 76.02 73.28 45.76 51.07 47.76 73.89 77.10 69.92 40.81 43.83 41.94

Source: these data have been provided by the COBSE.

Table 4.4 Result of senior secondary examination of different boards (2009–11): pass percentage – Class XII
Name of board 2009 2010 2011

Regular Private Regular Private Regular Private

Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total

1 Board of Intermediate Education, Andhra Pradesh 62.49 67.28 65.68 31.49 38.23 33.82 48.04 66.43 55.49 25.92 31.52 27.87
2 Assam Higher Secondary Education Council 74.15 74.06 74.87 48.57 53.58 50.98 73.57 73.21 73.39 53.19 54.20 53.66 78.06 76.44 77.27 62.25 64.11 63.12
3 Bihar School Examination Board 89.52 89.08 89.43 79.38 78.14 79.14 89.80 89.51 89.69 85.15 84.23 84.59 89.44 91.01 90.06 83.24 82.13 82.17
4 Central Board of Secondary Education 79.14 87.51 82.69 46.37 52.19 49.76 78.16 87.09 81.97 39.37 47.26 42.25 79.10 88.43 83.04 42.17 49.32 44.68
5 Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education 74.54 80.02 76.79 51.86 57.76 53.86 76.35 81.09 78.37 45.17 52.16 47.63 70.98 77.40 73.81 40.32 45.96 42.15
6 Council for Indian School Certificate Exam, Delhi 98.99 98.48 97.67 74.43 69.42 73.46 96.98 98.54 97.69 77.56 80.88 78.34 96.94 98.71 97.74 83.57 82.19 83.23
7 Goa Board of Secondary & HS Education 77.09 85.94 81.39 19.05 10.00 16.13 74.63 81.43 78.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 76.15 80.34 78.34 11.12 0.00 9.38
8 Gujarat Sec & Hr Sec Education Board 84.38 91.54 87.20 50.04 57.70 52.20 88.60 94.10 89.30 62.30 74.60 65.10 79.03 88.17 83.21 47.28 60.42 50.33
9 Board of School Education, Haryana 90.00 96.00 93.00 51.00 56.00 52.00 89.00 95.00 92.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 63.00 80.93 70.85 54.03 66.82 56.65
10 Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education 68.37 72.25 70.25 44.88 48.94 45.53 64.91 68.00 65.63 36.65 53.45 50.16 59.33 62.58 60.92 44.04 48.63 45.98
11 Jharkhand Education Council 81.57 76.72 79.47 75.94 72.19 74.46 48.54 60.48 53.52 32.64 40.90 35.05 45.80 58.99 51.48 34.42 42.15 36.96
12 Board of School Education, J&K 48.25 48.84 47.63 24.90 25.98 25.33 0.00 0.00 38.54 0.00 0.00 0.00
13 Dept. of Pre-­University Education, Karnataka 44.40 55.07 49.75 23.35 28.68 25.12 54.61 65.39 60.14 20.79 30.06 23.76 53.64 64.32 59.07 20.56 30.66 23.69
14 Kerala State Board of Public Examination 76.61 87.00 82.21 28.08 48.44 36.72
15 Board of Secondary Education, Madhya Pradesh 62.87 74.01 67.13 28.01 34.73 30.20 66.01 76.11 69.87 33.91 39.72 35.78 61.79 70.07 65.02 28.34 33.71 30.09
16 Maharashtra State Board of S&HS Education 76.89 83.93 79.89 47.97 55.31 50.02 69.92 78.35 73.54 43.55 51.73 45.72 62.05 73.32 66.85 39.15 49.20 41.86
17 Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur 71.70 69.67 70.75 30.43 31.47 30.86 80.32 78.35 79.39 21.74 50.00 30.30
18 Meghalaya Board of Secondary Education 60.82 69.89 65.75 21.30 21.24 21.27 66.77 74.62 70.14 48.22 55.76 51.06
19 Mizoram Board of School Education 69.88 68.94 69.39 26.35 22.71 24.88 76.87 70.91 73.82 32.28 23.76 28.55 75.18 74.20 74.65 32.37 29.86 31.29
20 Nagaland Board of School Education 77.15 78.18 77.66 47.83 51.92 49.59 72.04 72.31 72.19 34.87 34.95 34.91 69.57 73.39 71.51 54.16 55.43 54.77
21 National Institute of Open School 0.00 0.00 0.00 35.13 38.71 36.22 37.63 42.20 39.02 0.00 0.00 0.00
22 Orissa Council of Higher Secondary Education
23 Punjab School Education Board 65.77 78.72 71.94 42.95 60.25 50.47 68.74 83.33 75.64 41.63 67.64 53.44
24 Board of Secondary Education, Rajasthan 95.15 97.83 96.02 30.95 36.33 32.89 93.07 97.35 94.56 24.29 32.06 27.28 90.29 95.69 92.21 26.52 34.14 29.66
25 Tamil Nadu State Board of Secondary Education 75.41 80.25 82.83 NA NA NA 81.93 87.98 85.15 27.74 40.63 33.16 82.33 89.04 85.92 0.00 0.00 0.00
26 Tripura Board of Secondary Education 68.42 64.09 66.45 26.16 22.94 24.88 72.18 68.88 70.77 36.38 36.52 36.44 72.27 71.94 72.13 33.3 28.85 31.39
27 UP Board of Intermediate and High School 73.92 89.19 80.36 64.85 77.41 68.23 74.35 90.23 81.52 67.89 80.94 71.75 71.25 91.19 80.99 63.89 82.37 69.64
Education
28 Board of School Education, Uttarakhand 70.85 81.65 76.19 38.92 50.45 42.84 69.36 84.05 76.59 46.96 63.25 53.60 74.32 83.21 78.42 49.70 57.08 52.56
29 West Bengal Council of Hr Secondary Education 79.25 64.48 77.79 N.R. N.R. N.R. 81.42 77.95 79.88 62.04 59.53 60.93 75.97 74.54 75.33 65.62 67.48 66.49
Total 76.72 83.06 79.42 42.14 46.63 44.14 74.81 82.00 78.00 44.11 52.91 47.30 70.18 81.43 74.87 43.55 54.56 44.98

Source: these data have been provided by the COBSE.

Disha Nawani

depend on several variables external to the individual and cannot therefore always be seen as a
direct outcome of one’s competence and effort; and (2) the significant social function that such
exams perform every year, of discriminating between students into pass and fail categories.
While the pass category students continue to chug along in the system, without any guarantee
of success, for the failed students the doors of formal education and associated rewards are for-
ever closed – and that for seemingly legitimate reasons.
The introduction of such an examination system in the Indian school education system
brought about some significant long-­lasting changes, a few of which are highlighted here.

Pedagogic and sociological implications

The institutionalisation of exams not only led to the setting-up of infrastructural prerequisites
for conducting examinations (setting question papers, supervising examination halls, correcting
answer scripts, etc.), but most importantly led to a complete distrust and disempowerment of
teachers (Kumar 1991). The alienation, distancing, and disregard of the teacher formed part of
the larger rejection/distrust of all that was indigenous/native (Elphinstone 1824).
Since textbooks were prescribed by the Director of Public Instruction (the highest official in
the administrative hierarchy) and examinations were almost entirely based on them, textbooks
emerged as the de facto curriculum (Kumar 1991) and the educational lives of students and
teachers began to revolve around them. Learning began to be equated and restricted to memo-
risation of textbook content. Further, since these examinations were centralised, the questions
on which all students were tested could only be very general in nature. This also meant that
examinations provided no scope for testing knowledge specific to individual children’s milieu
and experiences (Kumar 1991).
External examinations increased the distance between teachers and students. The idea of
impartial assessment, where the ‘assessed’ was not known to the ‘assessor’, besides leading to
public and written examination at the end of the course, also led to on-­the-­spot testing of stu-
dents by inspecting officials. With its aura of secrecy, strictness, and uniform treatment of all
examinees, the examination system played an important role in the development of a bureau-
cratic system of education. To the English administrator, examinations like textbooks were a
means of norm-­maintenance. As Shukla has pointed out, colonial policy used written examina-
tions to evolve a bureaucratic, centralised governance of education (Shukla 1978, cited in Kumar
1991). The official function of the examination system was to evolve uniform standards for
promotion, scholarship, and employment.This function had a social significance in as much as it
enhanced the public image of colonial rule as being based on just principles and impartial pro-
cedures.The secrecy maintained over every step, from the setting of papers to the final announce-
ment of the results, gave a dramatic expression to the image of the colonial government as a
structure that could be trusted.
Another important implication of the pervasiveness and centrality of Board Examinations in
students’ lives was the grounding of fear as being integral to school learning. The fear associated
with non-­learning was unique to colonial times as it began to be associated with denial of sev-
eral rewards that Western education brought along with it. There was only one road block in
the way to people’s aspirations being fulfilled and that was failure in those examinations.5
Entrance to school meant being gradually initiated into a world of fear, where all that mattered
was success in examinations, especially terminal ones. The fear of failure and associated shame
and humiliation became part of the lore of childhood and adolescence (Kumar 1991). Munshi
Premchand’s Bade Bhai Saheb (My Elder Brother), written in 1910, is a classic story that conveys
the anguish of a student who repeatedly fails in exams (Premacanda 1986). However, this story

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is not just about his frustration at failing, but makes a sharp comment on the irrelevance and
futility of the education and examination system prevalent in those times.
The feeling of fear associated with school learning did not dissipate with the attainment of
Independence, but was further strengthened. That is the reason why students are often found
flocking to temples especially during exam time, seeking divine interventions, wearing religious
markers, and making religious symbols on their answer scripts. Popular literature and culture
continue to echo similar sentiments where the relevance of learning an alien curriculum is also
questioned. An old song from a Hindi film, Anpadh (1962), conveys the feeling quite well,
Sikander ne Porus se kee thee ladhai toh main kya karoun … (If Alexander fought with Porus, why
do I care?). One has also grown up hearing phrases like padogey likhogey toh banogey nawaab, khelo-
gey kudogey to banogey kharaab (If you study, you will do well and if you play, you will get spoilt).
Social sciences typically were loaded with lots of information for students to memorise, hence
became the butt of jokes, History Geography badi bewafa, raat ko rato, subah safaa (History Geography
are not to be trusted, you learn them at night, by morning they disappear).
Reminiscing about his childhood days, the famous sociologist T.N. Madan, born in 1933,
writes about the fear he experienced when, after five years of home-­based education, he was to
join a school in Class VIII. As he was presented before the Inspector of Schools in his big office,
he sweated and trembled with fear: ‘I was however, oppressed by the fear of the upcoming
examinations … the entry into school ended my childhood, bringing with it many anticipated
joys, but also unknown fears, including the examination blues’ (Madan 2010: 192–193).
To conclude, the public, external exams that were introduced by the colonial system of edu-
cation presented themselves as providing ‘neutral and fair’ criteria for awarding limited employ-
ment opportunities to those aspiring for it. The same practice continued in independent India,
where secondary education, instead of being perceived and developed as a terminal stage of
education, was seen as a transitional stage where Board Exams performed the important role of
filters. A system that was marked by uniformity, secrecy, and impartiality could hardly be faulted
and students’ success and failure in examinations was justified as the presence or absence of
individual effort and talent. Thus the structural inadequacies of the system in being unable to
either provide seats in institutions of higher learning or employment in the market was masked
behind the superbly efficient system of examination in successfully eliminating a large number
of job seekers/aspirants. Teachers and students both became pegs in such a system, which was
dictated by fear and desperation to do well, while the bitter pill of failure was swallowed unques-
tioningly as being caused due to one’s own inability and incompetence.

Prevailing examination system: concerns and recommendations

It is interesting to note that no sooner was the system of external examinations introduced in
India, than educationists and policy-­makers began to recognise its limitations. Commission after
commission pointed out the malaise afflicting the Indian education system, particularly exami-
nations and the deleterious impact that they were having on the meaning of education at large
and school education in particular.

Pre-Independence period
Criticisms levelled against external examinations in the pre-­ Independence period essentially
focused on excessive importance being given to examinations causing enormous stress to both
teachers and students, forcing them to channel all their energies into clearing exams, killing any
kind of meaning making and creativity in the process. Other criticisms were imposition of the

71
Disha Nawani

uniform textbook/curriculum across diverse school contexts, confinement of instruction to the

rigid curricular framework, neglect of all education/training which could not be tested, the literary
character of courses of study to the exclusion of practical skills, prioritising rote memorisation over
other higher-­order skills, and mechanical repetition and memorisation of textbook content (or
even guides) (Interim report of the Indian Statutory Commission 1929; Post-­war Educational Development
in India 1944; Report of Calcutta University Commission, 1917–19; Report of Indian Education
Commission, 1882–83; Report of Indian Universities Commission, 1902; Report of the Zakhir Husain
Committee and the Detailed Syllabus, 1938; Resolution of Government on Educational Policy 1904).

Independent India
Interestingly, almost every commission/committee (Mudaliar in 1953; Radhakrishnan in 1948)
bemoaned problems raised earlier and suggested more comprehensive ways of assessing students’
learning. The Radhakrishnan Commission reiterated the pernicious manner in which the
exams had become the aim and end of education, to the detriment of all initiative among teach-
ers and students. Similarly, the Mudaliar Commission commented on the overwhelming influ-
ence of external exams, restricting and nullifying the real purpose of education. The Kothari
Commission in 1964–66 upheld the importance of a written exam as a reliable and valid mea-
sure for judging educational attainment but also proposed inclusion of other techniques to
measure those aspects for which the written test was not appropriate.
Similarly, the National Policy on Education, Programme of Action (NPE POA) of 1991
proposed the value of continuous institutional evaluation of scholastic and non-­ scholastic
achievements of students but upheld the continuation of public examination for Classes X and
XII. However, it suggested measures that could make the examination process less taxing and
more meaningful, such as provisions for clearing examinations in parts and innovative ideas like
open-­book examinations. It strongly articulated the need for assessing students by teachers who
taught them (Government of India 1991: 150–151).
Perhaps one of the most comprehensive and simple yet enlightening reports on the malaise
affecting Indian school education is the Yashpal Committee Report (YCR), also called Learning
Without Burden (MHRD 1993). According to this report,

the biggest defect of the examination system in its present form is that it focuses on chil-
dren’s ability to reproduce information to the exclusion of the ability to apply concepts and
information to unfamiliar, new problems, or simply to think.
(MHRD 1993: 6)

The National Curricular Framework (NCF) of 2005, drawing from the insights of YCR, re-­
oriented the educational discourse towards focusing on problems of curricular failure and
inability of schools to provide relevant and meaningful educational experiences to children,
which led to their failure and subsequent dropout from schools. It was the first time a curricular
or policy document challenged the objective and validity of conducting public examinations
such as the Boards. It stated that there was an urgent need to revise the public examinations at
the end of Classes X and XII, whose quiz-­based and text-­based question–answer format caused
inordinate anxiety to students. It also regarded the uniformity in such examinations as being
unfair and discriminatory to a majority of students who were not placed in conducive teaching/
learning environments. In fact, it reconceptualised the role played by Boards to change from
direct testing at present to careful and rigorous validation of school-­based, teacher-­conducted
assessments. It also suggested that Class X Board Examination should be made optional and

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 Examination for elimination

tenth-­g raders who wished to continue into the eleventh grade at the same school, and did not
need the Board certificate for any immediate purpose, should be free to take a school-­conducted
exam instead of the Board Exam (NCERT 2005, 2006).
However, it must be noted that apart from suggesting curricular and specific examination-­
related reforms, it also urged for reforms in other related areas like improvement of teacher
training, teacher quality, and teacher–student ratios, and making textbooks more relevant,
­interesting, and challenging, among others.
The next section focuses on measures initiated under the RTE Act and the discomfort
expressed around them.

Contextualising contemporary examination reforms

Despite meaningful suggestions made repeatedly by various commissions set up for the purpose
of reviewing the examination system in India, precious little has been done to ameliorate the ills
plaguing it.

Right to Education Act, 2009

The RTE gave teeth to the reforms proposed in earlier review documents/policy formulations,
the most recent being NCF 2005. The specific measures mandated in this regard are:­

1 No child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till
the completion of elementary education (no-­detention policy (NDP)).
2 Continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) of a child’s understanding of knowledge
and his or her ability to apply the same.
3 No child shall be required to pass any Board Examination till completion of elementary
education.

These measures pose a fundamental challenge to the existing examination practices, sharpen-
ing the dichotomy between a one-­off examination and detaining children on the basis of its
results, and regular assessment of students and not penalising them even upon failure. The sub-­
sections below present an elaboration of the first two provisions (since they are the ones being
contested) including challenges associated with their use.
The NDP is not new, and existed at various levels (I–II, I–V, I–VII) in 28 states of India even
before the passing of the RTE Act. Some states had a few conditions attached to it, like mini-
mum attendance. The rationale behind mandating this provision in the RTE is that by creating
a non-­threatening teaching/learning/assessment environment in school, it essentially responds
to the challenges confronted by the disadvantaged child, who struggles to come to school and
strives even harder to stay on in school. On failing and being detained in the same class, such a
child faces humiliation, gets demotivated, and often drops out of the school system. The Act
recognises the importance of addressing the conceptual lags of children promoted under this
policy and the need for giving them additional support beyond classroom hours. However, it is
not difficult to imagine the inability of the already burdened school teacher teaching children
who have little or no support at home to find additional time to achieve this.
The idea of CCE, similarly, is not new, but found mention in several commission reports and
policies much before it took a formal shape in this Act. ‘Continuity’ in examination was sup-
posed to ward off the evils associated with a singular exam on which hinged a child’s future.
‘Comprehensiveness’ sought to give legitimacy to developing and assessing the overall

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Disha Nawani

personality of a student. The idea was to take away the fear associated with performance in a
one-­off terminal examination, and reinstate faith in the agency of the teacher to assess her stu-
dents on a regular basis using multiple modes of assessment.
CCE is an umbrella term and there is no uniform model of CCE in the country. NCERT,
CBSE, and different states, some with the help of non-­government organisations (NGOs) and
others with the help of private organisations and individuals, have evolved their own models of
CCE. Besides several problems with these varied conceptualisations (Nawani 2013), CCE is
grappling with multiple challenges at the level of implementation (Srinivasan 2015). While
teachers are being given some basic training in most states, fuzziness abounds on what and how
children are to be assessed and the way in which these results are to be used for their further
growth. Teachers6 have also complained of CCE adding to their woes of maintaining registers,
filling up assessment formats, tracking students’ growth, collecting evidence, and writing detailed
descriptive portfolios, etc. The teachers perceived that as a result of CCE, the focus has shifted
from teaching to maintaining assessment-­related records. They also felt pressurised to project an
inflated progress of the students over the course of the year to ensure that their own perfor-
mance appraisal was not adversely affected.
With several states voicing their discontent with assessment-­related reforms introduced
under the RTE and the challenges faced by their schools, the Ministry of Human Resource and
Development (MHRD) in 2012 set up the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) Sub-­
Committee to examine ‘Assessment and implementation of CCE in the context of the No-­
Detention Provision of the RTE 2009’ (MHRD 2014). This Committee was set up under the
Chairmanship of Geeta Bhukkal, former Education Minister of Haryana.7
Two central concerns that informed this Committee’s analysis of the provisions under study
were: (1) declining learning level outcomes (LLOs)8 of government-­school children; and (2)
migration of children from government schools to private schools, as reported by the Annual
Status of Education Reports (ASER 2012).
The root cause identified by the Committee for declining LLOs of children is the NDP,
which in most cases is misunderstood as no assessments. It further asserts that non-­detention
de-­motivates both students and teachers; reduces teacher accountability; increases multi-­level
classrooms; and eventually increases teachers’ burden. Moreover, it felt that this policy is imple-
mentable only in an ideal system – where there are optimal resources at every level (sufficient
number of teachers), seamless processes (CCE), and a supportive ecosystem (engaged parents/
community who ensure full attendance of children, driving and supporting students towards
academic excellence).
The assertions made by the Committee and their implications need to be understood since
they echo the popular perceptions about these provisions. The objective behind NDP is to
remove the fear of failure from those students’ minds that are most likely to fail and leave the
system. This is achieved by de-­linking ‘promotion to next grade’ from students’ results. If it is
being felt that this de-­linking has led to a lackadaisical attitude towards learning on part of both
teachers and students, then there is a clear problem with the kind of learning one is trying to
promote and the reasons for which one is in school. Moreover, this provision neither de-­
emphasises learning nor assessments; it simply allows the potential dropout to stay a little longer
in school than she otherwise would.
On the one hand is the claim that government schools largely cater to children whose parents
are unable to support their children, while on the other hand lies the claim that NDP negatively
impacts their motivation to attend school and do well. It is difficult to imagine how a detention
policy will motivate these children to strive to perform well if they are both irregular in attending

74
 Examination for elimination

school and constrained in getting parental support. The NDP, on the contrary, tries to make the
school less threatening for these very children, who are likely to fail and leave, never to return.
Multi-­g rade environments exist not only because of NDP, as is being asserted, but because of
shortage of teachers, varying numbers of students in schools, and differential needs and support
available to children either at home or in school. NDP does not by itself promote under-­
learning. It hinders the failing and incessant detention of children. In any case, even if ‘failing’
children were detained and held back, besides being demotivated, they would still continue to
struggle in the same class unless substantial need-­based support was provided to them. Children’s
failure also becomes compounded by the poor quality of pre-­service and in-­service training and
on-­site support to teachers.
The last point is a classic case of the chicken-­and-­egg problem. There is no denying the fact
that meaningful reforms cannot be seen in isolation and need several other processes to be in
place, but then does it also mean that all such measures should be thwarted/postponed till every
single variable in the education system is in order? The RTE Act in fact reiterates the need for
several other rights-­based provisions – adequate school infrastructure, minimum qualifications
for teachers, pupil–teacher ratio, no non-­academic activity for teachers, child-­friendly curricu-
lum, CCE and teacher-­training education, etc., which need to be initiated simultaneously.
Both CCE and NDP, despite facing severe and real challenges, are based on sound principles that
need to be recognised and supported rather than being dismissed in haste. To hold the child respon-
sible for not attending school regularly when the school in question does not inspire the child in
any manner and detains him for ‘not knowing adequately enough’, when the system is probably at
fault in delivering, may not be an appropriate solution for the malaise. By blaming the child or the
teacher alone, one personalises a structural malaise and shifts the onus entirely on them to perform.
It is more important to create a system which supports teachers to teach and students to learn rather
than creating a system based on fear of chastisement and failure leading to detention.

Concluding insights
Examinations serve a highly important function of controlling social conflict in situations where
there is a mismatch between number of candidates appearing for exams and number of rewards
contingent on their results. In a stratified society like India, social goods such as even education
are not equitably distributed. While the right of citizens to elementary education was finally
recognised in 2009, secondary education still remains outside its orbit.
Since their introduction, the purpose of Board Examinations in India has not changed. It
continues to filter a large number of aspirants, and thereby control aspirations for upward social
mobility and curbs social dissent in circumstances where they remain unfulfilled. It is in this
larger context that provisions such as school-­based reform and non-­detention of students should
be seen. Related to this is also the increasing disempowerment of teachers where low-paid,
under-­qualified, contractual teachers are being considered not just cost-­effective but efficient.
This is a reflection of the deeper educational malaise that our society is grappling with. An envi-
ronment where accountability of both the teacher and the student is singularly linked with
failure/non-­performance (purely in terms of students’ exam results), bereft from an understand-
ing of the actual situations which they work in, can only promote detention of students and
celebrate en masse failure in examinations.
Most importantly, the Boards of school education also need to broaden their vision and
enlarge their role and not merely serve as examining bodies responsible for conducting exami-
nations. Better linkages also need to be established between different agencies responsible for

75
Disha Nawani

school education – organisations responsible for framing curricula, designing syllabi and devel-
oping textbooks, training and supporting teachers, and even inspecting schools. Until such a
time that exams stop being viewed as tools by Boards of education to merely test students linked
to some extraneous presentation/denial of reward and all economic benefits are restricted to a
privileged few in the name of ‘efficiency and meritocracy’, all attempts at initiating reforms in
this space will meet with resistance.

Notes
1 I would like to acknowledge the support of Manish Jain, Anisha George, and Suresh Reddy in develop-
ing this chapter.
2 The terms taught and learned (teaching and learning) may acquire different meanings depending on
the underlying theory of learning, which defines learning and associated pedagogic processes in a par-
ticular educational context.
3 School in Hindi.
4 Regular candidate means a student enrolled in a school who has pursued a regular course of study and
is entitled to appear for the Board Exam that his school is affiliated to. A private candidate is one who
is not a regular candidate but, under the provisions of bylaws, is allowed to undertake and/or appear in
a given Board Examination. Such students come from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds and find it
difficult to study/continue in formal schools.
5 It is not uncommon to hear middle-­class parents tell their children that if you do not study you will
have to wash utensils and sweep floors in other people’s houses.
6 This was revealed in interviews with several teachers, both government and private, as part of a study
on CCE.
7 The Committee examined the existing literature on implications of non-­detention and detention of
students for their learning and also collected first-­hand information from important stakeholders. It
administered questionnaires to several states, incorporating questions for parents, teachers, and admin-
istrative staff. Thirteen states filled in those questionnaires, while 12 other states submitted separate
reports sharing their experiences and voicing their concerns with regard to these provisions. In addi-
tion, the Committee also visited schools in several states and had conversations with teachers, students,
parents, and other community members.
8 Several national, private, and international organisations have of late been assessing learning levels of
children in schools. ASER is a survey conducted since 2005 by Pratham, an NGO working in the
education space.

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Singh, A. (1997a). Remodelling of School Education Boards: Report of the Task Force on the Role and Status of
Boards of Secondary Education. New Delhi: MHRD.
Singh, A. (1997b). The place of secondary education. Economic & Political Weekly, 32: 880–883.
Srinivasan, M.V. (2015). Centralised evaluation practices: an ethnographic account of continuous and com-
prehensive evaluation in a government residential school. Contemporary Education Dialogue, 12(1):
59–86.
Tyler, R. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Willis, D. (1993). Learning and assessment: exposing the inconsistencies of theory and practice. Oxford
Review of Education, 19(3): 383–402.

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 Part II
Curriculum and teaching

‘Curriculum’, the term, draws its meaning from the procedures characteristic of a system and
the ethos that they create. The meaning, therefore, can differ considerably between national
systems, although they all use the term in a routine manner. In the Indian context, a major factor
that shapes the meaning of ‘curriculum’ is the vastly differentiated economic and social clientele
that is involved in institutionalised education. Mass or public examination, on the basis of a
confidentially set paper, has served as the axis of equality in such a variegated system, and the
curriculum has been tied to the examination process. Stability of examinable knowledge and
fixed ways of teaching are understandably common. No matter what subject or discipline we
look at, certain basic features of the examining and teaching processes govern the curriculum.
Change is limited and difficult to initiate and manage even if the body of knowledge in the
discipline loudly warrants it.
The study of curriculum and attempts to reform it are necessary for making sense of the
larger picture of institutionalised education in India. Each area of the curriculum presents its
own challenges for such a study because the nature of knowledge in each area poses distinct
problems for efforts to reform the curriculum. In school education, the drafting of the National
Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 marks a major attempt to take a comprehensive view of
syllabus, textbook, and pedagogy in each area of knowledge. Though vast and ambitious, this
exercise could not influence the examination system. Moreover, no parallel exercise was initiated
in higher education. Both of these limitations can be explained with reference to institutional
or organisational structures that govern the system. The reader will find a reflection of these
factors in the chapters included in this part. They focus on science and the social sciences.
The area of language education is covered by a chapter that brings into focus a peculiarity of the
role that language plays in the Indian social system as a ‘medium’.
This part has five chapters dealing with the general issues pertaining to curriculum and peda-
gogy in Indian schools and universities. In the first chapter, Chaise LaDousa discusses a theme
relevant to the entire system of education in India, namely the language of teaching. In custom-
ary parlance, the term used is ‘medium of instruction’. The chapter draws attention to the
deeper, social meanings of this theme, referring to the stratification based on competence in the
use of English. This stratification reflects the divisions that characterise the Indian education
system between different kinds of schools. They also relate to different markets in which their

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-7 79
Curriculum and teaching

products seek employment. The division of schools on the basis of the ‘medium’ or language
used for teaching is fully embedded in the everyday discourse of education, hence its implica-
tions for the knowledge and learning are altogether ignored. All that receives attention is the
‘quality’ of learning that the English-­medium school is supposedly able to deliver because it is
privately run. The ‘medium’ thus serves as an ideological label for a deeper division between
types of schools and the social classes they serve or mobilise into existence by their service.
The other three chapters in this part are concerned with curricular problems and reforms in
science, mathematics, and the social sciences, especially history. Shobhit Mahajan examines the
difficulties that the teaching of science and mathematics has chronically faced in colleges and
universities in India. Some of the difficulties have to do with infrastructure, especially for experi-
mentation, but more substantial problems are rooted in traditional curriculum design, pedagogic
practices, and the examination system. There are continuities between school and college, but
as recent experience shows, school science has responded to reform efforts somewhat more
readily than has college teaching of science.
Hari Vasudevan and Kumkum Roy are both historians, but their chapters have a wider focus.
Vasudevan examines the trajectory of social science teaching in schools since the time it was
called social studies. He places Indian developments in this area in the wider setting of interna-
tional discourses of reform. The chapter also demonstrates the important role played by key
institutions in higher education in giving substance to the curriculum reform effort at the
school level in the recent past. In her chapter, Roy draws closer attention to the distinctive effort
made in the post-­NCF 2005 textbooks of the NCERT to apply a constructivist approach to the
portrayal of historical events and processes. Roy’s chapter also dwells on the disconcerting effect
of the entrenched examination system on the attempt made to redefine the content and peda-
gogy in school history, and the parallel effort that a creatively inclined teacher might make. Her
discussion helps us grasp the inner constraints that the system of education and its own habit-­
energy places upon the process of curricular reform. These constraints are further magnified
when we take into account the federal character of India and its education, and the limited
institutional resources available to pursue substantial changes in curriculum design, textbooks,
and teaching.
The final chapter in this section concerns an experiment in rural education based on an
innovative curriculum associated with a major historical legacy. Nidhi Gaur presents a glimpse
of Anand Niketan, a school set up by Mahatma Gandhi to pursue his plan for basic or ‘new
education’ as he called it. This institution has recently been revived and its new incarnation
demonstrates how some of the most difficult questions related to India’s educational choices can
be addressed by pedagogic means.

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 5
Mind the (language-medium) gap
Chaise LaDousa

At every halt on Delhi’s Metro rail service, with the announcement of the upcoming station,
comes a warning for the deboarding passengers. The announcements in Hindi such as ‘doori ka
dhyan rakhein’ are soon followed by ‘mind the gap’ in English. Sometimes, even the pronuncia-
tion of the names of stations are different in the Hindi and English messages. The second item
in ‘Chawri Bazar’ is rendered with equal length and stress in the Hindi version, but is pro-
nounced with a shortened initial vowel and stress on the second syllable in the English version.
But while two languages coexist on the Delhi Metro, one can argue that schools across North
India are doubly implicated in the language difference. Schools resemble the Delhi Metro
because more than one language can be found within them, but a school is – additionally –
identifiable by what language it uses as a primary language of pedagogy. The word used to refer
to this phenomenon is ‘madhyam’ in Hindi and ‘medium’ in English.1 It would be like having
separate metros and finding the order of the sets of messages in each kind reversed, the Hindi
one with Hindi and English and the English one with English and Hindi. This chapter outlines
some of the underpinnings and consequences of the language-­medium divide in North India.
It traces some of the ways in which the language-­medium divide has undergone a change in its
articulation during the past 20 years that I have been studying it in Varanasi, and, more sporadi-
cally, in Delhi. Changes in the language-­medium divide have articulated the changing relation-
ships between metros and villages in the social life of education in India, specifically through the
increasing salience of provincial or small cities, like Varanasi. Such cities provide the crossroads
between metros and villages and offer places where people struggle in various ways with the
inequalities, tensions, and contradictions embedded in ties between language and education.

The language-medium opposition among multiple school types

There are various ways in which the federal, state, and municipal governments play a part in
differentiating schools as types, and there are additional ways, outside of official administrative
and funding structures in which people recognise schools to belong to types. Furthermore, the
various governmental entities have occasionally been involved with the launching of education
schemes, often with the intent of providing schooling to the poor and previously excluded. In
the 1960s, a system of Kendriya Vidyalayas, often called Central Schools, was established all over

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Chaise LaDousa

the country to serve the children of government officials who faced transfer from time to time.
Since the 1980s in the government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, a system of Sarvodaya
Schools has been created nationwide to offer quality schooling, including instruction in English,
to those children who would lack access to such schooling because of their rural residence or
lower-­class family origins (Vaish 2008; Viswanathan 1992). States, in turn, have the choice of
whether to approve curricular materials created by the National Council for Educational
Research and Training. Sometimes state governments have created their own curricular materi-
als for use in schools (affiliated with the state’s education board). Increasingly, the funding that
some schools used to receive from the federal government in the form of grants-­in-­aid has been
shifted to state educational administrative bodies (Jeffery et al. 2005). States are also the locus of
administrative oversight of the massive network of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan schools (Programme
for Universalisation of Elementary Education) that is meant to provide the schooling necessary
to fulfil the guarantee of universal education set in place by the Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Act (RTE), passed by Parliament in 2009. Municipal corporations, in
turn, administer schools that were already teaching children from the poorest backgrounds
when the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan schools began to emerge.
Privately administered schools can receive grants-­in-­aid from the state or can function from
the tuition, fees, and donations they receive. Schools can have religious affiliations. Convent
schools have their origins in the colonial period and were often the schools for local elites desir-
ing schooling in English for their children. Madrasas of various sectarian affiliations operate, as
do schools with various Hindu reformist origins or more recent affiliations with the Hindu
chauvinist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organisation). A huge number of
schools in Varanasi have been founded for children who would not attend traditional institu-
tions. Some of these have a building, but some operate from their founders’ living rooms and
rooftops. Some receive funding from non-­governmental organisations (NGOs) and some oper-
ate because of volunteer efforts. Some have begun to pay teachers and have attained school
administrative board affiliation. People also talk of schools for boys as well as girls, and sometimes
remark that such schools obviate the need to police tensions brought on by puberty that is nec-
essary in coeducational institutions (N. Kumar 2007).
One of the most common ways in which people talk about schools as belonging to types in
Varanasi and Delhi, as well as in locations throughout the massive Hindi Belt of Bihar,
Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh,
and Uttarakhand, is to refer to the medium of instruction. The array of school types reviewed
above only partly touches on the issue of language medium. For example, while it is true that
convent schools always derived part of their identity and prestige from their teaching in English,
most of the schools that people now refer to as English medium are not convent schools.
Furthermore, the government of India has long had policy measures that address the intersec-
tion of language and education, but the mandated teaching of three languages in schools devel-
oped by the Kothari Commission in the 1960s for national multilingual integration remains
unknown to most people in Varanasi and Delhi (see also Aggarwal 1988; Brass 1990; Gupta et al.
1995; Khubchandani 2003; Pattanayak 1981; Srivastava 1990). This is despite the fact that their
schooling has been structured by the policy. I have argued elsewhere that the Kothari
Commission’s three-­language formula is not reflected in – and is subverted by – reflections on
schooling that are configured by language-­medium distinctions (LaDousa 2014). While the
three-­language formula advocates for the teaching of a language outside the language region to
which one belongs, configured by the salience of the divide between Indo-­Aryan and Dravidian
languages, reflections on language-­medium schooling focus on which of two languages, per-
ceived to be available locally, a certain school claims.2

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Language ideology and language-medium schooling

When people talk of schools in Varanasi, Delhi, and other locations in the Hindi Belt, they inevi-
tably draw on a juxtaposition of two types, Hindi and English. One of the reasons for which the
distinction gives evidence that language ideology – ideas that people have about language,
including its forms, social locations, and speakers – helps to configure the ways that people
reflect on the school system is that a single opposition serves to sort an enormously complex set
of institutional types such that each instance belongs to one of two options, or is deemed irrel-
evant to the distinction (Silverstein 2000).
One of the frames for the ideological distinction between Hindi and English that informs
people’s ideas about Hindi-­and English-­medium schooling is the nation. People speak of
Hindi as the rashtrabhasha, or national language, and English as the antarrashtriyabhasha, or inter-
national language.3 Scholars have long noted that people in India (and elsewhere in South Asia)
exhibit an immensely rich set of notions about the multiple languages they speak, describing
them by area, quality, and domain of practice (Lelyveld 1993; Pattanayak 1981). For example,
people in Varanasi often speak of Bhojpuri’s importance to the city. Bhojpuri is a language
associated with a large region in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and is spoken elsewhere in India and
the world (Mesthrie 1991; Mohan 1978). People in Varanasi take pride that there is an epony-
mous variety of Bhojpuri, Banarsi Boli. They describe Bhojpuri generally as sweet and some-
times as rustic, and sometimes draw a contrast between it and Hindi (LaDousa 2004; Simon
1986, 1993, 2003). But the domain of schooling narrows the possibilities of metalinguistic
reflection. In the domain of schooling, only Hindi stands as mother language. This is likely due
to the fact that people often remark that Bhojpuri does not have a literate, standardised form,
but also because Hindi, and not Bhojpuri, represents the national with respect to English in the
domain of schooling. People told me that Bhojpuri is ghar ki bhasha (language of the house)
and gaon ki bhasha (language of the village), but never, like Hindi, the school ki bhasha (language
of the school), much less desh ki bhasha (language of the nation).4 I often heard teachers lam-
poon the idea of offering Bhojpuri in school, much less conducting lessons in classrooms in
Bhojpuri.
The fact that only standardised forms of language are used in curricular materials also serves
to differentiate the language varieties thought to be appropriate for use in schools from what is
called Hinglish (K. Kumar 1988). The salience of Hinglish has grown enormously, especially
since the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the early 1990s and the subsequent rise of
advertising activity and digital communication. Utterances like ‘ticket liya hai’ (I got the ticket)
are so common and have been for so long that they might not raise questions about the bound-
aries of Hindi and English (Snell and Kothari 2011;Trivedi 2011). In my own work, for example,
I have noticed that classroom activity in Hindi-­medium schools and in Hindi class in English-­
medium schools often includes such forms, and that when I ask teachers about their use of
words like ‘dance’ and ‘programme’ in their lessons, they state that such words might as well be
accepted as Hindi, given their commonness (LaDousa 2014). Pal and Mishra, however, note that
Pepsi’s Youngistaan concept used in advertising of its various products specifically invoked the
label Hinglish and drew connections between it and ‘youthfulness, living carefree, [and] never
giving up’ (2011: 173). They report:

At MICA [Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad], a group of students called

itself the Youngistaan Gang! These were new-­age people, up to date with everything, always
setting the bar for the ‘cool’ quotient, and also relating closely with Hinglish.… The notable
point, however, is that these young people (and others who would qualify as the Youngistaan

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Gang members) all came from affluent families and were comfortable with the concept of
‘commodity’.
(Pal and Mishra 2011: 174)

The disjunction between salient invocations of Hinglish in advertising and in usages wherein
aspects of identity are at play, on the one hand, and school invocations of Hindi as necessarily
separate from English, on the other, has not been studied. Such a study is pressing, one might
argue, because at least some invocations of Hinglish are associated with relatively elite youth,
precisely those who are attending schools wherein language boundaries tend to be drawn par-
ticularly sharply.
With the permission of the principal and teachers, I distributed a questionnaire about lan-
guage attitudes to classes at two schools in Varanasi during fieldwork in 1997. One was a private
school serving grades 1 through 8 affiliated to the Uttar Pradesh State Board of Education, and
the other was a school receiving funds from the state serving grades 9 through 12, also affiliated
to the state’s board. In each school, principals, teachers, and students describe the school to be
Hindi medium. Responses to the question ‘Why is Hindi important?’ without exception
included the notion of national language, and almost as often, included the notion that love for
Hindi is tied to love for goddess Saraswati, the Hindu deity of music, poetry, and learning more
generally. Sometimes, student responses explicitly contrasted the notion of Hindi as national
language to English as international language. Responses to the question ‘Why is English
important?’ consistently included a list of professions including doctor and scientist, and also
consistently included the Hindi verb ghoomna (to roam). The use of the verb resonated with
conversations I had with teachers, parents, and students at both Hindi-­and English-­medium
schools. English, people claimed, was necessary if one was to leave the city and its environs to
find work, especially if the area was located in a place where Hindi was not commonly spoken.
Such reflections implicitly ignored the kind of migration that has been happening for decades,
whereby people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar travel to Delhi, Kolkata, and other metros to find
work in manual labour and transportation. Thus, the notion of movement attached to English-­
medium schooling is itself marked in terms of intersections of labour and social class.
Years later, in 2007, my student, Patrick Hodgens, and I interviewed five Class X students at
a private school in Varanasi. The school is part of a chain widely described to be English medium,
and the students were picked by the principal because, as she explained, they were toppers and
high scorers in exams.

PATRICK: So, what do you think about the English language?

PRIYA: It’s a, that’s a, it’s a very bold language, means you can express your feelings very freely,
I feel like. So I feel like everywhere English is required. I feel like it’s an administrative
language and you need it everywhere. I feel it’s a good way of explaining your thoughts.
AMIT: I think it’s a global language and we can communicate in English everywhere. We
can continue in our business everywhere, and English is always essential for us to do
any global activities. So, English is very important.
RAJ: Sir, English is a language which is everywhere in the world so we will not face prob-
lems surrounding anything. We can express our views regarding anything.
RAM: It is the backbone of industrialisation and all over the world people are communicat-
ing in English. Without English, a person cannot build up his personality.
ABHISHEK: Since English is universal it can be used everywhere in the world and so it is
very easy to establish friendship with any person, I feel, in any part of the world.
(LaDousa 2014: 53)

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 Mind the (language-medium) gap

The students stressed the connection between the global nature of English and the ability to
conduct business elsewhere, but they also raise another consequence of language-­medium
schooling, the development of one’s personality. The concept is specifically tied to English-­
medium schooling and is oriented to the confidence one is urged to feel on becoming an
English-­medium student.
When we asked the same group of students about Hindi, their answers were brief.

PATRICK: And when you think of Hindi what do you think of?
PRIYA: Hindi. Ah, Hindi has respect from me as well.
RAJ: It’s our mother language.
AMIT: It’s our mother language, so … it has so much importance.
PRIYA: Yeah, its importance cannot be mentioned in words. In words … it is not possible.
(LaDousa 2014: 54–55)

Fieldwork in other schools confirmed that students at schools described as English medium
use words like ‘respect’ to describe their mother language, but that their descriptions of Hindi
are much briefer and less elaborate than those of their Hindi-­medium counterparts. Furthermore,
neither students at schools described as Hindi medium or English medium used Hindi as a
vehicle for descriptions of personality development and confidence building.

The language ‘complex’

The language ideology underpinning students’ reflections on Hindi and English, and the organ-
isation of that ideology by language-­medium distinctions, hint at inequalities in the acquisition
of what Pierre Bourdieu (1986) has called symbolic and cultural capital made possible by the
notion of medium. The inequality in the acquisition of symbolic capital shaped by the dual-­
medium system becomes apparent at the university level, if not long before. This is because the
university is the first place in which students from Hindi-­medium schools and students from
English-­medium schools will necessarily meet in the classroom.Vaidehi Ramanathan explains:

If the proficiency of students educated in the Vernacular is deemed insufficient at the end
of the XII grade, which by and large is the case, they are denied access to these ‘prestigious
disciplines’. Furthermore, in instances when VM [vernacular-­medium] students are admit-
ted to EM [English-­medium] colleges, they face the uphill task of not only taking classes
with their EM counterparts but of having to make the same set of state-­mandated exami-
nations in English. In many cases, this proves to be insurmountable for many low-­income
VM students and many of them drop out of the education system during and after college.
(Ramanathan 2005a: 6; see also Ramanathan 1999, 2005b)

The VM schools to which Ramanathan refers teach in Gujarati because Ramanathan conducted
her fieldwork in Gujarat, but the situation that she describes applies to Hindi-­medium students
in the Hindi Belt as well.
Ramanathan’s invocation of ‘prestigious disciplines’ provides further evidence of the ways in
which language-­medium schooling structures the uneven provision of symbolic capital to stu-
dents in India. Students progress in one of three ‘lines’ of study as they approach their high
school and intercollege levels: arts, commerce, or science. In the 1990s, I met many parents who
had decided by the time their child entered the first level that they should be able to opt for a
science line later in their schooling. Since the mid-­ 2000s, parents desiring a particularly

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prestigious and potentially prosperous line of study have begun to claim commerce as their
child’s future possibility. The rise of digital technology industries in India and their connections
to undergraduate, graduate, and professional training in courses for which the commerce line
serves as preparation explains the growing predominance of the line in school ambitions. What
has remained stable is that parents who desire that their children might be able to study in such
a line claim without equivocation that English will be necessary. Many point to future plans to
study in a prestigious line as the motive for attendance at an English-­medium school. In turn,
I have met many students enrolled at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) who associated their
prolonged schooling with having studied in the arts line. Some students argued that if one were
to come to their classes at BHU, one would see a majority of students who had attended Hindi-­
medium schools, but that if one were to visit the Indian Institute of Technology at BHU, the
majority of students there would have attended English-­medium schools.
The notion of a ‘complex’ was one of the primary means of identifying the result of language-­
medium schooling in an individual’s life. Many people I knew who had studied in either Hindi-­
or English-­medium schools talked about the growth of a complex that emerges when a person
from one of the language-­medium ‘backgrounds’ comes into contact with a person from the
other. Many people also explained that the complex can emerge at different times in a person’s
life depending on when he/she shifts to a school of the other language medium, but that the
complex is all but inevitable at the university level. There, students from Hindi-­and English-­
medium schools will find each other in class and the former can feel inferior to the latter. Most
people who mentioned the emergence of a complex noted that students from a Hindi-­medium
background might fall silent as a result, and students from an English-­medium background
might be unwilling to take criticism. The notion of the complex sees the seat of the language-­
medium distinction in the individual, and seems to be a response to attempts to reckon with an
extremely complex interweaving of language varieties, institutional types, and sociological posi-
tions (LaDousa 2014).5
The inequalities underpinning the notion of complex take on a political geographic dimen-
sion when one considers the postgraduates studying for government placement exams and the
ways in which issues of language medium configure their reflections. On a visit to Varanasi in
2014, I had the opportunity to meet a number of college graduates studying at a coaching centre
in preparation for taking the Union Public Service Commission examinations. All of them were
studying for the exams in Hindi medium. Asked whether they were from Varanasi, they showed
surprise. One of them quipped that had they been from Varanasi, they would have attended
coaching classes in a yet larger city, probably Delhi. The branch manager later explained that
their Varanasi branch did not have English-­medium lessons simply because students preparing
for the English-­medium exam usually relocated to nearby Allahabad or more distant Delhi. In
sum, that coaching classes in Varanasi were conducted in Hindi – at least in a branch of a larger
coaching centre headquartered in Delhi – seemed like a foregone conclusion. Furthermore, that
students were studying at a coaching centre in Varanasi seemed to imply that they were from
rural outlying areas. There are many students from Varanasi who do study in coaching centres
for all manner of professional graduate programmes and civil service examinations, but to the
rural students to whom I was speaking, the chance to move to more central nodes in a chain
made good sense.

The voice of language-medium discourse

When people reflect on the relationship between education and language, they enter a landscape
that is bifurcated by institutional types. The relevance of medium in people’s reflections on

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others lasts much longer than their time in school. Indeed, the language-­medium distinction
comes to enable people to attain what Bakhtin (1981) called a voice, a means structured by
language and institutional difference of inhabiting time and space in specific ways. Varanasi is
representative of the great many emerging cities in North India that provide English-­and
Hindi-­medium schools, helping people imagine the relevance of their as well as others’ origins
and aspirations. The city has long been famous as a major Hindu pilgrimage and an interna-
tional tourist destination, but it is important also because it provides educational institutional
types similar to those in other smaller cities such as Allahabad, Gorakhpur, and Patna, as well as
many others further away.
Sometimes people imagine their children’s futures and distance themselves from the city by
claiming its educational offerings are inadequate. For example, during initial fieldwork in the
1990s, everyone in our lower middle-­ class neighbourhood called a certain paying guest
‘Bankwalla’. The reference, in part, recognised the man’s supervisory position in several local
branches of a national bank. He had been transferred to Varanasi from Delhi, and although he
was very satisfied with his pay, he was not happy to live away from his wife and daughter. I asked
Bankwalla why he chose to live in our neighbourhood when much nicer options were available,
and he responded that he wanted to save as much money as he could for his wife and daughter’s
expenses in Delhi.When I asked him why he had not brought them with him to live in Varanasi,
he asked me whether I had ever heard of the tutorial sessions that my landlord’s daughter was
engaged in during the afternoons. He took my look of surprise as a cue to explain that my
landlord’s daughter was not likely be able to speak in English without using some Hindi. I noted
that there are English-­medium schools in Varanasi, but Bankwalla scoffed and retorted that no
school in Varanasi could teach English in the manner that his daughter was enjoying in Delhi.
Proctor (2014) notes that some elites in Delhi do not value English for its international status,
but rather see it as a national language, whereas students in government and non-­elite private
schools in Delhi reproduce the ideological underpinnings that Hindi and English education
presented herein. Thus, reflections on the language-­medium distinction in schooling can serve
to mark distinctions between places seen as central versus those seen as peripheral, and can index
the class status of the person reflecting on language.
By and large, however, people in Varanasi used the medium distinction to engage in a voice
that considered the two language mediums as the sum total of educational possibility. The dis-
positions towards Hindi-­and English-­medium schools and those affiliated with them can vary,
as illustrated by the cases presented herein. One’s reflections on issues of caste, class, region,
nation, and more or less cosmopolitan origins can be configured by the language-­medium dis-
tinction. One can go so far as to claim that the distinction between Hindi-­and English-­medium
schooling in North India has come to play an organising role in the voice by which one takes
up a position in the world.
While I heard many varied perspectives on the benefits and drawbacks of one or the other
medium school in Varanasi, only one person I have met managed to throw the medium distinc-
tion itself into question (LaDousa 2014). In 1997, I had the opportunity to interview a veteran
government school teacher from Rewa, Madhya Pradesh who had come to visit her ailing sister,
my landlady. In an interview, the teacher conveyed the voice of the present wherein Hindi-­and
English-­medium schools are locked in a mutual opposition. But, the teacher also recalled the
circumstances of her educational past wherein the boundaries of language medium were not so
starkly defined. She noted that her textbooks contained a good deal of English and that the pres-
ence of English in a Hindi-­medium school was hardly remarkable. A voice from her past allowed
the teacher to bring to bear the possibility that language and language mediums used not to line
up so neatly and present such a sharp contrast. However, her ability to problematise the notion

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of medium was singular in my experience, further lending weight to the argument that the
voice of medium distinction has come to pervade the present.

Cost and board affiliation

A practice germane to people’s understandings of schooling throughout Varanasi is the collec-
tion of fees. A large number of schools are considered to be extremely inexpensive by virtue of
the grants-­in-­aid made to them by the state. The schools run by municipal corporations can be
included in the group of schools that are considered to cost very little. Indeed, families sending
their children to such schools have reported that expenses such as pens, pencils, copies, uniform
material, and uniform tailoring are the most dear (PROBE Team 1999). When asked about fees
at such schools, parents hesitated to report the extremely small amount, and often accompanied
the amount with a descriptor like sasta (cheap) or, occasionally, using the English, free. Parents at
such schools used the adjective sarkari (government) to explain the low fees charged (Sarangapani
2003). Asked about fees at private schools, parents sending their children to government schools
often guessed wildly exaggerated amounts, indicating that they did not know what such fees
really are. Indeed, private school fees vary a great deal (Ganguly-­Scrase and Scrase 2009;
Majumdar and Mooij 2011). During the period of my initial fieldwork in 1996, fees at the most
expensive schools in Varanasi were just over Rs. 300 per month. These have roughly tripled
since. There were private schools in Varanasi charging Rs. 40 to Rs. 80 per month in 1996.
Parents of children at private schools continue to complain that fees constitute only part of
the cost of schooling. Equally dear are the various charges for supplies, programmes, and outings
that private school attendance regularly includes. Indeed, children attending expensive private
schools can be identified by a large set of material items and practices that set them apart from
others. Private schools often require students to buy several different uniform sets that corre-
spond to seasons or special events. More recently, select private schools have come to advertise
that their facilities are air-­conditioned, and sometimes that their buses are too. Students display
their awareness of popular media trends by the characters and celebrities donning their pencil
cases, book covers, and the like.
When I asked principals, teachers, and parents about the relationship between the language
medium of a school and the amount of fees it charges, many claimed that the two were distinct
issues. People said something like, ‘fees aur medium alag alag baat hain’ (fees and medium are two
separate issues) or, referring to one or the other topic, ‘yahan to doosri baat hai’ (that’s a different
issue). At the same time, people treated as a foregone conclusion that the most expensive schools
in Varanasi were English medium. In conversations in which I would talk about Hindi-­medium
schools and government schools, people would often interject that they are ‘ek hi baat’ (the same
thing). Indeed, there are many Hindi-­medium schools in Varanasi that are private and take fees.
These schools tend to be forgotten in reflections on fees because they do not belong to the
extremes. They are not government schools, and yet they are not among the most expensive
schools in town either. For example, people never refer to such schools using the label ‘public’,
which denotes a private school that caters to people who want their children to be able to speak
a form of English that is seen as legitimate, at least regionally. Thus, there is a polar opposition
that people frequently invoke between cheap Hindi-­and expensive English-­medium schools by
talking about the government versus the private.
Early on in my fieldwork, in 1996, I noticed that a select number of schools advertised,
whether in the streets or in newspapers, that they were affiliated to the CBSE. Already in 1996,
people apocryphally explained that ‘ek ek gali mein angrezi medium school ban gaye hain’ (an
English-­ medium school has been built in each and every lane). The intersection of

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 Mind the (language-medium) gap

language-­medium schooling and board affiliation has become more complex since the mid-­
1990s. People were right that new English-­medium schools were being built, but, in the mid-­
1990s schools made obvious their board affiliations in advertising. Since then, most elite
English-­medium schools have stopped advertising their board affiliation because, as principals
explained to me, people have come to assume the prestige of the school. The fact of the matter
is that board affiliation with the CBSE is not so rare as it used to be. Furthermore, schools that
aspire to be affiliated with the board use the word ‘pattern’ in their advertisements, indicating
that their syllabus is in keeping with the board. A massive number of English-­medium schools
have now been built in Varanasi, but also in surrounding areas too, weakening the relationship
somewhat between rural education and Hindi-­medium schooling. What is certain is that the
field of English-­medium schools has grown and that indications that once were overt markers
of legitimacy and prestige (such as CBSE affiliation) are only now part of a much more varied
set of English-­medium schools (LaDousa 2007). Bhattacharya (2013), for example, has remarked
that the increasingly complex field of EM schooling likely hurts its least advantaged aspirants,
the rural poor, by seeming to offer a kind of prestige particularly poorly.

Language-medium schooling in public

Schools and, increasingly, coaching and tutorial centres, do not just offer students engagement
with a syllabus, classroom instruction, and, along with board affiliation, access to a set of exami-
nations; they also advertise vigorously (Bhatia 2007). During my initial fieldwork between 1996
and 1997, schools were among the most commonly advertised institutions, products, and ser-
vices on the walls and in the streets of Varanasi. The advertisements were either painted directly
onto surfaces or painted or printed on paper and cloth signs and banners. Since 1997, advertising
by city schools has continued unabated, even increased now with new avenues such as Hindi or
English newspapers. Advertising for coaching and tutorial services too has increased dramatically.
With reduction in printing costs and cheaper availability of coloured paper, one finds entire wall
and building surfaces pasted with advertisements, the same appearing many times at one spot. In
tandem with this is the arrival of a new phenomenon since the mid-­2000s – advertising by
individual BHU students. Often handwritten, these advertisements are accompanied by a sub-
ject and a telephone number.
The ways in which the language-­medium division articulates with issues of cost, board affili-
ation, and prestige in advertising is especially complex. This is because schools as well as coach-
ing and tutorial services do not just use Hindi and English to advertise themselves. They also
use two scripts: Devanagari and Roman.6 Hindi can be represented in Devanagari and Roman
script and English can be represented in Roman and Devanagari script. Thus, visual language
includes a semiotic resource that complicates any direct correspondence between language and
medium.
The combination of language and script on signboards and advertisements for schools pres-
ents an especially obvious means for ascertaining that the prestige of schools depends on a
complex interplay of cost and board affiliation (LaDousa 2002, 2014). In short, schools that
advertise in English in Roman script and schools that advertise in Hindi and Devanagari script
tend to represent a polar opposition of prestigious English-­medium schools affiliated to the
CBSE and Hindi-­medium schools affiliated to the Uttar Pradesh Board (UPB). These are
schools that, in turn, figure as representative instances of what people reflect on and recognise as
relatively elite English-­ medium schools and government-­ affiliated Hindi-­
medium schools,
respectively. ‘Mixed’ lexical and script combinations are typical of the relatively newly formed
English-­medium private schools or Hindi-­medium schools that are often associated with a lack

89
Chaise LaDousa

of legitimacy and prestige. Furthermore, a handful of schools that used to advertise their CBSE
status have stopped doing so. One principal revealed that they did so because the school now
had a ‘reputation’. At the same time, newer schools are advertising their affiliations prominently.
In turn, some schools have begun to advertise that they are seeking UPB affiliation. Such schools
often represent some English lexical items in Devanagari script.
An example of a school using English lexical items in Devanagari can be found in the sign-
board for a municipal corporation school depicted in Figure 5.1. The school signboard includes
the elements of most schools, except for two: it is painted as if an individual were writing and
the proper name of the school is left ambiguous. Its designation as a municipal corporation
school is rendered in Hindi in Devanagari, but then its designation by grade level is rendered in
English in Devanagari.While school is spelled correctly, ‘primary’ is not. Most school signboards
identify the neighbourhood where they are located, thus making the locality a part of their
name. Furthermore, the designation can be read as a clue as to why the word ‘primary’ might be
misspelled. Part of the school’s identification includes reference to the sweeper colony in which
it is located, a Dalit neighbourhood.7 Indeed, during the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) govern-
ment in Uttar Pradesh (2007–12), a statue of Ambedkar was installed right in front of the school
entrance. The signboard’s representation of English in Devanagari script contrasts with sign-
boards of English-­medium schools affiliated to the CBSE (English in Roman) and Hindi-­
medium schools of some prestige affiliated to the UPB (Hindi in Devanagari, with a more
stylised rendering).

Figure 5.1 Varanasi municipal corporation school signboard.

Source: all photographs in this chapter are by the author.
Note
Transliteration: nagar nigam (municipal corporation) prāimalı̄ skul safāi bastı̄ durgā kunḍ (sweeper colony
Durga Kund) vārāṇ ası̄ .

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 Mind the (language-medium) gap

Figure 5.2 Career Point tutorial service advertisement.

Coaching and tutorial services exhibit somewhat lesser adherence to the polar oppositions of
lexical affiliation and script rendering exhibited by schools. For example, the advertisement for
the Career Point coaching service depicted in Figure 5.2 primarily uses English in (mostly capi-
talised) Roman script. Place names, curiously, are rendered in Hindi, suggesting – in the confines
of this advertisement, at least – that references to local places are best rendered in Devanagari
script. The English rendered in Roman script seems to coincide with the (CBSE and ICSE)
Boards mentioned for the XI and XII intercollege levels. However, the advertisement first
includes the names of more specific examinations for which the centre will prepare students.
‘Bank’ refers to a whole range of organisational bureaucracies that run examinations for posts,
and ‘SSC’ refers to the Staff Selection Commission of the government of India that holds an
examination for various posts. The catchy phrase between ‘ADMIT TODAY’ and ‘CAREER
POINT’ includes an industry-­specific register item, ‘Super Prep’, as well as the use of ‘n’ as an
abbreviation for ‘and’. Such language usages contrast with the school advertisements in Varanasi,
but are similar to the mid-­ range private English-­
medium school advertisements in Delhi
(LaDousa 2014).
Advertisements for coaching and tutorial services have proliferated on the city walls and
buildings so much so that some public spaces in Varanasi are literally covered with them.
Figure 5.3 includes a depiction of three different coaching and tutorial centres. On the left are
two different centres that offer preparation for the entrance examination to the same institution:
Institute of Engineering and Rural Technology. The institute is located in the nearby city of
Allahabad, which goes unmentioned in the advertisements, and offers a BTech in several techni-
cal fields. The two signs exhibit many parallels. Both use all lexical and script combinations,
except the representation of Hindi lexical items in Roman script. Both render their titles in
English, ‘[Pandey’s] Excellent Tutorials’ and ‘Career Mentors’, but do so using the Devanagari
script. Indicating just how early coaching and tutorial services can become relevant in students’
lives, even for entrance examinations to a specific institution for undergraduate study, the first

91
Chaise LaDousa

Figure 5.3 Three tutorial service advertisements.

Notes
Transliterations:
(upper left)
New Batch Start
pāliṭ eknik IERT
saphaltā kā dusrā nā m vigat 11 varṣ õ se (success’s second name – since 11 years)
Pandey’s
Eksı̄lenṭ ṭ yū ṭ oriyals
dharmasãgh, durgā kuṇ ḍ , vā rā ṇ ası̄
(lower left)
pāliṭ eknikal/IERT
kı̄ taiyārı̄ karẽ (prepare for)
kairiyar ment.ars
ravidās geṭ , lankā vārāṇ ası̄
(right)
SPOKEN
GD GRAMMAR BASIC
ENGLISH – SSC, BANK, NDA, CDS
ENGLISH mẽ kamzor STUDENTS ke liye viśeṣ baic (weak in … special batch for)
ENGLISH CLASSES by – JP SIR
ravidās geṭ (hindustān hoṭ aḷ ke bagal vālı̄ galı̄ mẽ) lankā

advertisement announces that students will be accepted after their XI year. Like the advertise-
ment in Figure 5.2, Pandey’s Excellent Tutorials and Career Mentors give their locations using
Devanagari.
In contrast to the primary use of Devanagari in the advertisements on the left, the one on
the right for English Classes by JP Sir appears predominantly in Roman script. Just what the
abbreviation ‘GD’ stands for in the list of aspects of English to be covered at the centre is

92
 Mind the (language-medium) gap

ambiguous. Otherwise, the fact that ‘SPOKEN’ English is mentioned first and rendered largest
seems suggestive. Some of the same examinations are included as in the advertisement for Career
Point, depicted in Figure 5.2. Indeed, these exams are themselves bifurcated by medium, and
students can opt to take them and conduct subsequent interviews in either Hindi or English. This
advertisement makes it apparent that weaker students in English should be addressed using
Hindi and English in Devanagari script, while holding out the lexical items ‘ENGLISH’ and
‘STUDENTS’ to identify what such students should aspire to be. The only words rendered in
Devanagari that might be taken to be English are ‘batch’ and ‘hotel’. The first is a commonly
used word in the coaching and tutorial services industry and the second is a common reference
to a hotel. Many people might claim such words to challenge the distinctions between Hindi
and English.
What is certain is that when a nearby polytechnical institute is being advertised, many English
lexical items will be germane to that institution. Translations of such words into Hindi would
render what is being referred to unknown to most readers. The rendering in Devanagari seems to
coincide with the polytechnical institute’s location nearby, in a relatively non-­cosmopolitan loca-
tion in the Hindi Belt, but the use of English seems to render the names of the coaching and tuto-
rial services catchy, and perhaps aligned to words like ‘polytechnic’ (N. Kumar 1998).When spoken
English is one of the services on offer, contrastingly, Roman script comes to dominate the adver-
tisement.Yet, English lexical items rendered in Roman script are not simply oriented to the offer
of English. Those students weak in English are to be addressed in Hindi in Devanagari. The adver-
tisement for English Classes by JP Sir renders in sharp relief the ways in which speaking in English –
tied to notions about personality development introduced earlier herein – provides a coaching and
tutorial niche aimed at differential histories of students who have attended Hindi-­and English-­
medium schools – more specifically, schools that offer varieties of English seen as legitimate. Thus,
although signboards and advertisements exhibit a great range of lexical and script combinations,
schools continue to reproduce signs of polarity between relatively elite English-­medium institu-
tions and relatively legitimate Hindi-­medium institutions, and coaching and tutorial services repro-
duce signs cued to a more varied set of educational services that nevertheless are calibrated to the
distinction between Hindi and English and Hindi-­and English-­medium schooling.

Conclusion
With the massive proliferation of English-­medium schools and the provision of universal school-
ing through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan system, the salience of the language medium of a school
continues, though now it presupposes the class and caste backgrounds of students and their
parents less straightforwardly than in the past. From the peripheral position where the English
they desired was provided by some in more cosmopolitan locales,Varanasi and other small cities
across North India have moved to a place where they are offering coaching and tutorial services
to students from their neighbouring towns and villages. Some of these private educational ven-
tures teach in Hindi, but others rely on the inadequacy of the city and its surrounds to provide
adequate spoken ability in English through the school. Advertisements reveal that the indication
of students as weak in English is best conveyed in Hindi. And just as people like Bankwalla desire
an English for their children that the city cannot provide, the spoken English of the coaching
centre is likely to be found wanting in the eyes of certain offerings in large metros. Language-­
medium distinctions thus remain salient despite the fact that they articulate with an increasingly
complex set of inequalities.

93
Chaise LaDousa

Notes
1 When speaking in Hindi, people often pronounce ‘medium’ with a retroflex stop.
2 See Bate 2010; Cody 2013; Mitchell 2009; and Ramaswamy 1997 for overviews of the antagonism that
people in South India felt as a result of the government’s efforts towards Hindi serving as the national
language and Hindi being taught in schools in the South.
3 Some of the scholarship on Hindi in India includes Dua 1994b; Fox 1990; K. Kumar 1991; Orsini
2002; Al. Rai 2001; Am. Rai 1984; Sonntag 1996. Some of the scholarship on English in India includes
Aggarwal 1997; Agnihotri and Khanna 1997; Dasgupta 1993; Dua 1994a; Faust and Nagar 2001;
Khubchandani 1983; Nadkarni 1994; Rajan 1992; Rubdy 2008; Sonntag 2000;Verma 1994.
4 For an example of how such medium distinctions play out in Maharashtra, see Benei 2008.
5 Sandhu (2014) notes the ways in which the medium divide can play an insidious role in reflections on
romantic relationships and marriage.
6 A small number of schools use the nastaliq script to advertise their schools in their signboards, but they
are largely left out of reflections on the divisions between Hindi-­and English-­medium schools (Ahmad
2011; King 1994).
7 Some schools use place names in their names, but tend to be elite. For example, Delhi Public School
uses the name of the national capital in its name, along with the designation ‘public’.

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Further reading
Benei, V. 2008. Schooling Passions: Nation, History, and Language in Contemporary Western India. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Cody, F. 2013. The Light of Knowledge: Literary Activism and the Politics of Writing in South India. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Kachru, B. and Y. Kachru (eds). 2008. Language in South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Khubchandani, L. 1983. Plural Languages, Plural Cultures: Communication, Identity, and Sociopolitical Change in
Contemporary India. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Kumar, K. 1991. Political Agenda of Education: A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas. Delhi: Sage
Publications.
LaDousa, C. 2014. Hindi is Our Ground, English is Our Sky: Education, Language, and Social Class in
Contemporary India. Delhi: Cambridge University Press.
Ramanathan, V. 2005. The English–Vernacular Divide: Postcolonial Language Politics and Practice. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Vaish, V. 2008. Biliteracy and Globalization: English Language Education in India. Clevedon: Multilingual
Matters.

96
 6
Science and mathematics teaching
in schools and colleges
Shobhit Mahajan

The dominating feature of the contemporary world is the intense cultivation of science on
a large scale, and its application to meet a country’s requirements. It is this, which, for the
first time in man’s history, has given to the common man in countries advanced in science,
a standard of living and social and cultural amenities, which were once confined to a very
small privileged minority of the population. Science has led to the growth and diffusion of
culture to an extent never possible before. It has not only radically altered man’s material
environment, but, what is of still deeper significance, it has provided new tools of thought
and has extended man’s mental horizon. It has thus influenced even the basic values of life,
and given to civilisation a new vitality and a new dynamism.
(Government of India 1958)

These words, written in 1958, sum up the attitude to science that prevailed in the early decades
after India’s Independence. This was the time when the policy-makers were convinced that sci-
ence and technology (S&T) would be important in pulling up India from centuries of underde-
velopment. S&T were thought of not just as a panacea for our underdevelopment, they were
also seen, as the Resolution above makes clear, as important in themselves for civilisation.
Scientific temper, a term associated with Pt Jawaharlal Nehru (Nehru 1946: 512) though pos-
sibly influenced by Bertrand Russell (Arnold 2013: 360–367), was an important part of the
making of a ‘modern’ India. The harnessing of S&T for development, as well as a rational out-
look towards the world, was an essential part of the narrative of nation building in the first
couple of decades of independent India.
The central role of S&T as envisaged by the policy-makers meant that a large infrastructure
of research, training, and teaching would need to be created virtually from scratch. Thus, the
early decades after Independence saw the establishment of laboratories, research institutes, uni-
versities, and technology institutions. The network of research laboratories, under the Council
of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research
(ICAR), as well as the Departments of Atomic Energy and Space, were set up not just as ivory
towers engaged in scientific research but indeed to meet the challenges of rapid economic
development.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-9 97
Shobhit Mahajan

The education sector too witnessed an unprecedented expansion in this period and indeed
in the subsequent decades. The total expenditure on education, as a percentage of GDP, went
up from a little over 0.6 per cent in 1950−51 to around 3.8 per cent in 2010−11 (University
Grants Commission (UGC) 2013). Technical and professional institutions like the Indian
Institutes of Technology (IITs) and engineering colleges were set up to provide human resources
to the industrialising economy. The growth in the number of primary and secondary schools,
colleges, polytechnics, universities, and professional colleges has also been very impressive,
though obviously from a very low base. Thus, for instance, the number of universities has grown
from 30 in 1950−51 to over 700 in 2012−13 (ibid.) The expansion was not just in higher edu-
cation – the number of schools, including primary, upper primary, secondary, and senior second-
ary schools went up from around 225,000 to more than 1,425,000 between 1950−51 and
2013−14 (Kumar et al. 2008; Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) 2014).
Though the disaggregated data for the number of high schools or colleges where science is
taught are not available, it is reasonable to assume that given the large numbers of institutions,
there are a fairly large number (in absolute terms) of them where science is offered.
There is no doubt that we have made impressive quantitative gains, as the numbers above
testify. It can, of course, be argued that there is still a lot of pent-up demand for both schools and
institutions of higher learning and we need to expand the sector at an ever-increasing pace. For
instance, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) recommended setting up at least 1,500
universities as well as 50 national universities in the country to ‘provide education of the highest
standard’ (NKC 2006).
However, to look at education purely as a matter of providing more schools and colleges is
missing the important issue of quality. Herein lies the problem as even the NKC, in a surpris-
ingly forthright manner, has pointed out:

[T]here is, in fact, a quiet crisis in higher education in India that runs deep. It is not yet
discernible simply because there are pockets of excellence, an enormous reservoir of tal-
ented young people, and an intense competition in the admissions process.
(Ibid.)

The problem is not just limited to higher education, but is in fact much more serious in schools.
The two are of course linked, as we shall examine below. As the Kothari Commission noted in
1966,‘Indian education needs a drastic reconstruction, almost a revolution’ (Kothari Commission
1966). Sadly, this is even truer today than half a century ago.

Statistics and numbers

The UGC was set up in 1945 as a result of the recommendations of the Sargent Report (Sargent
Report 1945). However, it was only in 1956 that the UGC was established as a statutory body
for coordination, determination, and maintenance of standards in university education. This
regulatory body sits at the apex of the landscape for non-technical education and thus, inter alia,
for higher education in the sciences. In addition, in an odd conflict of interest, the UGC is the
regulator as well as the funding agency for all central universities.
The higher education sector comprises central universities, state universities (both private
and public), deemed universities, Open universities, institutions of national importance, and
finally the bedrock of the higher education system, undergraduate colleges. Their respective
numbers are given in Table 6.1 (MHRD 2014). Table 6.2 (ibid.) gives the statistics for schools
at different levels.

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Table 6.1 Number of institutions of higher education

Universities Central university 42

State public university 310
Deemed university 127
State private university 143
Central Open university 1
State Open university 13
Institution of national importance 68
Institutions under State Legislature Act 5
Others 3
Total 712
Colleges 36,671
Stand-alone institutions Diploma level technical 3541
PGDM 392
Diploma level nursing 2674
Diploma level teacher training 4706
Institute under ministries 132
Total 11,445

Source: MHRD 2014.

Table 6.2 Number of schools

Type Number

Primary 790,640
Upper primary 401,079
Secondary 131,287
Senior secondary 102,558
Total 1,425,564

Source: MHRD 2014.

The massive increase in both institutions of higher learning and at the school level that has
been mentioned already has led to impressive strides in the gross enrolment ratio (GER) at
almost all levels. Table 6.3 (ibid.) shows the latest available statistics, while Figure 6.1 (UGC
2013) depicts the GER for higher education over time.
Though we see that higher education enrolment has increased substantially, the disaggregated
figures for various disciplines shows that in 2011−12, the percentage of students in the sciences
was around 13 per cent of the total, as shown in Table 6.4 (MHRD 2014). The figures might
understate the total number of students in science and mathematics since in several universities
mathematics is a separate faculty and the degrees given are bachelors or masters of arts.
The total enrolment numbers for higher education combines all levels – undergraduate,
postgraduate, and research. If one looks at the disaggregated figures for the various courses, one
finds that enrolment is the highest at the undergraduate levels and falls substantially as one goes
up, though in the case of sciences this fall is not as sharp as in other disciplines.
Some figures are available for enrolment in various streams at the senior secondary level,
though they are not very comprehensive. Thus, in 2002 the number of students appearing in

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Table 6.3 Gross enrolment ratio at various levels

All Scheduled Castes Scheduled Tribes

Level Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total

Primary (I–V) 98.1 100.6 99.3 110.8 112.2 111.5 111.5 108.8 110.2
Upper primary 84.9 90.3 87.4 93.2 96.5 94.8 86.5 85.7 86.1
(VI–VIII)
Elementary 93.3 96.9 95.0 104.2 109.4 102.8 102.5 100.5 101.5
(I–VIII)
Secondary 73.5 73.7 73.6 76.0 76.2 76.1 67.5 66.7 67.1
(IX–X)
I–X 89.4 92.4 90.8 98.6 103.0 97.6 95.9 94.2 95.1
Senior secondary 49.1 49.1 49.1 48.1 49.7 48.8 35.5 33.2 34.4
(XI–XII)
I–XII 83.3 85.9 84.6 91.1 93.3 92.2 87.5 86.0 86.8
Higher 22.3 19.8 21.1 16 14.2 15.1 12.4 9.7 11
Education

Source: MHRD 2014.

35

30
30

25.2
25
General enrolment ratio

20 19

15
15 13.38
12.74
11.83
11
10

0 0.4
1950–51 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2011–12 2012–13 2017–18 2020–21

Year

Figure 6.1 Change in GER for higher education with time.

Source: ‘Higher Education in India at a Glance June, 2013’, www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/6805988_HEglance
2013.pdf.

economics in CBSE and ICSE Boards combined was 158,548, while those appearing in physics
was 162,175 and those in mathematics was 173,919. The numbers appearing in chemistry were
similar to those in physics, while for biology the figure was 75,369 (Garg and Gupta 2003).
These numbers, though suggestive, are obviously not very comprehensive since they leave out
all the State Boards where the total enrolment is much higher. Nevertheless, taking these figures

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Table 6.4 Percentage enrolment in various courses

Programme Male Female Total

BA – Bachelor of Arts 28.22 37.84 32.55

BCom – Bachelor of Commerce 11.51 11.30 11.42
BSc – Bachelor of Science 10.41 12.09 11.17
BTech – Bachelor of Technology 9.10 4.46 7.01
BE – Bachelor of Engineering 8.07 4.06 6.26
BEd – Bachelor of Education 1.34 2.84 2.01
LLB – Bachelor of Law or Laws 0.86 0.48 0.69
MA – Master of Arts 3.45 5.42 4.34
MSc – Master of Science 1.59 2.31 1.91
MBA – Master of Business 2.25 1.44 1.88
MCom – Master of Commerce 0.77 1.16 0.94
MCA – Master of Computer Applications 0.92 0.75 0.84
MBBS – Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery 0.46 0.52 0.49
MTech – Master of Technology 0.61 0.39 0.51
ME – Master of Engineering 0.25 0.22 0.24
Other 20.20 14.72 17.73

Source: MHRD 2014.

as representative of the overall trend, it seems clear that the fraction of students opting for science
and mathematics at the senior secondary level is higher than those opting for these subjects at
the undergraduate level.
Since the bulk of undergraduate training takes place at the college level, it seems obvious that
for any meaningful analysis of higher education in science and mathematics, one has to consider
the undergraduate college as the unit of analysis. Of course, since only a handful of colleges are
degree-granting institutions, the linkages of the colleges to the degree-awarding universities will
also need to be considered. Furthermore, in matters academic as well as administrative, there is
almost no autonomy for the colleges and so it is imperative to look at the functioning of the
universities too, to gain any insight into the state of education at the undergraduate level.
While undergraduate colleges may be the loci for teaching science, research is almost always
a preserve of universities in India. This complete separation of research and teaching at the
undergraduate and to an extent at the postgraduate level has profound implications for the
teaching of science, as we shall see.

Issues and analysis

The various issues which impact education in the specific cases of undergraduate and post-
graduate education in general and in science in particular include the curriculum, the assess-
ment or examination system, human resources, infrastructure, and access. We shall consider each
of these in the following.
However, to look at science and mathematics education at the undergraduate level, it is
important to have some understanding of how science teaching is done at the secondary level
in schools. This is crucial because, to a large extent, the pedagogical issues faced at the under-
graduate level are a result of the quality of school teaching. And this is particularly true in the
sciences.
However, there is a problem when we try to analyse the teaching of science in schools – and
it stems from the enormous heterogeneity in the school system in the country. For instance, 25

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per cent of all schools in India are private schools, while 54 per cent are managed by central/
state governments and 21 per cent by local bodies. Again, 96 per cent of schools are affiliated to
their respective state boards and 1 per cent to the CBSE (E&Y 2014). Non-uniformity is, of
course, also a feature of undergraduate education, though to a lesser extent. Thus, though the
differences between teaching in a well-funded college of a central university and a small moffusil
college affiliated to a state university might be large, a great number of colleges do populate the
middle of the distribution. For schools, this problem is more severe.
Nevertheless, we can still try to find commonalities in pedagogy across schools which tran-
scend the differences. First, a large majority of the schools still have poor infrastructure. Physical
infrastructure in terms of laboratories, libraries, and computers, as well as broadband connectiv-
ity, is nowhere near what is required for efficient and effective teaching of science. In fact, a
survey of over 240,000 secondary and senior secondary schools conducted by the Unified
District Information System on Education (UDISE) and data analysed by the Delhi-based
National University for Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) found that around
75 per cent of them lacked fully equipped and functional science laboratories (Times of India
2014). Even this dismal statistic hides wide divergences – thus, for instance, even in a relatively
prosperous state like Karnataka, only 6 per cent of the schools have fully equipped labs at the
senior secondary level (ibid.).
The paucity or poor quality of infrastructure extends to human resources as well; the teach-
ers, who might technically be qualified to teach science, are in general not terribly inclined to
communicate the excitement of doing science. The lack of good, inspiring, and effective teach-
ers proves to be a major stumbling block in the students’ engagement with the subject.
The indifferent quality of teaching is, of course, not restricted to the sciences, but it certainly
does result in a large number of students being put off the subject for the rest of their lives –
whereas an exposure to the sciences, if done in an engaging and exciting way, can prove to be
of immense help in shaping a general culture of science and scientific temper. Invariably, the lack
of good teaching makes students apprehensive of the subject. The same is true, even more
acutely so, for mathematics. A majority of the population with school and college education still
suffer from a phobia of mathematics due to uninspired teaching at the school level. In fact, there
are now websites claiming to assist schools to overcome this (MB 2016)!
There is also the issue of the curriculum and its stress on a passive dissemination of facts.
Despite numerous attempts to make science interesting, relevant, and ultimately a joy to learn,
the actual situation is that it is usually taught as a collection of facts and theories that need to be
memorised. In fact, the National Focus Group on Teaching of Science brings out the issues very
clearly: ‘science education, even at its best, develops competence but does not encourage inven-
tiveness and creativity’ (NCERT 2006).
Teaching science in a way in which learning is done primarily by doing and supplemented
by constructing theories and hypotheses is significantly more challenging for teachers and hence
is usually neglected. In fact, an important lacuna in the curriculum and its implementation is the
almost complete neglect of experimentation. And this is not just because a majority of the
schools lack the resources and infrastructure – the same is also true for the so-called elite schools
which are otherwise very well equipped.
The issue of curriculum in schools is an important one – it is an important link in the devel-
opment of scientific literacy.

From the beginning of modern science in the 1600s, there has been an interest in how to
link academic science with the life world of the student. This requires a lived curriculum
and a range of thinking skills related to the proper utilisation of science/technology

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information. The extent to which students acquire these cognitive competencies deter-
mines whether or not they are scientifically literate. The supporting science curriculum
must be culturally-based and in harmony with the contemporary ethos and practice of
science.
(Hurd 1997: 407−416)

There have been several experiments in various parts of the country to change the way sci-
ence is taught. The Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme is an example of a well-designed
and competently implemented programme to address the above issues. Learning by doing, keep-
ing the quantum of ‘facts’ to a minimum, extensive teacher training, and a commitment by the
state were some of the key elements responsible for its success. However, the replication of this
and similar experiments across the country has not been very successful (Eklavya 2007).
The National Focus Group on Teaching of Science seized on the importance of the problem
and recommended

that science education in India must undergo a paradigm shift. Rote learning should be
discouraged. Inquiry skills should be supported and strengthened by language, design and
quantitative skills. Schools should give much greater emphasis on co-curricular and extra-
curricular elements aimed at stimulating investigative ability, inventiveness and creativity.
(NCERT 2006)

The nature of assessment, as we shall also see later, has a major impact on the quality and
quantity of science teaching at the school level. In fact, the above-mentioned position paper of
the National Focus Group on Teaching of Science recognises this and adds that ‘the overpower-
ing examination system is basic to most, if not all, the fundamental problems of science educa-
tion’ (ibid.). The recommendations of the National Focus Group on Teaching of Science are
radical: ‘we recommend nothing short of declaring examination reform as a National Mission
(like other critical missions of the country), supported by funding and high quality human
resources that such a mission demands’ (ibid.).
Coming to higher education, the basic institution for imparting science education at the
tertiary level is the undergraduate, affiliated college. A typical university might have affiliated to
it tens of colleges spread over a large geographical area. This situation, which might have been
appropriate when it was introduced more than 50 years ago, is now one of the major impedi-
ments in improving the quality of science education.
Typically, the affiliated or constituent college has no academic autonomy. The curriculum,
the academic calendar, and the examinations are all centralised with the affiliating university.
Colleges just happen to be the locations for teaching. The disjunction of the actual site of learn-
ing and that of decision making has proved to be disastrous. We will look at each of the issues
mentioned above in some detail now.

Curriculum
The undergraduate science curriculum of most universities is decided by the science depart-
ments in the university. Though there are various institutional mechanisms whereby the college
teachers, the people who actually have to teach, are consulted, in practice curriculum framing
becomes an exercise carried out almost exclusively by the faculty members of the affiliating
university.

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This is unfortunate since the college teacher is the fulcrum around which science education
at the tertiary level revolves. This is not only because she is the person most informed about the
actual reality on the ground, but also because she is the only person who has the potential to
excite her students about the subject. Having had no say in the framing of the curriculum has a
major impact on the quality of teaching since there is no sense of ownership.
The curricula themselves are mostly outdated, uninspiring, and usually err on the side of
including too much. Even where syllabus revision takes place frequently, there is little connec-
tion with reality in terms of capabilities of teachers to teach the syllabus, the infrastructure
required to teach, and, most importantly, the level of the students. For instance, introducing new
experiments in laboratories without adequate preparation in terms of equipment and personnel
makes it impossible for the colleges to actually undertake them. Or, introducing new subjects
(like microprocessors, computer programming, genetic engineering etc.) without training the
faculty members (who may not be familiar with them) leads to their teaching becoming a farce.
The curriculum is mostly designed in such a way that it encourages passive reception of
knowledge. The need for the student to investigate, develop problem-solving abilities, and work
in teams is neither required nor encouraged. This has the effect of science being taught in a way
that is contrary to its basic principles – discovery, comprehension, and application to different
situations.
Laboratory work, which is seen as integral to any serious scientific teaching, is mostly done
as a matter of routine. It is important for students to be aware of experimental techniques, data
processing, and analysis, as well as to be familiar with the equipment used. Most institutions lack
the infrastructure to effectively carry out this exercise. The laboratory curriculum itself consists
of experiments that are outdated and have little pedagogical value. In short, there is nothing in
the laboratory that could inspire or excite the student.
Frequently, there is also a project component in the curriculum. The spirit behind this is
admirable, but the actual implementation has destroyed it. The project is supposed to train the
student to formulate a problem, investigate it, collect data, and prepare a detailed report. This
would be useful in developing skills in a variety of areas like literature search, technical writing,
data analysis, and experimental techniques. However, in most cases, what actually happens is that
the project is bought off-the-shelf – there being shops which specialise in preparing projects!
Research seems to confirm what has been known to science educators for some time – stu-
dents who are given more freedom to think and less instruction in laboratory classes seem to
perform much better than those who are given a ‘cookbook’ approach to the class (The Hindu
22 February 2007). Unfortunately, the laboratory curriculum in our colleges and universities is
a classic example of the cookbook approach in which students are provided step-by-step instruc-
tions to carry out the experiments, resulting in almost no innovation or understanding.
Thus we see that both at the school and college level, the curriculum and the methodology
of teaching leads to science being taught as a collection of facts that need to be memorised. Lack
of infrastructure and demotivated teachers also contribute to the student not experiencing sci-
ence as an exciting method to learn about and analyse the world around her. An important
factor which reinforces this malaise is the assessment system.

Assessment
The examination or assessment system prevalent in most undergraduate institutions is highly
centralised, where no distinction is made between the immense variations among the colleges.
It is a system which is not conducive to innovation or initiative.

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The nature of the examinations is detrimental to any assessment of genuine learning. Most
examinations do not test anything more than memory. This is very damaging in all subjects,
particularly the sciences, where no training is given for problem-solving or application of con-
cepts. Commenting on the dismal state of the examination system, the Knowledge Commission
has noted that:

The nature of annual examinations at universities in India often stifles the teaching–learn-
ing process because they reward selective and uncritical learning. There is an acute need to
reform this examination system so that it tests understanding rather than memory. Analytical
abilities and creative thinking should be at a premium. Learning by rote should be at a
discount. Such reform would become more feasible with decentralised examination and
smaller universities.
(NKC 2006)

All this is disastrous for science education – not just because the marks obtained at the end
of the course are no indicator of the quality of the student, but more importantly because it has
a negative feedback effect on the teaching per se. There is no incentive for the teacher to be
innovative in the class. The student also takes the path of least resistance and is not interested in
doing anything more than what is required for getting good grades in the examinations.
Decentralisation of the examination system will certainly help since motivated teachers
could devise ways and means to encourage students to develop critical skills. One way to do this
would be to incorporate some form of an Internal Assessment system which allows continuous
assessment rather than an end-of-year assessment. This will also have the advantage of the
teacher who is teaching the course being able to frame an assessment method which is suitable
to the course and the students.
A common objection against decentralised assessment is grade inflation. While this is
undoubtedly true to an extent, there can be several solutions to this. Thus, for instance, one can
think of a relative grading where a student is only placed relative to his/her peers in the class
rather than across institutions. Then the assessment will gauge a student’s true ranking in his/her
class. The relative placement of students across institutions can be done by standardised tests at
some point.
In the sciences, there is also an additional examination for laboratory work. This by and large
is a farce, since the methodology of testing the students does not test their experimental abilities
or skills. And since here, too, everyone gets good grades, this examination serves no purpose as
an assessment since it does not differentiate.

Human resources
The most important element in any educational system is the teacher. Competent, qualified, and
motivated teachers are essential in maintaining the quality of education.
Contrary to popular perception, teaching is not very high on the list of attractive professions
for good students. Even among teachers, teaching science is not a preferred option for many
students. There are of course many reasons why science as a career is not high on the priority
list. The job opportunities for professional degree holders are better and there is a lot of parental
and peer pressure to secure a good future by becoming a professional. But one of the main rea-
sons for a lot of students getting turned away from science is the dismal state of teaching at the
school level.

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Science teaching in even the best and most well-endowed schools does not inspire the stu-
dent. As noted earlier, the syllabus and the pattern of assessment at the secondary level are such
that most students are turned off. The whole philosophy behind science, one of discovery,
problem-solving, and critical questioning, is discouraged and rote learning is encouraged and
rewarded.
The quality of teachers is also poor, given that the best students opt for other careers and it
is those who are left with no option that pursue a career in school teaching. Thus a typical
student who enters college is already disillusioned with science, having never experienced the
joy of learning and discovery. This is not just a problem in India – declining interest in science
among school students has been noticed globally. The reasons given are many, though an impor-
tant one is that ‘students reject a school science that is disconnected from their own lives, a
depersonalised science, where there is no space for themselves and their ideas’ (UNESCO 2010).
The lack of motivation on the part of the students has a negative feedback effect on the
teaching process, with the teacher not delivering her best to a class of disinterested students. This
is a very serious problem and though no numbers are available, anecdotal evidence suggests that
in the University of Delhi, even in good colleges, the percentage of students who want to pursue
a degree in science out of choice is no more than 15 per cent.
The teaching profession has little charm for a bright and motivated student. This has disas-
trous consequences for science education since it creates a vicious circle. Students who go
through their course with bad teachers lose interest and become demotivated teachers them-
selves, producing disinterested students, and so on.
This problem has been highlighted eloquently by the Indian Academy of Sciences Report
on Higher Education, 1994. Bemoaning the lack of interest in science as a career, the report
points out,

In contrast to the situation a few decades ago, students, parents and indeed society as a
whole do not presently view a career in science as rewarding or challenging, or even as
offering a satisfying professional life. Career opportunities in science are perceived as lim-
ited, and as being not at all comparable materially with other professions. Intimately related
to these negative impressions is the fact that faculty positions in colleges and universities
appear lacking in prestige and respect.
(IAS 1994)

The issue is not just one of quality, but also of quantity. The number of teachers with the
requisite qualifications and competence is woefully inadequate, especially in the sciences. This
is evident in the number of vacant teaching positions in most institutions, including the new
ones (IITs, Indian Institutes of Science Engineering and Research, central universities). The
administrators of these institutions have repeatedly pointed out that the paucity of qualified and
competent teachers is their biggest challenge (Economic Times 2015).

Physical infrastructure
We have already indicated the dismal state of physical infrastructure for science teaching in sec-
ondary schools. Many schools operate from makeshift buildings and without the bare minimum
of facilities in the classroom. Libraries are mostly defunct or barely functional; laboratories,
which are anyway skeletally equipped, are not used for most of the year and opened only at the
time of the Board examination. It is a dismal state of affairs that in seven states more than 80 per
cent of the schools are without toilets (The Indian Express 2015).

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The situation at the undergraduate level is hardly any better. Barring a few extremely well-
funded institutions (the IITs and the recently established IISERs), the physical infrastructure in
most of our higher education institutions is simply not good enough. Physical infrastructure
includes classrooms with at least elementary teaching aids, tutorial rooms, and rooms for faculty
members, well-stocked libraries, computers, internet connectivity, and laboratories, as well as
recreational areas, toilets, etc.
In most colleges, there is a paucity of classrooms and tutorial rooms for discussions. Classrooms
are in most cases non-functional. This environment is certainly not conducive to learning and
exploration. In a situation where even functional blackboards are hard to find, there is little point
in talking about high-technology teaching aids like projectors and display screens.
A well-stocked library with ample sitting space is an essential part of any educational institu-
tion. Unfortunately, most colleges have libraries that are not functional in any real sense. The
maintenance is shambolic and there is little budget for increasing the holdings or even maintain-
ing subscriptions in view of the ever-increasing costs of journals and books. This is disastrous
since, given the high cost of books, the majority of students are dependent on the libraries for
access to them.
Information technology can play a very important and enabling role in education. However,
a majority of the colleges in the country have limited resources to provide computers for stu-
dent use. There is also a lack of infrastructure in terms of uninterrupted power supply in most
colleges; therefore, laboratories and computer resource centres function sub-optimally, leading
to tremendous loss of time and efficiency.
Undergraduate teaching laboratories are in a pathetic state. The rising cost of equipment and
spare parts has meant that the measly resources available for the laboratories are grossly insuffi-
cient to even maintain the labs, leave alone introduce new experiments.
Surprisingly, the Education Commission in 1948 had similar observations on the state of
teaching laboratories:

There is no doubt that modern teaching and research in scientific subjects require adequate
and even costly equipment. Modern scientific research is largely a matter of evolving new
techniques, the apparatus for which is costly and can only be provided by making adequate
capital and recurring grants.
(Education Commission 1948)

The gross neglect of undergraduate teaching laboratories has disastrous consequences for
science education. As one commentator has noted:

A major area of investment in Chinese universities is the upgrading of undergraduate

teaching labs. We spend almost nothing on this front even as we stuff up a few ‘prestige’
institutes with costly equipment. But there will be a real pay-off only if we invest in training
young people in the universities well. This is where China is correctly placing its money,
and this is where we are totally off track.
(Desiraju 2007)

Equality of access
J.P. Naik, in a seminal article, spoke of equality, quantity, and quality comprising the elusive triangle
in Indian education (Naik 1979). This is the aspect of education which, though critical, is usually

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not considered in most discussions on education. Access, defined in a very broad way, implies real
opportunities for everyone for a high-quality, meaningful education at affordable rates.
The first and the most obvious fact is that there are simply not enough vacancies for all the
interested school-leaving students to get into colleges. Even though our GER for higher educa-
tion is now a fairly respectable 20 per cent or so, it is clear that there is still a large unmet demand
for education. This is evident from the large number of applicants for the limited number of
college seats across the country. For instance, in 2015 Delhi University received around 320,000
applications for 54,000 seats (India Today 2016).
For those who do manage to secure a position at a college or a university, there are several
barriers to a meaningful education. These barriers range from language skills, lack of textbooks
and reference material in their native language, and a very heterogeneous school education lead-
ing to a huge gap in informational and conceptual training, etc.
In many parts of the country, the medium of instruction at the college level, especially in the
sciences, is English. This automatically places a large number of students who have had their
school education in vernacular languages at a disadvantage. The challenge of understanding the
language has to be first overcome before even attempting to meaningfully engage with the
subject.
The availability of high-quality and affordable books is another problem faced by most stu-
dents. Even in English, the number of locally produced books which are of good quality is very
small. The books that are normally used in most universities are of very poor quality, since in
most institutions books written by foreign authors are either not prescribed or not used in prac-
tice by the students. The reasons are many – the cost of these good-quality, though foreign,
books is much higher; the engagement demanded on the part of the student while using the
book is much higher than locally produced books; and finally, the language used is frequently
difficult for students who are not comfortable with it. Instead, what we get are locally written
clones of these standard books, which in trying to make the subject and language more acces-
sible, often end up being glorified guidebooks. It is ironic that with the third or maybe fourth
largest manpower base in S&T in the world, one cannot point to more than a handful of good
textbooks written in India which are of a global standard. Unlike, say, China or the post-­
revolution Soviet Union, where the best scientists wrote textbooks, some of which became
classics in their subjects, our scientists don’t seem to be inclined towards this enterprise
(Wikipedia 2016).
A related issue is obviously the availability of books in languages other than English. In the
sciences, there are almost no good-quality textbooks available in any of our languages at the
college level. The non-existence of good reading material in the vernacular was recognised by
the NKC, which recommended the setting-up of a Translation Mission to translate material into
Indian languages (NKC 2006).
Finally, we have a huge gap in what we expect our undergraduates to know and the skills that
they ought to possess and what the reality is. The entering student is supposed to possess skills
and have a level of awareness and information which is presumed to have been acquired either
at home or at the secondary level. However, because of the huge variation in the standards of
secondary education which exists in our country, there is a concomitant range of capabilities of
the students entering the tertiary level.
Furthermore, the policies of affirmative action and reservation have resulted in a number of
students from less privileged backgrounds entering colleges and universities. In fact, some of
them are first-generation learners. However, it would be a fallacy to think that lack of prepara-
tion to handle the rigours of college education is restricted to those who have gained access
owing to reservations. It is far more general and widespread.

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The solution, of course, is not to dilute the academic standards and thereby make a mockery
of the whole system, but rather to provide the deficient students opportunities to catch up. After
all, how does one expect them to cope with the huge demands that our system puts on their
comprehension and informational capabilities given their deficient training? Is it fair on the
students to be admitted (because of reservation or otherwise) and then be left to their own
devices to compete in this harsh, alien ecosystem? Or should there be institutional mechanisms
to empower and train these students? These could range from remedial classes in the afternoon
or evenings, extensive preparatory classes during vacations, or some other methods to bring the
ill-equipped students up to speed.

University of Delhi: a case study

We can consider the case of a large central university like the University of Delhi (DU) as illus-
trative of the above-mentioned malaise. DU is one of the largest institutions of higher education
in the country. There are more than 80 constituent colleges where undergraduate teaching takes
place. Postgraduate teaching is almost entirely done in the 80-odd departments of the DU,
which are grouped into 14 faculties. The total student enrolment, including the distance educa-
tion programme, is upwards of 500,000 (DU 2016).
The science subjects are aggregated into two faculties – science and interdisciplinary
­sciences – while mathematics has a separate faculty. Undergraduate teaching shifted to the col-
leges at various times in the past; for instance, in the case of physics it was only in 1971 that
undergraduate Honours course teaching moved to some of the colleges. Prior to this, all teach-
ing was in the Department of Physics.
There have been several curriculum revisions in the sciences course over the last few decades.
Let us focus on the Honours course in physics.
The Honours course in physics underwent at least three revisions prior to 2010. The process
of curriculum revision, though in principle a fairly democratic one, in practice has some of the
teachers in the postgraduate department in consultation with a small cohort of undergraduate
teachers deciding what is to be taught and when. Genuine widespread consultations are not the
norm and even if they take place, the suggestions are often overlooked.
Nevertheless, it must be said that the curriculum in the physics Honours course has, until
recently, always been more or less comparable to the best in the world. Thus, for instance, what
is usually considered the core for an undergraduate degree in physics – namely mechanics, elec-
tricity and magnetism, heat and thermodynamics, modern physics, and waves and oscillations –
were all covered in some detail in the course. The topics covered in these subjects were
comprehensive and essentially followed the standard treatment of these subjects as in well-
known textbooks. In addition, one of the notable features of the physics Honours course was its
stress on training in mathematical physics. This emphasis on mathematical physics, with one
paper in each year, was something that was not practised in most universities in India or even
abroad. A strong grounding in mathematics, the language of physics, means the student is given
ample training in the techniques of problem-solving, at least at the theoretical level.
The course, as we noted, was extremely well designed and of high quality. Nevertheless, the
quality and quantity of what is supposed to be taught is crucially dependent on how it is taught.
Here the problems of centralisation of decision making in curriculum framing becomes
­obvious – the colleges in the DU are very uneven in terms of human and physical infrastructure.
Thus, for instance, there are colleges where there are not enough teachers to teach all the sub-
jects in the curriculum. The colleges then have to engage guest lecturers who, because of their
limited engagement, are of limited efficacy. Even in colleges which are adequately staffed, the

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absence of any meaningful training and refresher courses means that most of the teachers are not
equipped to teach some of the newer subjects. For instance, in the 1990s, when the Honours
curriculum was revised for physics, several new subjects like microprocessors and digital elec-
tronics were introduced. Most teachers had never been exposed to these subjects and were
therefore unable to teach them effectively. Furthermore, most of the colleges did not have
proper equipment for the laboratory courses that went with these subjects. In such a scenario,
the high quality of the curriculum itself becomes meaningless.
The curriculum, though otherwise of very high quality, has always had a major lacuna in
terms of laboratory work. The choice of experiments and the structure of the lab courses is
woefully inadequate to prepare the undergraduate student to develop any appreciation, let alone
training of experimental physics. This is further exacerbated by the extremely poor infrastruc-
ture available in most colleges and even the postgraduate department. The funding available to
the laboratories is pitiful. For instance, the total capital expense on laboratories in physics in
2012–13 at a premier college in the DU was around Rs. 16,000 – not even enough to buy a
decent oscilloscope, an essential piece of equipment nowadays. It is pertinent to note that the
number of students using the labs would be upwards of a couple of hundred (Ramjas 2013).
All this changed with the latest set of changes in the DU. In the last five years, the poor
undergraduate has had to get used to the introduction of the semester system, then an abortive
attempt to introduce a four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP), and finally a new avatar of
the FYUP, the current Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS).
Whatever the theoretical merits and demerits of these revolutionary changes introduced in a
blitzkrieg fashion (and with no discussion or debate), their effect on the curriculum has been
disastrous. The changes in the curriculum to fit the new models have made a mockery of a
perfectly good course of study. How else can one characterise the process through which the
annual course of study was simply arbitrarily cut into two to fit the semester mode? In some of
the subjects, this meant the load on the students increased since it was not possible to distribute
the content evenly over two semesters. Worse, sometimes the two halves of the course were not
even taught in successive semesters thereby making it all the more difficult for the teacher and
the taught to maintain continuity in the development of the subject.
The mayhem caused by the FYUP and its new mutation, the CBCS, was even worse. Now
we had the discipline courses slashed to make room for the so-called minors and foundation
courses. This may not be such a bad idea per se, had it been done in the proper way with wide-
spread discussion and adequate preparation. However, what actually happened was that the cur-
riculum and structure of the foundation and minor courses made a mess of any meaningful
pedagogy. The foundation courses, in particular, were designed it seems by someone like Rip
Van Winkle – someone who had missed the developments of the last few years. How else does
one explain a compulsory course for all undergraduates which in this day and age teaches stu-
dents how to send an email or how to search for something on the internet (Mahajan 2013)?
Even though the curriculum till recently, with all the limitations of its implementation,
remained of high quality, the assessment system was not conducive to any meaningful pedagogy.
Examinations were held at the end of the year and assessment was centralised without any dis-
tinction between the hugely disparate academic standards of the colleges. Furthermore, the
examinations tested nothing more than the ability to recall. In a subject like physics, an assess-
ment that totally ignores the problem-solving abilities of the students and instead rewards mem-
ory recall of standard textbook material is disastrous. This, of course, had a feedback effect on
the teaching, with both the student and the teacher adopting a path of least resistance towards
attaining high grades, irrespective of any real understanding. The situation in the laboratories,

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where, as we have seen, even the curriculum was outdated, was worse since there was no real
assessment. Almost everyone got very high grades with or without any experiments being
performed.
Things changed somewhat around 2003, when a system of partial internal assessment was
introduced (University of Delhi 2003). Some percentage of the overall mark was assigned to
internal assessment done by the teacher running the course. This at least meant that there was
some element of continuity as well as decentralisation in assessment. However, this was a chi-
mera – the propensity of the teachers to inflate grades and the fetish of ‘objectivity’ in grading
led the university to adopt a ‘moderation’ of the grades which made the whole exercise mean-
ingless. Worse, the moderation process was shrouded in secrecy and could not be subjected to
elementary tests of fairness or rigour.
The introduction of the semester system and the subsequent changes also had a dramatic
effect on the quality of assessment. The DU, in an attempt to make the hugely unpopular sys-
tem more likeable, resorted to large-scale grade inflation in some subjects. Thus, while previ-
ously it was rare for even the best students to achieve marks of more than 85 per cent in the
physics Honours course, scores in the 90+ per cent range were now common. It was not just
the highest marks which were inflated – the median score also jumped to an unprecedented
level (Mahajan 2012).
In terms of human resources, the situation is extremely bleak. There are more than 4,000
vacant teaching positions in the DU. Although the number of these positions in the sciences is
not available, if one takes the number of students as an indicator of the number of positions and
assumes the vacant positions are evenly distributed across subjects, the estimate for the sciences
would be close to 1,000. This is alarming to say the least (Mahajan 2016a).
The situation is actually much worse – governance issues in the DU, especially in the last few
years, have meant that these vacant positions are actually staffed by ‘ad hoc’ teachers. These
contractual teachers have no security of tenure, are made to take a disproportionately high
teaching load and are therefore a demotivated lot. It would be too much to expect such a demo-
tivated teacher to actually inspire students towards the subject.
The quality issues in teaching are also something that need to be addressed – with changes
in curriculum and the introduction of new subjects, the teachers need to be offered high-quality
in-service training and refresher courses. No systematic policy has been framed to address this
crucial issue.
The DU is one of the best funded universities in the country. And yet, the physical infrastruc-
ture of most colleges as well as large parts of the campus leave a lot to be desired. Laboratories
with outdated or, worse, non-functioning equipment, libraries which serve as little more than a
lending library for textbooks and examination guides, and a paucity of classrooms and recre-
ational spaces are common across the university. Poor maintenance of existing infrastructure, a
fairly widespread malaise in our nation, is also evident.
Of course, lack of resources is the primary reason for this situation. Resource allocation has
not kept pace with the increase in enrolment. However, there is certainly an element of mis-
guided priorities where libraries, classrooms and laboratories always seem to have a lower prior-
ity in a resource-scarce environment.
Finally, the issue of equality of access has recently become of great importance even in the
DU. For a long time, the university has attracted students from across the country and thus the
student body has always been fairly heterogeneous. However, despite this heterogeneity, there
were only a very small percentage of students in the sciences who had not had their school
education in English.

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With the recent increase in enrolment due to a constitutional amendment which also man-
dated a reservation for certain classes of students, a fair number of students from disadvantaged
backgrounds are now entering the university.
These students, many of them from rural backgrounds, have not had the opportunities that
their urban, middle-class fellow classmates have had. The schools they have gone to were of
poor quality and, worse, their exposure to English as a medium of instruction is nil. Indeed,
some of them are the first in their families to reach college. Thus, for instance, in the entering
class for MSc in physics in 2015, more than 40 per cent of students’ parents had never studied
beyond Class XII (Mahajan 2016b).
This is a huge problem especially in the sciences, since all the instruction in the DU is in
English. Thus, these students from modest backgrounds face a double whammy – a deficit in
their exposure to the subject as well as the medium of instruction. It doesn’t help that there are
no appropriate textbooks available at the undergraduate level in the vernacular. This huge dis-
advantage was brought home to me when a postgraduate student of mine asked me for some
clarifications in a textbook that I had written. When he showed me the relevant page, I noticed
that the margins were filled with translations of the sentences in Hindi.When I asked him about
it, he sheepishly confessed that he didn’t follow the language and so had asked a friend to trans-
late it into Hindi, which he had transcribed.
This is not to argue that these students are inherently any worse than others. It is just that the
opportunities that they have had have been limited and therefore for their university education
to be truly meaningful, they require a degree of assistance. Sadly, neither the administrators in
the DU, nor the policy-makers in the government are interested in this matter.
Although the scenario we have discussed is for a particular course in a particular subject, the
situation in all the other science subjects in the DU is fairly similar. It is indeed noteworthy that
this is the situation in an old, well-known, and well-funded institution like the DU. One can
only imagine the state of poorly funded state universities and moffusil colleges where sometimes
even a proper building is missing.

Conclusions and outlook

Science education at all levels is not in a particularly good shape as things stand. Although our
enrolment ratios have increased dramatically because of an enormous increase in public expen-
diture on education, the results have not been very encouraging.
At the school level the situation is more alarming than at the higher levels. This is because to
a large extent, the fundamental approach to learning gets imbibed by the student at that forma-
tive stage. Poor infrastructure, lack of qualified and, more importantly, inspiring teachers, and
standardisation imposed across states and the country leads to dismal results. Grade inflation,
which is rampant in almost all school boards, masks the actual state of affairs, with a large num-
ber of students scoring in the high 90+ per cent range and a majority of them scoring reason-
ably well. That such a kind of assessment loses its meaning as assessment is, of course, a cause for
concern, but possibly more important is the impact on the actual learning by the student.
Learning science for a vast majority of the students becomes basically a question of memoris-
ing some facts and information without processing it. Problem-solving, analytical thinking, and
working out what-if scenarios, which are the hallmarks of training in science, are completely
ignored.
The situation in higher education is not much different. Although we might be producing a
fairly large number of graduates and postgraduates in the sciences (see Table 6.3), it is now
widely acknowledged that these graduates do not possess the requisite skills. A good measure of

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how our science training compares with others is the research output. Leaving aside the advanced
industrialised economies, our research output in the sciences is lagging behind similar countries.
Thus, for instance, China was lagging behind India in the number of scientific publications and
citations till 1996, when it outpaced India and is now far ahead in both the quantity and quality
of research (Kademani et al. 2014).
In this dismal landscape, there are several initiatives which are laudable and could produce
positive results over time. Several schemes to encourage students to take up science have been
initiated in the last several years. These include the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired
Research (INSPIRE) programme and the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY), which
aim to identify bright students with an aptitude for science at a young age and then provide
them with scholarships (DST 2015). The INSPIRE programme also has a component of vari-
ous scientists visiting schools and colleges to deliver talks and seminars. The impact on the
students, especially in schools in rural and remote areas, of this exposure to the excitement of
science should not be underestimated. The Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education has
been organising programmes based on the Science and Mathematics Olympiads across the
nation, and these have certainly inspired some of the brighter school students. The Indian
Academy of Science has a summer programme in which interested students get assigned to a
mentor for a summer project (IAS 2015).
The Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan (RAA), another initiative of the MHRD, ‘while emphasis-
ing the primacy of the schools and classroom transactions, aims to leverage the potential for
Science, Mathematics and Technology learning in non-classroom settings’ (RAA 2015). This too
should yield positive results in the quality of learning outcomes for school students over time.
For improving the quality of human resources in our institutions, there are several in-service
refresher courses which are mandatory for promotions. This requirement has unfortunately
made these courses somewhat unattractive. Nevertheless, these courses can provide a valuable
resource for teachers to get up to speed with some of the latest developments in the subject as
well as in pedagogical methods.
In all of the above, we have not discussed the role of research, and have focused on teaching
at the universities and colleges. This is because for a majority of our college faculty, continuing
with research is an almost impossible task. Lack of facilities, paucity of time, and the overall
inertia make it almost impossible for anyone but the most motivated teacher to continue with
research. This, of course, has major consequences for teaching since it has been widely
acknowledged that research work actually leads to an improvement in teaching quality (Prince
et al. 2007).
The infrastructure needed for scientific research, namely laboratories and access to journals,
etc., is an area where some welcome steps have been taken in the last few decades. The develop-
ment of central facilities by the UGC is a very welcome step. These inter-university centres
cater to the college teachers who can avail of them, especially during vacation time. This pro-
vides teachers with an opportunity to use expensive and hard-to-obtain equipment to facilitate
their research. Similarly, the expansion of initiatives like INFLIBNET will provide electronic
access to journals to colleges, thus improving access to information and research for students and
teachers there.
Both the school and higher education system in the country need a drastic and urgent over-
haul. At the school level, there is an urgent need to rethink and experiment with new curricula,
as well as pedagogical tools, while improving the physical infrastructure. For higher education, a
massive expansion and qualitative improvement is required in such institutions to improve their
access to all our citizens. This is imperative if we want to compete in an increasingly globalised
world where knowledge plays a role as important as capital, labour, and natural resources.

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Of course, improving the quality of and access to schools and universities requires enormous
resources. But one should be careful in recognising that though this might be a necessary condi-
tion, it is by no means a sufficient one. What are really needed are a judicious use of resources,
change in mindsets, improved systems of governance, and a proper use of incentives and disin-
centives. We must also realise that given our tremendous diversity, there is no single magic for-
mula which will guarantee success.
Finally, apart from the institutional framework, it is also important to consider the broader
social milieu if one wants to understand the issues facing science education in the country.
Science as a vocation has been hugely downgraded in our society. This is a big change from the
situation prevailing in the 1950s and 1960s, when science was seen as the career of choice for
the best and brightest. People like Vikram Sarabhai and Homi Bhabha, the pioneers of scientific
institution building in post-Independence India, were idolised by a generation of students. In
the decade of the 1970s and 1980s, this changed drastically. Research and/or teaching as a pro-
fession was downgraded and presumed as unattractive for students. It was not just about mon-
etary rewards of alternative careers – social recognition started playing a major part in career
choices.
Education is not just about increasing the enrolment numbers by fiat. It is about providing
genuine opportunities to students from diverse backgrounds to enlarge their mental and cogni-
tive capabilities. Of course, there are challenges – financial, institutional, and human-resource
related. These challenges are especially acute in the sciences because of the nature of the disci-
plines. However, education is such an important area of human activity – an enabler not just in
the economic sense but also in a civilisational one – that the challenges are worth taking up.

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 7
The teaching of social sciences in
schools and colleges in India
Hari Vasudevan

This brief chapter examines the teaching in India of a range of subjects associated with the social
sciences – history, geography, political science, sociology, and economics. It focuses on their
teaching in schools and at the first degree level, in universities (Jamia Millia, Jadavpur, etc.), or
colleges affiliated to universities (Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Delhi, etc.), locating developments
against an international background beginning with India’s late colonial experiences. The chap-
ter traces the limited sense of the social sciences as an integrated domain of study at the time of
India’s Independence and its slow evolution towards the 1960s. In school and college/early
university, though, the child/young person did not find reference to the composite space in any
meaningful manner. The domain was often used as a descriptive category well into the mid-­
1990s, with substantial value inflection loading its treatment at the school level. Initiatives took
shape in the mid-­2000s in India’s National Council for Education Research and Training
(NCERT) moving in new directions. These did not find any serious uptake in universities,
where training in the categories and information necessary for research orientation were stan-
dard until recently. The chapter ends with a short evaluation of later developments associated
with the Right to Education Act (RTE) and the onset of privatisation in school and university
education.
The chapter reviews the standard literature on Indian education, including government
committee and commission reports.1 An important part of the argument will be that the posi-
tion of ‘social science’ in the Indian educationist’s imagination has often differed from the way
the domain has been represented abroad, where stress falls on the significance of the domain for
a ‘modern’ society and the practical value of the subjects for such a society. In India, orientation
towards values at school, and research at university, has been standardised, without flexibility in
aims and processes. Social science education receives a more ‘holistic’ and practical inflection in
special institutes that are concerned with specific goals, giving these a special role in the Indian
educational system; but in these institutions, the larger aspects of the subjects are not considered
worthy of attention.

116 DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-10

 The teaching of social sciences

India’s encounters with social sciences: the global background of the

early/mid-twentieth century

Global ‘social sciences’ education and significance for India: the British example
India’s engagement with social science teaching came through educational initiatives taken dur-
ing the late colonial period (i.e. from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century)
in Indian schools and colleges.2 The initiatives were given a different direction and shape after
Independence in 1947.
In the disciplines making up the social sciences, Indian inputs and networks took shape in the
inter-­war period. In history, these centred on the Asiatic societies, the Archaeological Survey of
India, and independent scholarship among groups in growing universities and their constituent
colleges. An inter-­war generation of lead scholars included figures such as Nilakanta Sastri and
Jadunath Sarkar in history. In geography, the Survey of India exercised a prominent hold. In
economics, the Indian Economic Association stimulated diverse research, while in sociology, the
works of G.S. Ghurye, Nirmal Bose, and others had established a trend. In political science, con-
stitutions and administration attracted scholars. The subjects were associated with a self-­
conscious ‘nationalist’ scholarship that touched the study of language and literature as well, and
developed the agenda for education in science and technology.
This was a domain of discipline-­specific research. In the education system, the work sug-
gested itself for attention at universities, for higher degrees (a two-­year MA or PhD), or at col-
leges for lower degrees (a three-­year BA Honours and two-­year Pass course). In preparation for
this, research-­based literature was included in intermediate or pre-­university courses that fol-
lowed nine or ten years of school. In practice, degree education came down to teaching of
individual subjects at various depths, where focus fell on a cardinal subject or subjects and the
teaching was based on research literature.
At school, history and geography were taught through the equivalent of upper primary and
secondary stages, with some attention to civics, where administration, constitutions, and good
public habits were the stock in trade. Education rose to its higher levels with a firm disciplinary
orientation (focused on language, mathematics, general science, history, geography, and forms of
civics). In so far as social sciences were recognised here, they meant history, geography, and civics.
Competence was graded according to depth in terms of information as well as a general aware-
ness of the terms and categories of analysis.
This approach to teaching the subjects of the social sciences had its reference point in the
British system of education. Here, education at school and university level in two subjects of the
social sciences – history and geography3 – was well established, although economics came to
attract attention by the 1920s. A composite space of social science education was seldom
involved, though interactions across disciplines did occur, while the academic acknowledgement
of this as a domain of study was evident (Seligman and Johnson 1938). History and geography
were primarily taught as subjects that contributed to identity and as guides to appropriate social
behaviour and basic practical wisdom.
After 1945, social sciences as subjects for study and research developed vigorously in universi-
ties. Acknowledgement of this domain for school instruction gained visibility. Economics and
sociology were seen as subjects that aided policy – a status that political economy had acquired
in the nineteenth century, assisted by inputs from history and geography. The subjects associated
with the social sciences were registered as crucial to the development of ‘modern man’ (Institut
de l’UNESCO de l’education 1962). The legacy, however, of different disciplines, exercised its
own influence.

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Global ‘social sciences’ education and significance for India

Much of what took place in Britain followed from ideas concerning education and the skills
essential for policy. These ideas have taken on new forms, and the last half-­century has seen the
assertion in the UK, Australasia, Western Europe, and the USA of a programme for social sci-
ences teaching at the school level in preparation for an integrated approach to the disciplines in
higher education. This coincides with a quest for a ‘holistic’ approach to education at both
levels. It also recognises the coincidence of many questions that attract economics, political sci-
ence, sociology, history, and geography. How social sciences as a unified branch of knowledge
may address such common ground is still in doubt, though, since the dimensions of such a
‘grouping’ have not attracted consensus.
Persistent imbalances have remained.4 Questions concerning pedagogy, and the way in which
school education may blend into higher education, have been posed in dealing with the treat-
ment of subjects pertaining to the social sciences in education (Institut de l’UNESCO de
l’education 1962). In Europe, there is no uniformity of approach to school curricula as a conse-
quence of such questions and diverse legacies. But the Bologna Process has attempted to create
a degree of conformity. These perspectives have been communicated to India and other sections
of the developing world directly, through bilateral interaction, or through UNESCO.

Indian institutions of school and university education and the social

sciences I: from Independence to 2004

General
After 1947, roughly three phases are discernible in Indian programmes that have evolved for
teaching subjects pertaining to the social sciences in schools and, at the graduate level, at univer-
sity or affiliated colleges. The first phase ran into the 1960s, and involved the emergence of
social sciences beyond basic history and geography as a necessary focus of attention; the second
phase involved important changes of the late 1960s and 1970s, initially understating the value of
social science teaching in the quest to promote education, acknowledging that value with time,
but uniformly involving a top-­down approach to pedagogy. This approach was consolidated in
the 1980s and faced challenges in the 1990s. The most recent phase involves the initiatives of
the 2000s and after.
A variety of notions shaped these trends. At the time of Independence, existing school and
university education in its prevailing form was associated with the colonial establishment: but
subjects taught were considered fit to serve the goals of a new nation once content was altered in
the direction of a ‘nationalist’ bent, and the process of education was reoriented. In the language
that framed what was to be done, the conceptual focus was on how ‘Eastern’ or ‘Western’ this
policy was or how ‘colonial’ the past had been. Such issues made up a nationalist discourse on
education before Independence and came to influence later policy (see Basu 1974; Nurullah and
Naik 1943; also Ministry of Education 1963: 29). Nationalist perspectives in general were var-
ied. They ranged from ‘official’, ‘Gandhian’, and socialist positions concerning the best path for a
goal of ‘development’ (Zachariah 2006) to a celebration of the practices and ideas of ancient India
and piecemeal perspectives that centred on the practices of different communities.
Throughout, the importance of promotion of values was highlighted in social debate, and
attracted attention in overall policy documents, but remained understated within the scope of
the discipline-­centred education system. Hence affirmative action, equality, and the meaning of

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‘secularism’ were called into question at the school level through watch words, but with no clar-
ity as to where the social sciences stood in the promotion of such values.With time, coping with
social programmes was associated with adjustment of numbers in schools, in universities, etc.,
and the professionalisation of teachers in a material sense. This habit of the mind was reflected
in the text of the Kothari Commission’s report (1965).
Beyond this, subjects pertaining to the social sciences were called on to deal with challenges
that were specific to each subject. History, which had been shot through with implications con-
cerning the superior nature of British rule as a path to a just and ‘modern’ society, was met with
questions from nationalist historiography that had developed a strong professional ethos by
1947. Geography was oriented towards physical geography in line with the needs of the Survey
of India and the colonial government; the subject was required to change focus. Economics
evolved strong nationalist and developmental dimensions by 1947, though the subject had been
shaped overall by debates prevalent in the UK. Hence, the 1950s were marked by tinkering with
instruction in subjects pertaining to the social sciences – projecting nationalist preference and
thinking in history, economics, and sociology, and the new approach to geography symbolised
by the National Atlas over the Survey of India.
To crown this edifice of a national orientation and inspire modern research, the Delhi School
of Economics was established by V.K.R.V. Rao as a special social science research institution in
1949. This would set goals oriented differently from those of mere nationalist enterprise, associ-
ated with the Calcutta University project to encourage research, following the institution of the
postgraduate departments in 1912.

From Independence until the formation of the NCERT and the UGC
In 1947, substantial variety marked the framework within which schools and universities existed.
They differed in institutional make-­up and teaching in the various directly ruled provinces of
British India (Bengal, Bombay, Madras, etc.) and the princely states. Nationalist enterprise in
education also varied regionally. These variations continued after 1947, during the period of
integration of the princely states and the first moves towards the formation of linguistic states
(completed in 1956). Institutions sought to introduce a degree of uniformity through the
Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) and the Inter-­University Board. But their range
was limited. According to the Constitution, education was on a state list – i.e. the state govern-
ments had the major responsibilities and rights in this area. Religious and private education
added to the list. The result was a large variation in the education system over the years follow-
ing Independence, even if the Union government attempted to set the tenor of what was to be
done via commissions and committees and the Ministry of Education.
Social science teaching varied in accordance with this set-­up. In schools it was strictly non-­
constructivist. No allowance was made in the textbook material or the method of teaching for
received ideas and means to engage with them. Education was seen as an interactive process only
in so far as it tested whether the student had absorbed the lesson or lecture and wished to raise
questions concerning this. The approach was evident in the didactic textbooks. Illustrations
were used as back-­up rather than as starting points for a discussion; questions set out to examine
absorption of the material provided. The classroom test, or the terminal or annual examination,
were the means of evaluation.
Evaluation in higher education came in the annual examination. Instruction in universities
and affiliated colleges centred teaching through lectures, with a short reading list for follow-­up.
Syllabi reflected research in nationalist circles – often projected at discipline-­centred congresses.

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Immediately after 1947, the first Committee on Secondary Education (1948) focused on the
language of school teaching – seeking to delimit the use of English and enhance the use of a
‘federal language’ to mark a departure from a colonial status; but teaching of specific subjects
arose for comment almost immediately. Social science subjects were given importance and seri-
ous attention in the Radhakrishnan Committee on University Education of 1948–49:

Everyone should know something of the society in which he lives, the great forces that
mould contemporary civilisation. History, economics, politics, social psychology, anthropol-
ogy belong to the group of social sciences. Whatever may be our specialised field, a general
understanding of our social environment is essential.
(Ministry of Education 1962)

A broad approach to nationalism in education and research at the university level was also
stressed:

We must give up the fatal obsession of the perfection of the past…. When we are hypno-
tised by our past achievements … we become fetish worshippers.… All that man has done
is very little compared with what he is destined to achieve.

The Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar Commission on Secondary Education (1952–53) also

showed a major interest in the area (Ministry of Education 1953). It stressed that an awareness
of ‘social studies’ was important for citizenship. This coincided with contemporary debates on
social studies in international circles. The upshot of these suggestions, during the late 1950s, was
that while subjects pertaining to the social sciences continued to be pursued separately at school,
they came to be seen as part of the domain of social studies, and were projected together as a
source of social values. The Commission’s ideas were unexceptionable:

Social Studies is meant to cover the ground traditionally associated with History, Geography,
Economics, Civics, etc. If the teaching of these separate subjects only imparts miscellaneous
and unrelated information and does not throw any light on or provide insight into social
conditions and problems or create the desire to improve the existing state of things, their
educative significance will be negligible.

In its section on methods of education, its final report emphasised the significance of habits
of cultivation of thought and the complex relationship between teacher and student:

Any method, good or bad, links up the teacher and his pupils into an organic relationship
with constant mutual interaction: it reacts not only on the mind of the students but on their
entire personality, their standards of work and judgment, their intellectual and emotional
equipment, their attitudes and values.
(Ibid.: 88ff)

From this, the Commission worked towards recommendations for education based on activities,
and projects as much as on lectures and examination. Taking up the problem of poor textbooks
in circulation, the Commission also set the foundation for the production of national textbooks
(ibid.: 79ff).
Much of this concurred with the general notions that were the focus of the UNESCO
members in Delhi in 1954. But it differed from these notions in that the ‘social studies’

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mentioned here did not wholly overlap with the idea of ‘social sciences’ that was projected for
the UNESCO focus – political science, economics, sociology, and social anthropology. These
disciplines were judged to be those that ‘made a scientific analysis of social systems’, with history
and human geography important outsiders (Marshal 1954). The Mudaliar Commission involved
these subjects in a wider association with values education.
As a consequence of the Commission’s injunctions, when it came to schools, training of
teachers noted social studies as the category to which history, geography, economics, and sociol-
ogy belonged, and devoted a degree of importance to them accordingly. States were to teach the
subjects individually, but grouped them together and found a place for them in the curriculum.
Official sources were clear that these commitments were intended to ‘(i) develop a broad human
interest in the progress of mankind and of India in particular (ii) to develop a proper understand-
ing of the social and geographical environment and awaken an urge to improve it and (iii) to
develop a sense of citizenship’.5
Initially, a challenge to these ideas came from an important source. The scope and aims of
social studies were mainly defined by universities. The research orientation of the universities
determined the fate of social science teaching in schools. The secondary school stage involved
preparation for the university course and mirrored the concerns of the universities, which set up
the requirements for the school-­leaving or matriculation examinations. They were also respon-
sible for the pre-­university or intermediate courses that preceded the degree courses. Unusual
projects existed: the Shantiniketan Project, the Jamia project, the Krishnamurthi Foundation
Schools, etc. But the regular approach to the social sciences was that set by the dominant uni-
versity school course systems of Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Punjab, and 20 or so other universi-
ties that came after them.
Responding to nationalist awareness, both before and after Independence, a ‘national’ orien-
tation in the syllabi was evident in the large involvement of Bengali, Assamese, Hindi, and Urdu
textbooks among those recommended, for instance, for the Calcutta University matriculation
examination. This was in addition to the standard books oriented towards physical geography
and ‘school’ history in English (University of Calcutta 1960). The random, often contradictory,
mixture demonstrated the scant attention to what was being taught and how.
This teaching would lead to a firmer academic orientation at the next level, where the inter-
mediate or pre-­university course was set by the university with a stress on groups. The syllabi
and curricula at this level were oriented to university syllabi and were deeply discipline-­centred,
with little cross-­referencing, except in so far as a subject combination required it. Hence, in
Calcutta University in 1960, the pre-­university syllabus included a paper on ‘Elements of
Economics and Civics’. This had two distinct domains, even if they referred to each other. One
section of the syllabus included an outline of economics as a discipline and routine disciplinary
discussions of the nature of money, the character of demand, the determination of wages, and so
on; a second section dealt with constitutional government, law and liberty, party systems, and so
on – a common area in discussions of the economic functions of government and the character
of the planned economy.
At the level of the first degree, these subjects were firmly bifurcated and there was little or no
discussion of government and its significance in the economics course. It was noticeable that the
pre-­university course in history was general; the subjects were general history, Indo-­Islamic and
world history, Islamic history and culture, and ancient history. Even though economic history
was acknowledged as a subject, it was only taught in the economics syllabus (Ministry of
Education 1953: 1ff, 25ff).
There were variations in other universities. But the bottom line here was that academic ori-
entation at the school/early college level was directed, in the case of what may be termed social

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science (primarily history and geography), towards a university orientation. A determination to

move away from this had been expressed in government commissions; but little had occurred
that was of substance.
In higher education, meanwhile, the value of the subjects that made up the social sciences
had been recognised. How they were to be taught was linked to the research agenda of a small
but increasing number of universities. The Delhi School of Economics set a model, but given
the variety on the nationalist agenda, this was not invoked, even in the central universities out-
side Delhi – Visva Bharati, Benaras Hindu University, and Aligarh Muslim University. The exis-
tence of private colleges added to the variety of what was being taught.

After the formation of the UGC and NCERT

Many of these approaches continued to thrive under the planned economy after the Second
Plan (1956–61), but the profile altered structurally and conceptually. Structurally, the universities
ceased to determine the way school education would be shaped. State Boards of Secondary
Education (BSEs) were established as new states came into existence or shortly afterwards. These
provided the space for public evaluation of the work of the host of public and private schools
that the planned economy sponsored directly and indirectly.
Attempts were made to regulate and assist institutions through professional means. School
instruction as a domain of its own came to be projected nationally with the formation of the
University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1956, NCERT (1961) and its spin-­off in 1973, the
National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), as well as NCERT affiliates in the states
(SCERTs).

Approaches to social sciences in schools during the 1960s and 1970s

In the course of the 1960s, two contradictory trends were discernible as far as social science
school education was concerned. An overwhelming focus on industrial development focused on
technology and science and pushed for an increase in their reach numerically and socially within
the education system, even as the social sciences came to be regarded by policy-­makers as ‘also
rans’. Science and technology subjects were promoted with vigour at the cost of the social sci-
ences. The spirit of the time was expressed in the Kothari Commission Report (1964–66),
which said little concerning non-­technical education, except in a rhetorical manner (Ministry
of Education 1970). The Report also reflected a greater concern with teachers’ salaries and
professional requirements than education – partly the result of the Union government’s direct
responsibility for schools in the new Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan or Central Schools Network
established in 1963, and a concern with increasing enrolment in central universities.
NCERT, however, took a keen interest in social sciences teaching, publishing model text-
books from the end of the 1960s and generating debates in the newly founded Journal of Indian
Education. Programmes for school education set out here were substantially followed by the
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), giving NCERT and its output a national reach
that no other institution had. NCERT books were preferred when they finally appeared.
Programmes were run by a number of State BSEs, but a number used the CBSE as a reference
point. The main Board that had authority equal to that of the CBSE was the Indian School
Certificate Board (ISCB) that worked with textbooks produced privately, but its range was nar-
rower than the CBSE and State Boards.
Wariness concerning books produced by private presses and approved by the mass of public
and private schools was partly the reason for this turn of events. The K.G. Saidayain Committee

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on textbooks pointed out major problems with a host of standard books – and their handling of
history and religious and minority issues (Ministry of Education 1969). Officials became con-
cerned about this situation and found in the NCERT books a means of dealing with the
problem.
In these circumstances, despite the marginal role played by social science education in projec-
tions of education policy at the time, a spate of textbook writing was generated within NCERT
and important books for history and geography were produced, as well as for economics and
sociology (the latter being taught from the 1970s at the higher secondary level). Social sciences
here, though, came down to a descriptive grouping. The term had no analytical or pedagogic
force. The subjects were variously described as ‘environmental studies’ or ‘social studies’ in dif-
ferent states.
Textbook production, especially in history, involved major figures of the universities: Romila
Thapar, Bipan Chandra, R.S. Sharma, and Satish Chandra, the chairman of the UGC. The out-
put gave significance and weight to subjects that had acquired weight at the university level, and
where academics felt they had achieved merit stripped of colonial dependency – a status that
made their work worthy of dissemination (UNESCO 1974). The textbooks began to appear
from 1968, most coming in the late 1970s.6 Significantly, the new books claimed to be scientifi-
cally accurate: arguing for a place on par with the hard sciences and technology. They built
firmly on the nationalist narrative, but with a degree of social content.7 Each discipline – history,
geography, political science, economics, and sociology – followed its university paradigm. There
was no attempt to address questions that were of mutual importance in any manner that sug-
gested interaction, although each subject was considered to be part of a larger family of social
science, whose importance was stressed by S. Nurul Hasan as Education Minister in 1973, and
was mirrored in the country’s commitment to the Asia-­wide phenomenon of founding Councils
for Social Science Research (Hasan 1977).
The university provided the main writers of these textbooks. The books also became guided
by a strong nationalist ideology that was seen to be ‘left-­oriented’. History provided capsules of
information on the nationalist movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with dis-
cussions not only on the social but also political agenda. The power of religion as a motive force
in policy was understated. The whole mix was framed within a single compelling chronology
that could not be questioned. In political science and sociology, the importance of nationalist
thinkers was stressed; in economics it was the planned economy, as well as aspects of theory and
the use of statistics.
At the college level, these themes were filled out. Many colleges in fact used the Class XI and
Class XII textbooks as an introduction to the course, as the pre-­university course became rare
in the 1970s. The importance of this approach became greater with the arrival of education on
a concurrent list, where both central and state governments had responsibilities.
National Educational Policies, which were elaborated from 1968,8 receiving new formula-
tions in 1986 and 1992, had little impact on these issues. But the practice also began of formula-
tion of curriculum, with the first National Curriculum Framework (NCF) announced in 1975
(Yadav 2011). This gave little place to social sciences in the school, and was followed up by debate
and a revised NCF in 19889 that had a more elaborate discussion of social science teaching.
During the 1980s, the Union government’s National Educational Mission attempted to use tech-
nology to extend the range of education, with television drafted in for the purpose, and pro-
grammes devised to supplement the range of the classroom. Other measures gave orientation to
teachers to follow pedagogy specified by NCERT – through DIETs (District Institutes of
Education and Training) and RIEs (Regional Institutes of Education). Teacher education outside
these institutions was monitored by the NCTE, established as an independent institution in 1993.

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Hari Vasudevan

Approaches to social sciences in universities and colleges during the 1960s and
1970s
In the degree colleges and in the universities, meanwhile, a pattern was established that would
continue. In social science teaching, in political science and sociology, basic categories associated
with analysis, as well as classics of thought were the methodological inputs, followed by themes
that affected Indian politics and society (‘Indian society’, ‘The Indian Constitution’, etc.).
International relations and additional subjects relating to public administration were items that
were also an important part of syllabi. In history, a focus on Indian history, with stray subjects
from European history, was the norm. In geography, division into physical and social geography
components and subdivisions according to ‘region’ was characteristic, with a ‘scientific’ compo-
nent added by way of acquaintance with surveying methods. Anthropology remained almost
wholly physical anthropology.
This thematic pattern was revised in terms of the books taught, with the main presses sup-
plying summaries of international work or Indian research. The overall structure was not
reworked. The training was intended to be the basis for competition for civil service examina-
tions, and other public service positions. An expanding public sector recruited its managers
from such backgrounds. Broader acquaintance with such a sector was limited, most instruction
being concerned with legislation. More appropriate training would come after selection – in
the Indian Institution of Public Administration, or training in Hyderabad and elsewhere.
Encapsulated versions of the research agenda of the university and the scholarly community
were seen to be important. Awareness of disciplines across boundaries came through instruction
in multiple subjects at BA (Pass) or through additional Pass subjects at the more specialised BA
Honours level.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University model and its relevance for undergraduate
education
It was partly to galvanise teaching at the undergraduate level, as well as to promote research,
that the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) model took shape in 1966. Like the DSE, the
JNU had an orientation towards social sciences in its School of Social Sciences, as well as in
sister schools, the School of International Studies and the School of Languages. But it had a
social agenda, drawing for its MA programme from the country as a whole, making allowances
for the underprivileged. Interdisciplinary study was promoted, and many took their perspec-
tives to the states from which they came. The model was replicated in the Central University
of Hyderabad and the North-Eastern Hill University. In the 1970s, the authority enjoyed by
JNU faculty in the UGC helped promote the syllabi of the JNU in the states and in central
universities.
The preparation of college and university teachers through new methods set an interdisci-
plinary approach to education as the norm of higher education. In doing so it set out to restruc-
ture the national paradigm of teaching in subjects pertaining to the social sciences. It also took
its lead from the left-­wing values that were to be seen in the restructuring of school teaching.
Through the stress on research, the aims of the experiment failed to address the problem of
application of social science education – even if such application were to be restricted to a
refined training in values and the way techniques may be used as a measure of important issues.
The departure also failed to address the problem of numbers in higher education. The number
of colleges was substantially larger than at Independence, as was the intake into colleges – in the

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early 1970s ten times what it had been in 1950. The bulk of enrolment was for the ‘Arts’
(Ministry of Human Resources Development 2005: 7–9) – which required some attention to
methods of teaching and application of disciplines. The JNU experiment could not address this
adequately. The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), with its close links with
those who directed the JNU experiment, was intended to deal with the problem of numbers. Its
activities, though, failed to affect the large number of colleges and small universities that had set
their own benchmarks.
Finally, future teachers trained in the JNU MA programmes in social science were trained to
place a premium on independent research and writing. But given the stress at the NCERT on
‘correct’ scientific approaches, and a harum-­scarum approach to teaching elsewhere, the students
were hardly prepared for the departure. Products of the new university, meanwhile, had to face
traditional discipline-­oriented syllabi in the colleges; and their influence would be limited in the
long term. Where such influence would be considerable, it would reinforce the research orien-
tation of undergraduate education rather than diversify its character.

‘Crisis’ in education and teaching of social sciences

In this process, if the social sciences had acquired a premium owing to the ‘scientific’ edge they
had received with new textbook development and the JNU model, the educational system had
come to be identified with a numerical achievement on the one hand and an exclusivity on the
other. J.P. Naik identified a ‘crisis’ as a consequence, where at the level of the underprivileged,
education was seen to be exclusive by the end of the 1970s (Naik 1979a). Meanwhile, various
groups concerned with educational and pedagogic reform – such as the Ekalavya10 group,
founded in Madhya Pradesh in 1982 – placed part of the reason for the ‘crisis’ not on the failure
to draw a larger tier of groups into the education system, but the system of teaching itself, which
failed to appeal to a large contingent of students, losing the underprivileged and their concerns
on the way.
In university education, the consequences of increased numbers in colleges for the nature of
research preparation were not ignored. Awareness led to the creation of a system to evaluate
quality – the National Assessment and Accreditation Council – in 1994. The new body’s ratings
were to be important for access to grants and other subventions. As was to be expected, though,
a basis of evaluation that would apply effectively to various institutions was difficult to establish;
and the rush for ratings meant, with time, a hastily assembled process whose value was suspect.
The government of 1999–2004 responded to the overall situation in two ways. In 2002, it
made education a Fundamental Right and paved the way for a legislation that might solve the
problem of numbers in the education system. To give this shape, it initiated the Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan to promote literacy and basic education. In the NCF of 2000, the government evalu-
ated the onus for the limitations of the content of school education.11 The NCF firmly placed
the blame on the lead school subject of the social sciences – the one that shared space with
geography throughout the upper primary and secondary stages, i.e. history. The failure of edu-
cation to cultivate national pride and citizenship was associated with the prevailing teaching of
this subject. NCERT books, in the period after 2000, attempted to create a composite social
science syllabus and textbook that downplayed the role of history teaching and introduced a
focus on ‘heritage’ (National Curriculum Framework 2000a,b). The latter mirrored a trend
elsewhere, outside India, to view the past as a mere gloss on the present – a source of informa-
tion on monuments and buildings.

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Hari Vasudevan

Indian institutions of school and college education and the social sciences
II: the NCERT initiative of the mid-2000s, the NCF 2005, and the broader
context in the school–college system
These departures in schools’ curricula and the reorientation of school textbooks in the process
came in for immediate scrutiny (see CABE Committee 2005) following the advent of a new
government in May 2004. The NCF 2005 was developed and a new approach to social sciences
evolved at the school level in the CBSE system that followed NCERT syllabi and textbooks.

Developing a social sciences initiative at NCERT

The development of the NCF 200512 had, as part of its agenda, the task of dealing with the limi-
tations of the attempt to take subjects pertaining to the social sciences in a direction where
greater integration was achieved. Earlier syllabi and books (i.e. post-­1968 and post-­2000) had
failed to articulate how they had understood the term ‘social sciences’ and how the approach to
the disciplines that made up the social sciences varied from the approach that had been in vogue
until the mid-­twentieth century. Discussions regarding the task before schools also stressed that
the previous books had dealt inadequately with the importance of marginal social groups and
women in the development of social science perspectives.

The context of higher education

No initiative was taken at this time to reorient the UGC perspectives on social sciences and to
stimulate a fresh agenda for colleges and universities. Ideas were presented concerning the
school–college link with the development of a National Coordinating Committee from 2007
to draw in perspectives from those who were not involved in the processes set in motion by the
NCF 2005. Discussions paid no attention to pedagogy at the college level, the importance of
different phases of college education, or its overall position in the education system as a whole.

Development of a new school-level approach to ‘social science’: the Focus Group

on Social Sciences
As NCF 2005 was taking its final shape, a Focus Group on the Social Sciences was constituted
by NCERT. The group’s main suggestions were to act as the point of reference for syllabus
committees and textbook development committees that took shape thereafter. On the crucial
issue of the integration of subjects that had been attempted under the previous framework, the
group suggested a disciplinary focus. Hence, while a sense of the subjects as contributing to
social science awareness was important, it was considered equally important that this was to be
achieved through a heightened sensitivity to space, time, and institutions.
The group suggested the development of a phased pattern of social science awareness that
would start in the period before upper primary (Classes VI,VII, and VIII), when ‘environmental
studies’ was the standard subject taught outside basic language and mathematics; the ‘environ-
mental studies’ here having science and non-­science components. A point of major importance
was that the nature of value discussion in the textbooks should be shaped within the disciplinary
discussion. This was allied to the suggestion that the subject of ‘civics’ through which social
values and political norms had hitherto been discussed in the upper primary level and early
secondary level of school should be revised. Content traditionally involved discussions of the

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political structures of India as framed by the Constitution and a series of problems of public
values (cleanliness, awareness, etc.). This could be handled through integration into disciplines.
The Focus Group also drew attention to the issue of principles of pedagogy that some of
these suggestions led into. Constructivist perspectives were preferred. A full engagement was
required, it was argued, with the environment where social science questions were raised if
teaching was to be meaningful. Hence the ‘lesson’ should open the way to references to experi-
ence and drawing from experience, both in discussion as well as in project work. Pointing to the
lacunae that had frequently become the reference of NCF discussions, the Focus Group empha-
sised the importance of attention to marginal communities and women in the model syllabi and
textbooks that NCERT would establish.

Syllabus committees and textbooks

The Focus Group’s suggestions were taken up in developing syllabi and textbooks after the pub-
lication of NCF 2005. The development of textbooks brought together a range of expertise as the
work on syllabi had done. A draft conceived by one individual was subject to a rigorous process of
editing and re-­editing, with major inputs from illustrators who had their own opinions on what
was most effective as pedagogy. Project work attempted to go beyond fixing the lesson in the
reader’s mind – the goal of the past. Pains were taken to address social issues that were neglected
in the past, in all the subjects. Project-­oriented work was recommended and attempts made to
draw in the child’s/young person’s experiences. Legal cases were used to illustrate the points raised
in the subject of social and political life that replaced civics in Classes VI to VIII. Archival material
and visual material was used to raise questions in history rather than illustrate a point. The process
of textbook development was completed by 2009. As they came out, textbooks were made avail-
able on the internet. A Curriculum Group of the NCERT was created to promote discussions
with State Boards that did not automatically use NCERT as their main point of reference.

Beyond NCF 2005

Schools
Pedagogy in subjects pertaining to the social sciences faced a larger list of problems once the
textbook work was complete. Initiatives under NCF 2005 were touching on larger problems.
Attention to the teaching of social sciences did not solve the immediate issue of the compara-
tively limited numbers in school – which no policy could ignore. Problems concerning effective
pedagogy itself could not be ignored – those regarding communication and evaluation. These
problems attracted attention through the pursuit of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Right to
Education (RTE) Act of 2010, and the follow-­up. In order to ensure that the latter had some
effect, the MHRD allowed the establishment of private schools with public fund assistance pro-
viding that a minimum intake was guaranteed to underprivileged groups. The Ministry also
organised task forces to look into how policy associated with the Act was given effect.
Steps were taken to address problems of pedagogy arising from measures taken under NCF
2005. Some of these problems could be solved by using Regional Institutes of Education (RIEs)
and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) to convey ideas. Model methods of
‘continuous and comprehensive evaluation’, framed by NCERT and implemented in a frame-
work of only one major public examination, were considered a viable solution. A rising demand
for teachers that would follow from the RTE initiatives posed problems. Standards could not be

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Hari Vasudevan

maintained by existing government organisations such as RIEs; nor could the promotion of
CCE (continuous and comprehensive evaluation) methods be ensured. Rather, the task required
attention from the institutions concerned with teacher preparation itself. Action was required,
in fact, from the National Council for Teacher Education, the Teachers Training Colleges (TTCs)
they approved, and University and College Education Departments. The government turned its
attention to this issue. The measures undertaken to solve crucial problems generated a sphere of
private enterprise in school education, where perspectives framed in NCF 2005 for the school
would be maintained uneasily.

Colleges/universities
The link between the university and the school was also weakening, owing to little or no reform
in approach in universities as a whole until the late 2000s. Serious response was lacking all round
to NCERT initiatives and ideas and their implications for higher education, albeit not for want
of suggestions. The National Knowledge Commission made a series of suggestions in 2009 for
overhaul of the education system without looking closely at education and its process in depth.
These changes, though, it tied firmly to involvement of private investment and the creation of a
new regulatory body for higher education to replace the UGC (National Knowledge Commission
2009). The UGC itself trod a conservative course and saw merit in greater autonomy to educa-
tional institutions, adherence to the yardsticks set by the National Assessment and Accreditation
Council (NAAC), and extension of the number of central universities (CABE Committee 2005).
The 2009 recommendations of the Yash Pal Committee (Government of India 2009)13 to
establish a National Council for Higher Education and Research were more far-­reaching and
involved a deep examination of the system of higher education. Among its suggestions, a num-
ber addressed some of the problems that affected teaching of the social sciences – including
academic and non-­academic orientation and interdisciplinary access. The Committee argued
for new approaches to undergraduate education, a ‘holistic’ approach to knowledge, and changes
in undergraduate education that would involve close practical experience. Both the Knowledge
Commission and the Yash Pal Committee, however, appear to have argued for initiatives that
were too far-­reaching and out of key with the prevailing system; their suggestions were hardly
implemented before 2014. Equally, it has been clear that in the case of the preferred path of the
UGC, the system of accreditation was deeply flawed and the grant of autonomy often ran
against problems of how to evaluate institutional capability and competence.
In the circumstances, a combination of financial stringency, inflation, and limited but neces-
sary expansion of infrastructure have led to stagnation of existing colleges and universities and the
gradual development of a private sector in the area. Suggestions for a ‘liberal arts’ profile on the
lines of the US model (involving subjects pertaining to the social sciences) has been suggested for
some of these institutions, while others remain solidly technology-­and medicine-­oriented,
where social sciences are support subjects attracting minimal attention. While the ‘liberal arts’
paradigm may involve international equivalence of a type for some institutions, it makes them far
from fit to play any meaningful role in India’s future, since their planning only provides a broad
‘liberal education’ that only raises questions about what is ‘liberal’ and what the ‘education’ is for,
but fails to offer any answers on how these can be made relevant or meaningful.

Postscript
The current situation in education has been the result of these developments – a situation arous-
ing concern and confusion. A somewhat ramshackle system of education where clear

128
 The teaching of social sciences

knowledge of purpose is at a premium. Wild variations in the way social sciences are taught and
received has been part of this scenario. The inclination towards private education and accredita-
tion is sometimes regarded as a trend towards democracy, pluralism, and a practical approach,
since it decreases the burden of responsibility on the state, permitting it to focus on marginal
groups and large initiatives in areas of professional training, scientific education, and the promo-
tion of values’ awareness. Whether the line of policy has been effectively gauged and adequately
evaluated, in order for this to happen, however, remains a moot point.
In the case of the social sciences, competing systems of approach in a situation where profes-
sional awareness in the teaching community is at a premium presents a serious problem: a prob-
lem that leads to depreciation in the value of the subjects as well as a decline in their status. This
occurs, regrettably, at a time when, through the education system, these very subjects look to
achieve a more pointed direction and substance.

Notes
1 Kumar (1976–88) is the multivolume best source other than documents on the net.
2 Ideas that are associated with social science may be traced in various forms of knowledge developed in
India’s history outside the school or college classroom (in the madrasa or in the toll, for instance). But,
pending research, it must be assumed, this area of awareness was the sketchy remnant of socially limited
institutions of the past. See Naik (1979b). For an alternate view see Khasnavis (1983).
3 The Oxford and Cambridge Examinations Syndicate did not consider Economics worthy of atten-
tion until the 1950s. See www.oua.ox.ac.uk/holdings/Oxford%20&%20Cambridge%20OC.pdf (last
accessed 19 August 2015). But both economics and economic history were popular in schools, as noted
by the Economic History Review during 1927–34.
4 See ‘Re-­inventing the social sciences’ at www.oecd.org/science/sci-­tech/33695704.pdf.
5 Pires (1970) deals with the diversity of interpretation of ‘social studies’ in India as well as in other
countries. Indian institutions picked up the debates in the West on the subject. They also generated a
literature of their own, as indicated by Khasnavis (1983).
6 Romila Thapar’s textbook for Class VIII, Medieval India is a good example. For secondary school text-
books this included Arjun Dev’s The Story of Civilisation (2 vols., Class IX and Class X), R.S. Sharma’s
Ancient India, Satish Chandra’s Medieval India (2 vols), and Bipan Chandra’s Modern India.
7 For interviews with textbook writers and interpretation of the books, see Guichard (2011).
8 http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/document-­reports/NPE-­1968.pdf and (for 1986
and 1992) www.ncert.nic.in/oth_anoun/npe86.pdf (last accessed 19 August 2015).
9 http://eledu.net/rrcusrn_data/National%20Curriculum%20Framework-­1988.pdf (last accessed 19
August 2015).
10 For information on Ekalavya and assessments of their work, see www.srtt.org/institutional_grants/pdf/
educational_titles.pdf and www.eklavya.in (last accessed 19 August 2015).
11 www.eledu.net/rrcusrn_data/NCF-­2000.pdf (last accessed 19 August 2015).
12 www.ncert.nic.in/rightside/links/pdf/framework/english/nf2005.pdf (last accessed 19 August 2015).
13 The Committee suggested ‘Universities to establish live relationship with the real world outside and
develop capacities to challenges faced by rural and urban economies and culture’ (p. 66). In its ‘Agenda
for action’ it pointed to the necessity for a more broadness of interaction between disciplines at the
undergraduate level and interaction between the domains of vocational education and university edu-
cation (p. 64).

References
Basu, Aparna, The Growth of Education and Political Development in India (Oxford University Press, 1974).
CABE Committee, Regulatory Mechanisms for Textbooks and Parallel Textbooks Taught in Schools Outside the
Government System: A Report (CABE Committee, 2005).
Government of India, Report of the Committee to Advise on the Rejuvenation and Renovation of Higher Education
(Government of India2009), http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/document-­reports/
YPC-­Report.pdf, last accessed 19 August 2015.

129
Hari Vasudevan

Guichard, Sylvie, The Construction of History and Nationalism in India (RKP, 2011).
Hasan, Nurul, ‘Social science in Asia: speech at the 1st Asian Conference on Teaching and Research in
Social Sciences, Simla 1973’, in Nurul Hasan, Challenges in Education, Culture and Social Welfare. (Allied
Publishers, 1977).
Institut de l’UNESCO de l’education, L’enseignement des Sciences Sociales au niveau pre-­universitaire (Institut
de l’UNESCO de l’education, 1962).
Khasnavis, P.K., Teaching Social Studies in India (Abhinav Publications, 1983).
Kumar, Virendra (ed.) Committees and Commissions of India 1947–1973 (Concept Publishing Company,
1976–88).
Marshal, T.H., United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. Working Paper for the
Round Table Conference on Social Science Teaching, Delhi, 15–20 February 1954.
Ministry of Education, Report of the Secondary Education Commission. Mudaliar Commission Report. October
1952 to June 1953 (Ministry of Education, Government of India, 1953).
Ministry of Education, The Report of the University Education Commission, December 1948–August 1949
(Ministry of Education, Government of India, 1962), www.teindia.nic.in/files/reports/ccr/Report%20
of%20the%20University%20Education%20Commission.pdf (accessed 23 August 2015).
Ministry of Education, UNESCO Projects in India (Ministry of Education, Government of India, 1963).
Ministry of Education, Report of the Education Commission 1964–66 (NCERT, 1970).
Ministry of Education and Youth Services, Report of the Committee on School Textbooks (Ministry of Education
and Youth Services, 1969).
Ministry of Human Resources Development, Report of the Central Advisory Board of Education on Autonomy
for Higher Education Institutions (Ministry of Human Resources Development, Department of Secondary
and Higher Education, Government of India, 2005).
Naik, J.P. ‘Equality, quantity and quality: the elusive triangle in Indian education’ International Review of
Education, 1979a, 25 (2–3): 167–185.
Naik, J.P., The Education Commission and After (APH Publishing House, 1979b).
National Curriculum Framework 2000. Guidelines and Syllabus for the Secondary Stage (NCERT, 2000a)
National Curriculum Framework 2000. Guidelines and Syllabus for the Higher Secondary Stage (NCERT,
2000b).
National Knowledge Commission. Report to the Nation 2006–2009 (National Knowledge Commission,
Government of India, 2009).
Nurullah, Syed and J.P. Naik, History Education in India, during the British Period. (Macmillan, 1943).
Pires, Edward A., The Teaching of Social Studies in Primary Teacher Training Institutions in Asia (UNESCO
Regional Office for Education in Asia, 1970).
Seligman, E.R.A. and A.S. Johnson, Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan, 1938).
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation. Symposium on Social Science Research
Development in Asia, Jakarta, Indonesia, 18–22 February 1974. A Review of Social Science Research Activities,
in Asia prepared by the UNESCO Secretariat (UNESCO, 1974).
University of Calcutta. Syllabi in Different Subjects for the Pre-­Degree Course and Three Year Course (University
of Calcutta, 1960).
Yadav, S.K., National Study on Ten Year School Curriculum Implementation (NCERT, 2011).
Zachariah, Benjamin, Developing India: An Intellectual and Social History c. 1930–1950 (Oxford University
Press, 2006).

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 8
The uses and teaching of history
Kumkum Roy

History occupies a rather unique space within the urban, literate, upper-caste/middle-class
imagination in India at present. On the one hand, it is considered crucial for the formation and
consolidation of identities, including a highly contested national identity; on the other hand, the
actual pursuit of the study of history is viewed with an odd mixture of suspicion, disdain, and
condescension. This is evident if one glances through the career guidance supplements of the
daily newspapers, which typically list dozens of options such as becoming lawyers, managers,
entering the hospitality and health ‘industry’, or making careers in interior design, the omni-
present information technology sector, fashion, the media, and tourism, to name a few. But the
option of becoming a historian is virtually invisible.
Although impressionistic, conversations with those who have had systematic access to formal
education, almost invariably middle class or aspiring to middle-class status, suggest that SST (the
popular acronym for social studies) is low on the priority list of most students and parents.
Within that schema, history often slips even further down the hierarchy of the social sciences, as
it is perceived as irrelevant – about the past in a world that is hurtling towards the future at a
breakneck pace. And yet, it remains critical for identity formation, for what a teacher described,
with remarkable brevity and precision, in Hindi, as learning about ‘acche acche cheezein’, literally,
‘the good things’.
To cite just one example: most educated laypersons, when asked whether they remember
anything about ancient Indian history, are likely to cite the Harappan civilisation. If pressed a
little further, features like town planning, centralisation, and the drainage system constitute the
core of these memories. Obviously, when smart cities are the ideal, it is reassuring to know that
these had spectacular precedents in the past.
And yet, even as we acknowledge these features, archaeologists have provided us with a far
more complex understanding of the Harappan civilisation, which persuades us to contextualise
and problematise these ‘achievements’ (e.g. Ratnagar 2001). What prevents us from engaging
with these discussions, even when they are presented in an accessible mode, shorn of academic
jargon?
Part of the answer lies, I would suggest, in the training we impart in schools. This is evident
if we explore the way in which material that is potentially open and creates space for critical
thinking is circumscribed through the examination system and the ‘assessment’ it provides. I will

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-11 131

Kumkum Roy

illustrate this by discussing the way in which the French Revolution has been treated in a text-
book (India and the Contemporary World vol. I (2006: 3–24); henceforth ICW) and compare this
with a book Golden Social Science (n.d.: A: 2–32), meant to master the same theme in order to
crack the examination. I will then move on to possible alternatives.
At one level, the examples I choose may seem somewhat far removed from the questions
around which heated ‘controversies’ are frequently generated. These include the Aryan ques-
tion, with almost interminable debates on whether the Aryans were indigenous or not, and
whether the Aryans can be regarded as the authors of the Harappan civilisation or not (for a
brief discussion, see Roy 2013: 35–50). The resilience of these controversies is at once remark-
able and sterile. If we are to account for their persistence beyond conspiracy theories, we may
wish to turn towards ways in which history is learned. Within the present context, the focus is
on formal modes of learning, which are, inevitably, only the tip of the iceberg. And yet, these
provide us with an opportunity and a space to develop skills (a much abused word) of critical
thinking, of acquiring a sense of the ways in which historians work, and an ability to assess dif-
ferent positions and arguments. How we use this space, then, becomes a challenge.
Before going on to the specifics, it may be useful to bear in mind that history itself has had a
long and chequered past (e.g. Arnold 2000; Bhattacharya, n.d.: 4–38). While the relevance of
history in an immediate utilitarian sense has often been called into question, historians and oth-
ers have almost invariably turned to history (among other things) in order to make sense of or
find meaning in the worlds they inhabit.
It is also worth clarifying that while history is based on evidence, what is considered as evi-
dence is by no means self-evident. Over a period of time, historians have cast their net wide – to
include all kinds of traces of the past – written documents, inscriptions, remains of material
culture, visual archives, and oral traditions, to name a few. Many of these explorations of sources
have emerged as the concerns of ordinary people have attracted attention, as the focus of history
has shifted, somewhat, from grand narratives about kings and queens to the less exalted lives of
the vast majority. But there are other issues as well. These include the transformative potential
of history. As Arnold (2000: 13–14) observes:

And if the evidence that existed always spoke plainly, truthfully and clearly to us, not only
would historians have no work to do, we would have no opportunity to argue with each
other. History is above all else an argument. It is an argument between different historians;
and, perhaps, an argument between the past and the present, an argument between what
actually happened, and what is going to happen next. Arguments are important; they create
the possibility of changing things.… Part of thinking about ‘history’ is to think about
what – or who – history is for [emphases in the original].

Traces of the past can be both tantalisingly elusive as well as overwhelmingly present. By and
large, histories have tended to be dominated by accounts of the powerful, who often both create
and preserve written and visual records. Thus, we may find it difficult to reconstruct the histo-
ries of poor, non-literate populations. On the other hand, archives maintained by government
and religious institutions, for instance, may be very carefully preserved. Sifting through and
evaluating these vast quantities of data poses a different kind of challenge.
Arnold (2000: 56–57) draws attention to another set of issues as well – revolving around
the professionalisation of history, traceable through the last two centuries or so. National agen-
das and a level of economic prosperity often constituted the context of professionalisation.
Professionalisation has meant that historians are now paid for their work; it has also often
widened the gulf between the historian and laypersons; and it underlies divisions among

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historians in terms of specialisation and perspectives, rendering a single, omnipresent ‘true’

­history impossible. This often poses a challenge to teachers and learners who long for the
­comfort of certitude.
With these preliminaries complete, let me now turn to the specific examples to illustrate the
potentials, problems, and excitement of teaching, learning, and presenting history.

The textbook as a pedagogical tool

ICW contains several interesting preliminary statements. It was part of an endeavour to bridge
the ‘gap between the school, home and community’ (ICW 2006: iii), and to ‘discourage rote
learning’ (ibid.). Underlying this attempt was a more radical shift – an attempt to ‘treat children
as participants in learning, not as receivers of a fixed body of knowledge’ (ibid.). The preliminary
pages included the preamble of the Constitution of India (ibid.: viii), which was particularly
apposite, given that the very first chapter of the book dealt with the French Revolution and
discussed ideas such as liberty, equality, and fraternity, among others.
The structure of the chapter (as indeed of many of the other chapters in this book) is at once
rich, complex, and challenging. I will just highlight some of the elements. In terms of running
text, the chapter contains an introductory page (ibid.: 3). The rest of the chapter is organised as
shown in Table 8.1.
The sectional and subsectional heads give us a sense of the contents and focus of the text, the
connections envisaged between society, economy, and political change, and the concern with
relatively marginalised groups such as women and slaves.
Apart from running text, the chapter contains 17 visuals (see Appendix 1 for details), each of
which carries a caption, and many of which are accompanied by thought-provoking questions.
These visuals include reproductions of prints, sketches, paintings, charts, and maps, focusing both
on the spectacular as well as on the everyday. The chapter also has a box spread over two pages,
discussing the symbols commonly used by artists during the period (ibid.: 12–13). Additionally,
there are representations of Marat, Robespierre, and Olympe de Gouges (ibid.: 11, 16, 19,
respectively).
The third structural element of the chapter consists of boxes, set in the margin, dealing with
relatively unfamiliar terms and concepts, inserted close to where they occur in the text. These
include, for instance, eighteenth-century French terms for taxes (ibid.: 4). Intended to facilitate

Table 8.1 Details of sections in chapter 1 of India and the Contemporary World, part 1

Sections Subsections Pages

French society during the late eighteenth century How a The struggle to survive
subsistence crisis happens
A growing middle class envisages an end to privileges 4–7
The outbreak of revolution France becomes a 8–13
constitutional monarchy
France abolishes monarchy and becomes a republic The Reign of Terror
A directory rules France 14–17
Did women have a revolution? 18–20
The abolition of slavery 21
The revolution and everyday life 22
Conclusion 23–24

Source: all tables in the chapter have been compiled by the author.

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Kumkum Roy

reading and understanding of the text, they are particularly useful in the spatial context within
which they are placed, enabling the reader to shift from the text to the margin and back.
Far more challenging, and potentially exciting, are the boxes containing activities. Apart from
two activities listed at the end, there are 12 activities located within the main body of the chap-
ter. Many of these pertain to the visuals, inviting learners to explore the material, analyse it, and
form and express an opinion about what they see. Some are fairly obvious: for instance, having
to explain why the peasant is compared to a fly and the nobleman to a spider (ibid.: 5) may not
be particularly demanding for the learner. Other questions, such as those posed on the print
depicting ordinary women going to Versailles, and reconstructing the attitude of the artist
towards them, have space for more than one answer, and create an opportunity for discussion
and debate.
Other challenging activities include those inviting the learner to compare different view-
points – such as those of Robespierre and Desmoulins on liberty and tyranny (ibid.: 16) or
between the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and the manifesto of Olympe de
Gouges (ibid.: 20), advocating the rights of woman. These push the learner towards contextu-
alising categories that have often been reduced to slogans, and to appreciate the grey areas within
apparently transformative historical moments. They create space for moving beyond a simple
classification of the ‘event’ of the French Revolution as either good or bad. In other words, they
allow for and even encourage, if not necessitate, an argument.
There is a single box titled ‘Some important dates’ (ibid.: 8), containing a total of six entries.
While other dates are mentioned in the text, it is evident that those who developed the chapter
did not wish to foreground these dates, which lend themselves very easily to rote learning.
Another set of seven boxes contains extracts from written sources, accompanied by activities/
questions. These include excerpts from contemporary accounts of the pre-revolutionary situa-
tion, from the writing of the revolutionary journalist Marat, from the Declaration of the Rights
of Man and Citizen, the views of Desmoulins and Robespierre, and those in favour of as well as
against women’s rights. These convey a sense of the immediacy and intensity of the concerns and
conflicts that shaped the Revolution. A single illustration of this rich material must suffice for the
moment. This is from the writing of Camille Desmoulins, who opposed Robespierre. He asked:

Would it be possible to bring a single person to the scaffold without making ten more
enemies amongst his relations and friends?
(ibid.: 16)

The chapter ends with a set of longer questions. As these, and other questions, are answered
in the Golden Social Science, we will turn to it next. But before doing so, it might be useful to
remind ourselves that the chapter compels us, time and again, to ask: from whose perspective are
we seeing things or understanding them? In other words, it pushes us to move away from the
comfort zone of mining history for ‘good things’ or achievements, to a more unsettling engage-
ment with a complex world.

Comforting certainties: converting the chapter

The preliminary pages of the Golden Social Science emerge from a different but far more immedi-
ate milieu as far as the learners are concerned. The reader who can distinguish a fake from a
genuine copy of the book is assured of a reward of Rs. 1,000 (GSS, n.d.: ii). There are several
other assurances as well:

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A WORK OF WISDOM YOU SHOULD HEED THE GOLDEN GUIDES YOU

SHOULD READ
The Golden Books contain all that is required in the examinations
The Golden Books are written in sweet, simple but idiomatic language.
…
The Golden Books contain all the Expected Questions likely to be set in the Examinations.
…
The Golden Books suit all the pockets and serve the triple purpose of Textbooks, Help-
books and Examination Papers, just All-in-One.
(ibid.: xv, original formatting retained)

Running into 31 pages, with only a single visual (ibid.: A 23), the chapter is structured rather
differently from that in ICW. Organised in seven sections, the chapter provides the reader with
a relentless torrent of accurate information.
The first section, titled ‘TECHNICAL TERMS’ (ibid.: A 2–A 3), includes virtually all
the words glossed along the margins of ICW, often adopted verbatim. The difference is
that here each is a standalone term, deprived of the context in which it is used. This lends
itself to being converted into a decontextualised item to be committed to memory. Given
that a total of 29 terms are listed, studying the French Revolution can become an intimi-
dating task.
The second section is titled ‘NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS’ (ibid.: A 3–A 6) and
provides answers to all six questions posed at the end of the chapter in ICW. The largest number
of questions is in the next section: ‘VERY SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS’ (ibid: A
6–A 10). As many as 55 questions are included in this section. This is followed by ‘SHORT
ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS’ (ibid.: A 10–A 15), containing 19 questions, and ‘LONG
ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS’ (ibid.: A 15–A 22), with 18 questions. The next section, titled
‘NCERT TEXTBOOK ACTIVITIES’ (ibid.: A 23–A 27), is devoted to providing ‘answers’ to
most of the activities suggested in ICW. Finally, ‘MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS’ (ibid.:
A 27–A 32) provides 48 questions.
There are three features that are noteworthy. First, all the questions are answered, and answered
accurately. So there is nothing left for the learner to do but to memorise the ‘correct’ answers.
Second, the chapter is converted into 140 questions. If we add the ten activities and the six ques-
tions from ICW, we arrive at 156 answers to be learned. Third, and implicit in the above, the
structure of the chapter as developed in ICW is dismantled, and the information provided is
reassembled. This follows certain principles.
The first strategy is to arrange the questions in an order that does not correspond to that of
the chapter in ICW. While this is obvious in all the sections, I will illustrate this from the section
titled ‘LONG ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS’. Consisting of 18 questions, it is at once inter-
esting and disturbing to see how the questions zig-zag through the sequence of sections laid out
in the chapter in ICW (Table 8.2)
If the sequencing of questions disrupts the logic of the chapter in ICW, the other strategy
that renders the chapter skewed, if not redundant, is the weighting given to various sections. This
is evident from the distribution of questions: there are six questions based on section 1, four
based on section 2, one based on section 3, none on section 4, which poses and addresses the
question ‘Did women have a revolution?’, one based on section 5, three based on section 6 and
two based on the brief reference to Napoleon in one of the concluding paragraphs in the chap-
ter in ICW.

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Table 8.2 Distribution of long answer type questions from Golden Social Science

Sequence Question Corresponding section in ICW

Q1 Briefly discuss the condition of France before the French Section 1

Revolution.
Q2 Give any five accomplishments of the National Section 2
Assembly of France from 1789 to 1791.
Q3 Briefly discuss the role of the philosophers in the French Section 1
Revolution.
Q4 How did the Revolution affect the everyday life of the Section 6
French people? Discuss.
Q5 What was the impact of the events in France on Europe, Section 6 [brief reference]
especially the neighbouring countries such as Prussia,
Austria-Hungary and Spain?
Q6 The teachings of Rousseau laid the foundation of Section 1
democracy. Give any four arguments to justify the
statement.
Q7 What was the impact of the French Revolution on Addressed in several sections
France?
Q8 Explain any five features of the French Constitution of Section 2
1791. Or How did the new political system of
constitutional monarchy work in France? Explain.
Q9 Describe the social causes leading to the French Section 1
Revolution. Or Explain the organization of the French
society during the late 18th century.
Q 10 Explain the achievements of Napoleon. Conclusion [brief discussion]
Q 11 Mention any five political symbols which came up Section 2
during the French Revolution and explain their
significance.
Q 12 What is the subsistence crisis? Mention any four factors Section 1
responsible for this in France.
Q 13 How did France become a Constitutional Monarchy? Section 2
Why were women disappointed by the Constitution
of 1791 in France?
Q 14 Who were the Jacobins? Who was their leader? Who Section 3
came to be known as sans-culottes? Or
Explain the role of the Jacobins in the French
Revolution. Or What was the Jacobin Club? Describe
their activities.
Q 15 What is meant by the Triangular Slave Trade? How was Section 5
slavery abolished in France?
Q 16 In which year did Napoleon become Emperor of Brief mention in the
France? What did he do as a modernizer of Europe? conclusion
When and where was he defeated?
Q 17 What was the financial position of France at the time of Section 1
Louis XVI? In which three estates was French society
divided during this period? Write one main feature of
each.
Q 18 Explain the impact of abolition of censorship in France. Section 6

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It is also evident that some of the questions are repetitive. Compare, for instance, questions 1,
9, and 17, based on section 1. As such, the space devoted to them is not used to develop any fresh
understanding, but simply to reiterate much of what has already been stated.
Also, and expectedly, there is an overwhelming emphasis on rote learning.While this is appar-
ent in all the sections, it is most striking in the section on ‘MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS’.
Here, as many as 38 of the 48 questions are based entirely on information recall.
Some of the information recall requires a degree of processing. For instance, No. 37 (ibid.:
A 31) asks:

Which of these did not belong to the Jacobin Club?

(a) Printers (b) Servants
(c) Daily wage earners (d) Nobles

But most are far more mechanical, as for instance No. 41 (ibid.):

Austrian princess Marie Antoinette was queen of which of the following French rulers?
(a) Louis XIII (b) Louis XIV
(c) Louis XV (d) Louis XVI

There are ongoing debates among educationists about the efficacy or otherwise of multiple
choice questions as a mode of assessment.Without entering into these, I would like to share two
examples of alternative ways in which multiple choice questions can be framed, to challenge
learners to think through their answers. These were generated by a team working within the
existing framework, and are not published:

1 The French Revolution is significant because

a France granted independence to all its colonies
b It led to several decades of peace in Europe
c It led to the Declaration of Rights of Man
d It was followed by an increase in agricultural production

2 Women were
a Active participants in the French Revolution
b Joined the army in large numbers during the French Revolution
c Employed in major industries during the French Revolution
d Granted equal political rights with men in the French Revolution

At another level, the Golden Social Science introduces fresh content. This in itself would have
been unexceptionable, if not desirable – elaborating on some of the ideas touched on in the
chapter in ICW would have enriched it and rendered it more accessible. What happens, instead,
however, is that these insertions of ‘fresh’ material almost invariably cluster around a set of his-
torical figures who lend themselves to being classified as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or as winners or losers.
So Louis XVI and Napoleon receive considerable attention.

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The information on Louis XVI, reiterated through all the other sections in abbreviated
forms, is encapsulated in the first SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTION (ibid.: A 10):

What role did Louis XVI play in bringing about the revolution?
Ans. Louis XVI played a significant role in bringing about the revolution.

(i) Louis XVI was a pleasure loving, extravagant ruler who believed in the Divine Right
of Kings.
(ii) He was ignorant and indifferent to the conditions of the poor.
( iii) His wife Marie Antoinette constantly interfered in the administration.
(iv) He squandered money and drove France into useless wars bringing the country to the
verge of bankruptcy.

There are two things about this response: each of the statements is reasonably accurate. At the
same time, the way in which this ‘correct’ answer is framed leaves no space for considering the
other contexts of the Revolution, which gave Louis XVI’s personal proclivities a unique signifi-
cance. In other words, possibilities of engaging with any kind of complexity, and contingency,
are erased through these formulations.
What is also interesting, and sad, is that the Golden Social Science simply omits addressing some
of the more challenging activities suggested in ICW. The latter has an activity on page 20 which
could have opened up possibilities of a lively and possibly contentious debate on ‘women’s
nature’. Addressing this, or converting it into suitably digested ‘points’ was probably somewhat
uncomfortable for the authors of the Golden Social Science.
I will conclude this section with just one more illustration, this from the list of technical
terms inserted at the outset in the Golden Social Science (ibid.: A 3):

Revolution: A recognized momentous change in any situation. A revolution may result in

sudden overthrow of an established government or system by force and bloodshed, e.g., the
French Revolution. It can also be a great change that comes slowly and peacefully e.g., the
Industrial Revolution.

ICW does not attempt to circumscribe or define a revolution. In fact, once revolution is
reduced to a definition, there is a compulsion to delimit it. More specifically, whether the
Industrial Revolution, which involved impoverishment, displacement, and dislocation for vast
numbers of people, can be classified as peaceful is a question that is not even raised. Nor is it
possible to raise such questions once we are faced with such a categorical definition. So, at the
very outset of the text we are provided with an authoritative definition, distinguishing neatly
and conveniently between a violent political revolution and a peaceful economic one. Given the
use of the rhetoric of ahimsa in Indian political discourse, this distinction acquires a certain
significance.
It is likely that the majority of students and teachers, for whom the examination is a hurdle
to be crossed, and for whom the social sciences are a low priority in any case, will pay far more
attention to the Golden Social Science and its equivalents, and ignore or at best refer occasionally
to ICW. While this may be an effective strategy of survival, it means that most learners with
access to formal education will end up considering history as an assortment of facts, more or less
easily recalled, and more or less relevant. The challenge of thinking through the past, of engag-
ing in a dialogue between past and present, is virtually erased. Also lost is the potential for

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argument, debate, discussion, for evaluating and assessing historical writing, and the blurred and
constantly shifting lines between history and myth/fiction. Are these losses significant? And are
there ways of recovery? I will touch on both of these issues by looking at two recent works in
the next two sections.

The attraction of the Sapt Sindhu

The Scion of Ikshvaku, Book I of the Rama Chandra Series by Amish (Amish 2015) is among the
current bestsellers, and is likely to remain so for a variety of reasons. The book is set in India of
3400 BCE, and a map is provided on the inside back cover and referred to in the preliminary
pages (ibid.: xv). The date chosen is significant; pre-dating the Harappan civilisation by several
centuries. The work itself is a heady blend of past and present: we have echoes of the Nirbhaya
case (ibid.: ch. 12–14),1 even as all the central figures almost invariably wear dhotis and angavas-
trams (ibid.: 1). The book makes few demands on the reader, except for a reasonably high level
of tolerance for recurrent, graphic descriptions of violence (ibid.: 147–150). It also slides effort-
lessly between times, contexts, and spaces.While this might trouble some historians, it may be of
little or no consequence to the average reader. What I will attempt here is not to measure the
text against the yardsticks of fact and fiction. Instead, I will highlight the handling of four inter-
related themes – the ways in which spaces have been named, the treatment of caste and gender,
and the ideal polity that is projected.
The naming of the kingdom of Dashrath (and by extension that of the Ikshvakus as the Satp
Sindhu) (ibid.: 8) is an interesting strategy. It extends the geographical reach of Kosala, tradition-
ally located on the Sarayu, a tributary of the Ganga in present-day Uttar Pradesh, to the Indus
and its tributaries, and thus to the river from which the name India is derived. It also stakes an
implicit claim to the heartland of the Harappan civilisation, a claim that is reiterated, non-­
verbally, through the use of a set of symbols based on the Harappan script, accompanied by a
solar symbol, which serve to mark breaks in chapters (ibid.: 10, 11, 15).
Curiously, for a work that abounds in contemporary allusions, including weapons of mass
destruction (ibid.: 267), the representation of caste resonates with the concerns of nineteenth-
century upper-caste social reformers. Brahmanical and kshatriya identities remain unchallenged
and intact, the former best exemplified by Vashishta, the family priest and preceptor of Ram, and
the latter by Ram and his siblings. At the same time, there are occasional placatory platitudes
thrown in: ‘A person becomes a brahmin by karma, not by birth’ (ibid.: 253; emphasis original).
At first glance, representations of gender seem to be radically transformed – unlike the Sita
of the Valmiki Ramayana, Amish’s Sita is a capable administrator and has martial skills. At the
same time, at crucial junctures, both she and her polity require the intervention of men for
protection. Thus,Vishwamitra ensures the safety of Mithila by deploying the Asuraastra, which
has an uncanny resemblance to an atom bomb (ibid.: 278–283), and when Sita seems to be
hunting a wild boar fairly successfully, she has to be ultimately saved by Rama (ibid.: 330).
What is more, in Amish’s version the sexually charged Shurpanakha mutilates herself, thus
absolving Lakshman of all responsibility. These are just examples of the ways in which gender
relations are reworked, and hierarchies are gently reinforced, in a setting of near timeless
antiquity.
It may come as no surprise that Amish’s ideal polity is what can at best be described as a
benevolent despotism – run by a king who follows the shastras, whose chronological order,
complexity, and contradictions are erased by assimilating them to the Vedas located in a virtually
timeless past (ibid.: 116). In this neat scenario, the messiness of democracy is irrelevant.

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From the Malayaputras to Mizoram

At several points in the narrative, Amish introduces the reader to the Malayaputras, literally the
sons (and daughters) of the hills. There are explicit references to tribal traditions (ibid.: 75),
including norms governing gender relations, which are represented as different from those of
settled populations. The relationship with the Malayaputras is represented as one of wary sup-
port (ibid.: 327), and as one where, ideally, control must be retained by Ram.
We learn that Amish is ‘IIM [Indian Institute of Management] Kolkata educated, boring
banker turned happy author’ (ibid.: i). One has to be highly competitive and very well trained
in order to gain admission to management institutions. This often involves blocking out other
academic pursuits completely. Would Amish have written differently if he had been trained in
the far less prestigious and lucrative discipline of history, instead, in any one of the institutions
of higher education that still survives in the country?
Perhaps. I will conclude this discussion by illustrating the immense possibilities of writing
rich, complex histories of some of the people Amish would classify as Malayaputras, drawing on
a recent volume by Joy L.K. Pachuau and Willem van Schendel (Pachuau and Schendel 2015).
Organised around four broad themes, Pachuau and Schendel use over 400 visuals, mainly
photographs, drawn from an archive of over 17,000 images, to reconstruct a history of Mizoram,
one of the smallest states in India, ranging from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-
first century. Pachuau and Schendel carefully and systematically unpack stereotypes of ‘primitiv-
ism, exoticism and stagnation’ (ibid.: 3) and compel the reader to engage with ‘the remarkable
transformations and multiple forms of modernity that have flourished here’ (ibid.: 4).
Pachuau and Schendel persuade us to engage with the everyday as well as with the spec-
tacular, more familiar mainstream processes. So there are discussions on the many ways in
which the visual record was constituted, clothing and its significance, music, and the ways in
which it was used, intertwined with responses to Western education, Christianity, and the
colonial state. Moreover, complexities and conflicts are acknowledged rather than erased – so
the engagement with Christianity, for instance, emerges as a dialogue, with diverse strands and
possibilities.
The encounter with colonialism is reconstructed in painstaking detail, focusing on how the
landscape was transformed, modes of communication changed, and negotiations with the mar-
ket economy undertaken. Links with the outside world, including mobilisation during the
World Wars, are also demonstrated through a rich array of visuals and texts.
The post-colonial world, with all its tensions and conflicts, is discussed with remarkable, often
understated precision. Consider the following:

Within India, Mizoram is the region with the highest proportion of ‘tribals’ (or ‘scheduled
tribes’). This makes Mizoram the ‘tribal’ state par excellence.
Mizoram is also amongst the most highly educated regions in India, and its inhabitants
think of themselves as more modern and better connected to the wider world than many
of their compatriots. In other words, to them being card-carrying ‘tribals’ has nothing to
do with ‘primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with
the community at large, and backwardness’, which is how India’s Ministry of Tribal Affairs
defines tribes. It is an ill-fitting and external ascription that provides certain economic
advantages but also comes with an unwelcome burden of prejudice, disdain and racism.
Living under a paternalistic state that classifies you in this way affects how you represent
yourself to it – and how you look at yourself. State officials and the Indian public at large

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 The uses and teaching of history

found it helpful if ‘tribals’ were seen to be tribal. They should perform their identity. As
a result, much emphasis was put on display by means of costume and artistic presentation.
(ibid.: 266)

Pachuau and Schendel also document one of the most turbulent periods in recent Mizo his-
tory, a period of famine and revolt, which were handled with an unprecedented display of force,
with quiet sensitivity:

The Troubles would last from 1966 to 1986, a period during which violent and less violent
periods alternated. This was a very dark time in Mizoram – and, at a different level, also for
its visual history. More than four-fifths of the population were uprooted and shifted to new
settlements, poverty and fear increased and armed confrontations were frequent. In these
circumstances, many people lost their family possessions, including photographs, and few
were in a position to document the distress that the Troubles caused in their lives.
(ibid.: 314)

At the same time, they draw attention to unsettling issues of minorities within Mizoram, within
territorial boundaries that have hardened over the decades (ibid.: p. 374). In doing so, they alert
us to the possibilities of and the need to negotiate through contentious issues which refuse to be
resolved through the reiteration of platitudes.

Does history have a future?

As a historian, one would like to answer the question in a quick, confident affirmative. Yet, in
order to make the affirmation effective, there is clearly much that needs to be done. More
important, the political will to do so is an urgent and inevitable prerequisite.
Returning to our starting point, history can perhaps flourish if we constantly ask who our
histories are meant for, and how we can shift the focus from the powerful to other social catego-
ries, to engage in a democratisation of processes of constructing and sharing knowledge in all its
complexity. This is a challenge that is only beginning to be addressed. If Pachuau and Schendel’s
(2015) work reveals the immense possibilities of such strategies, the far more popular and acces-
sible work of Amish (2015) is a reminder that we are contending with a dominant understand-
ing that is far less demanding of the reader, and provides a scaffolding for existing socio-political
and -economic hierarchies, of reassuring certainties in a rapidly changing world.
At another, more pragmatic level, are there ways of changing the system of evaluation, which
at present allows, if not encourages, converting almost all learning material into a rote learning
activity? Clearly, this is an enormous challenge. And yet, if it is not addressed, the pedagogical
potential of history will remain largely unrealised. While rote learning may be common to sev-
eral other disciplines, including the sciences, those at least are accompanied by the lure of poten-
tially profitable job opportunities.
At yet another level, we need to understand and engage with the shrinking academic spaces
available for formal training. Several central universities, set up recently, have no provision for
teaching history – in yet others, such as the Guru Ghasidas University of Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh,
a three-member faculty transacts courses ranging from the undergraduate, through the post-
graduate and research programmes (information from www.ggu.ac.in, accessed 10 February
2015). And while a handful of high-profile private universities have created spaces for the teach-
ing of history, the vast majority of private institutions simply find the discipline unprofitable.

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History, as indeed many of the other social sciences/liberal arts subjects, seems to be poised
at a critical juncture, demanding that practitioners revisit their academic concerns and work out
ways and means of connecting the past and the present in ways that can be meaningful to those
who have been excluded from these processes. At the same time, the paradox of supposed irrel-
evance combined with mining the past for sustaining and constructing a range of identities
needs to be understood and addressed. Whether this enormous challenge can be met or not
remains to be seen.

Appendix 1: list of visuals in chapter 1, India and the

Contemporary World
Fig. 1 Storming of the Bastille p. 1
Fig. 2 A Society of Estates p. 2
Fig. 3 The Spider and the Fly p. 3
Fig. 4 The course of a subsistence crisis p. 6
Fig. 5 The Tennis Court Oath p. 9
Fig. 6 The spread of the Great Fear p. 9
Fig. 7 The Political system and the Constitution of 1791 p. 10
Fig. 8 The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen p. 11
Fig. 9 A sans-culotte couple p. 14
Fig. 10 Nanine Vallain, Liberty p. 15
Fig. 11 [A festival organised by the government]2 p. 17
Fig. 12 Parisian women on their way to Versailles p. 18
Fig. 13 Women queuing up at a bakery p. 20
Fig. 14 The emancipation of slaves p. 14
Fig. 15 The patriotic fat-reducing press p. 22
Fig. 16 Marat addressing the people p. 23
Fig. 17 Napoleon crossing the Alps p. 23

Notes
1 I owe many of the ideas in this section to a stimulating discussion with Naina Dayal.
2 Abbreviated caption, provided by me.

References
Amish, T. Scion of Ikshvaku, Westland Ltd, Chennai, 2015.
Arnold, John H. History: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.
Bhattacharya, Neeladri, ‘History: Discipline, Craft and Narratives’ in Accessing the Past: Dialogues on History
and Education, Proceedings of the 11th Wipro Partners Forum, n.d., pp. 4–38.
Golden Social Science, New Delhi, New Age International (P) Limited, n.d.
India and the Contemporary World – vol. I, Textbook in History for Class IX, New Delhi, National Council of
Educational Research and Training, 2006, ch. 1, pp. 3–24.
NCERT, History and a Changing World; Director’s Foreward, New Delhi: NCERT, 2008.
Pachuau, Joy L.K. and Willem van Schendel, The Camera as Witness: A Social History of Mizoram, Northeast
India, Delhi, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Ratnagar, Shereen, Understanding Harappa: Civilisation in the Greater Indus Valley, New Delhi, Tulika, 2001.
Roy, Kumkum, ‘The Many Meanings of Aryan’, in Shankar Goyal (ed.), Investigating Indian Society: Essays in
Honour of Professor S.R. Goyal, Jodhpur, Kusumanjali Book World, 2013, pp. 35–50.

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 9
An experiment in rural education
The revival of Anand Niketan

Nidhi Gaur

After 68 years of independence, India is struggling to mark its presence in the ‘developed’ world.
A majority of our population still lives in villages; the agricultural sector still contributes signifi-
cantly to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP); we still consistently miss deadlines for
achieving 100 per cent literacy; and our prime minister still has to make emotional pleas for
civic responsibility while burdening the citizens with cleanliness tax. These are a few indicators
that we are far from our goal of modernisation.
Touraine (1998), while arguing for the importance of intercultural communication through
comparative studies, differentiates between modernity and modernisation, which helps us in
understanding the probable causes and resolution of the aforementioned issues. He defines
modernisation as ‘a movement, something willed, a mobilisation at the head of which is in any
case the state, whatever the social forces on which it depends’ (Touraine 1998: 451). For a coun-
try with a colonial legacy, modernisation through state machinery presents itself as a safe and
quicker way of development because of the belief that ‘developed’ countries have gone through
the same path. This implies state initiative and responsibility for setting up industries, expansion
of cities, and other agents of modernisation. In other countries, the bourgeoisie/capitalist class
performed this task while the state kept checks through taxation. In India, the state chose to
partner with this class to speed up modernisation.
Touraine argues that ‘modernisation through state machinery’ is a misconception, for the
‘developed’ countries went through a process of modernity, which is an individual-­centric pro-
cess. He defines modernity ‘as a set of attributes of social organisation’. This implies that moder-
nity is not just a process of industrialisation but also a process of social upheaval leading to the
discrediting of the older order and developing a new social order.
Ursula Franklin (1999), in her authoritative work The Real World of Technology, explains how
social re-­structuring paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. Franklin quotes Foucault’s
influential work Discipline and Punish to illustrate changes in the social structure in the seven-
teenth and the eighteenth century, particularly in French schools, hospitals, military institutions,
and prisons. Application of discipline accompanied with detailed hierarchical structures, drill,
surveillance, and record-­keeping were applied to all these organisations. In the 1740s, La Mettrie
wrote L’Homme-­machine, that is, man-­the-­machine. In this book he described how the human
body was ‘an intricate machine, a machine that could be understood, controlled, and used’

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-12 143

Nidhi Gaur

(Franklin 1999: 53). Foucault illustrates how this idea of a human body led to the training of the
human body into compliance, which was translated into organisations such as schools, hospitals,
military institutions, and prisons. This, Franklin says, was the social setting prior to the Industrial
Revolution. It was this blueprint of the society that factories took and through machines made
more controlled, stringent, and invasive. ‘The new patterns, with their breakdown of processes
into small prescriptive steps, extended quickly from manufacturing into commercial, administra-
tive, and political areas…. Planning thrived as an activity closely and intimately associated with
the exercise of control’ (Franklin 1999: 55). So, a social structure that rendered itself readily to
the control and management of the human body evolved.

In turn, the change in the structure of society and the nature and organisation of work and
production during the Industrial Revolution became a pattern onto which our real world
of technology with its much more extended and sophisticated restructuring is grafted.
(Franklin 1999: 56)

India encountered Industrial Revolution partially during its struggle for freedom. The
already established culture of compliance was more deeply ingrained in Indian society through
colonial rule. But conflicts of caste, religion, and language added layers of complication. The
process of state-­run industrialisation that began after Independence rested on this social setting.
Machines, as was true in Europe, did not bring about social change. But they strengthened the
centralisation of power and control, which was already established by the British through the
system of inspection and bureaucracy. Machines helped in making this control more invasive and
stringent through their application and development of technology in administration and gov-
ernance. This industrialisation required a compliant workforce to thrive on and a replica of
Western education with its emphasis on training, drill, examination, and timetabling was estab-
lished – the kind of schools that Foucault critiqued most convincingly.
This industrialisation was the modernisation of India. The process of becoming modern
necessitates popular reorganisation of the society. Thus, making it a discontinuous process wherein
older social structures have to be replaced by new ones. It has to be individual-­centric and has to
move from the bottom reaching the top, changing the entire structure in between. Taylor (1991)
explains this change as a shift from honour to dignity; from ascribed status to achieved status. In
the Indian context, it would mean questioning the caste structure and discrediting it. However, it
is a gradual process, which the ‘developed’ countries went through to pave the way for a demo-
cratic and liberal society. It included the process of colonisation of India and other countries.
India’s journey on this road began only after Independence. Our nationalist leaders under-
stood the importance of social change in the whole modernisation process, but they believed
that industrialisation would gradually modernise the society. India definitely converted some
towns into cities. But even in cities, which were to become the face of modernity, we achieved
it only in material terms. Socially, we are still traditional. Caste and religious fanaticism are still
going strong, if not thriving. Modernisation has only added to our problems with over-­populated
cities, pollution, and violence. The government is forced to levy a cleanliness tax on its citizens
to develop their civic sense in order to stop them from dirtying and destroying public infrastruc-
ture and keep the streets clean. This is a clear sign of our lack of belongingness and ownership
of our own country. While we are dealing with these issues and looking for possible solutions, it
would be worthwhile to look at the alternative to modernisation, that is, modernity, and if it
could present a means of social reorganisation.
In 1909, Mahatma Gandhi presented an alternative to Western civilisation in his classic work
Hind Swaraj. He defined ‘swaraj’ as living fearlessly. He interpreted it as ‘swa-­par-­raj’, that is, rule

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over oneself. It rests on three pillars – self-­awareness (truth), self-­reliance (productive labour), and
self-­discipline (11 vows). Being truthful for Gandhi meant searching for one’s truth and follow-
ing it with absolute conviction. Disciplining one’s mind and body through the practice of 11
vows and productive manual labour gives individual inner strength. Creating objects of everyday
utility not only makes an individual self-­reliant but is also rewarding for his/her mind and soul.
Modern scholar Charles Taylor (1991), in his influential work The Malaise of Modernity, per-
ceives authenticity in an individual as a sign of modernity. He notes that this ideal of authenticity
demands a definition of self in relation to others. Therefore, an authentic self can only be actu-
alised through dialogue with the significant other. Gandhi also saw swaraj as a lived experience
of an individual in the context of a community. Here, education plays a vital role. It can initiate
the process of swaraj at an early age within a community. But what kind of education can create
a conducive environment for the development of mind, body, and spirit as is required to experi-
ence swaraj?
Gandhi hinted at this kind of education in Hind Swaraj, in which he critiqued Western edu-
cation as a mere learning of letters that would alienate the rural Indian child, developing in him
an attraction or need for the city. This alienation would lead to an ambiguous personality
because of conflicting values of the school and home. He quoted Thomas Huxley to present his
ideal of education:

That man I think had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is
the ready servant of his will and does with ease and pleasure all the work that as a mecha-
nism it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine with all its parts of equal
strength and in smooth working order … whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the
fundamental truths of nature … whose passions are trained to come to heel by vigorous
will, the servant of a tender conscience … who has learnt to hate all vileness and to respect
other as himself. Such a one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education, for he is
in harmony with nature. He will make the best of her and she of him.
(Parel 2009: 99)

Gandhi found such potential in the teaching of crafts. The next section illustrates this point
through classroom observations of some crafts taught in Anand Niketan. In this paragraph a brief
explanation of this scheme is presented. Gandhi believed that a process of education centred
around crafts could create a meaningful context for the learning of letters. It could become a
bridge between the school and the home environment of a child since the practice of crafts
facilitates development of the body, mind, and spirit. He advocated the mother tongue to be the
medium of instruction.
Mahatma Gandhi called it ‘Rural National Education through village handicrafts’ in the
foreword of the curriculum of the scheme that Dr Zakir Husain termed ‘Basic National
Education’ (Gandhi 1938). By calling it rural, perhaps he wanted to differentiate it from English
education, and with the addition of ‘through village handicrafts’ stressed the rural context of a
school in which a teacher will live, as well as a selection of crafts from among the varieties being
practised in that village. In other words, he wanted to stress the decentralisation of village educa-
tion with little interference from the government. This was a vital part of his vision of a self-­
sustaining village society.
By self-­sustaining village society, he did not mean an absolute self-­sustaining, closed rural
society. This needs to be interpreted in the context of the more popular idea of modernisation.
What he meant was a self-­reliant but interdependent rural society, and one that needs to be jux-
taposed to the present state of the village to the city, wherein the former is an unequal/inferior

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partner of the latter. Its population is considered backward and a burden when it migrates to the
city. Examining the relationship between rurality, modernity, and education, Krishna Kumar
(2014), in an important paper, illustrated how the village has lost its relevance in modern times
even in the construction of knowledge. It is the binary opposite of the city, which is modern and
so, ‘For the village, there is just one way to liberate itself from this binding relationship, and that
is to develop into a town according to the agenda of evolutionist modernity’ (Kumar 2014: 40).
In Gandhian vision, the village retains its dignity and its self-­reliance and becomes an equal
partner to the city. It also has something to offer to the city in lieu of its demands. The village
can negotiate and survive with its dignity intact. He strongly believed that the progress of inde-
pendent India is through the wellbeing of its villages. Hence the focus should be on strengthen-
ing the village community. He saw the core of Indian culture in the live tradition of crafts, which
was the key to their self-­reliance and creative self-­expression. It was fundamental to their experi-
ence of swaraj. Critics of Gandhi see this as his legitimisation of casteism and untouchability.
However, he took steps to reform the village society through constructive programmes. A craft-­
centred education aided in that reform by drawing out crafts from their rigid caste boundaries.
These were taught to children from all castes without any bias. In this manner, he imagined
mobilising a large mass of India’s rural population for social reorganisation with the spread of
modernity. After all if encouraging girls to play alongside boys and take up careers and become
professionals is expected to create a more equitable society, encouraging children from all castes
to learn all kinds of crafts should also de-­stigmatise craftwork. Craft-­centred education was to
play a vital role here by questioning and diluting the structures of caste through separation of
caste and occupation.
Another important aspect of modernity is the application of science and technology. Here,
one can say that learning from the experience of the West, Gandhi strongly advocated the role
of science but warned against an over-­reliance on technology. He was suspicious of technology
that would replace workers, leading to their deskilling and reducing them to appendages of
machines. Some of these issues were raised in the British Parliament also through questions such
as: ‘Was it morally right that, in the name of trade, prosperity and efficiency, the mode of work
could change so drastically that many people became uprooted and deprived of their livelihood?’
(Franklin 1999: 58). Gandhi warned about the use of that kind of technology.
Displacement of the rural population by making the village, where a majority of Indians live,
irrelevant in modern society has led to a situation of crisis. It has stripped villagers of their right
to livelihood and a dignified life by compelling them to migrate to cities and labour as domestic
workers and live in urban slums. It has also created problems of overcrowding, seething competi-
tion, pollution, and violence in urban India. Also, the present nature of the application of science
and technology rooted in exploitation and control over nature has led to a range of environ-
mental issues, such as global warming.
These glaring issues compel us to look for viable alternatives for a better future. Gandhi’s
vision of an alternative Indian civilisation based on swaraj presented one such possibility. Craft-­
centred education, specially designed for rural children, was an integral part of this vision. In the
light of the present circumstances, a re-­examination of craft-­centred education will help in four
ways. First, it will be able to provide quality education to rural children who are the future of
the country. Second, it can help in the socialisation of children. Gaur (2016), in her doctoral
thesis, argues for the potential of craft-­centred education in dealing with gender issues through
socialisation of children. Third, as Srinivasan’s (2015) recent doctoral thesis brings to the fore,
the hollowness of higher education in India can also be addressed by listening to Gandhi.
Fourth, science in craft-­centred education facilitates a harmonious relationship with nature, as
presented in the following section.

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Gandhi’s emphasis on science is inherent in the practice of crafts. It comes in the use and
repair of tools and implements, modifications of existing tools and implements as per require-
ments, developing an understanding of raw materials used through their careful observation and
manipulation, and exploring the process of making through creating the desired object. Students
applied this understanding/knowledge of science in informal activities too. This became the
thread for dialogue between home and school spun by children themselves. This was a subtler
but lasting form of reform that Gandhi tried to initiate through schools, when children started
understanding the world around them through minute observations of processes and their ques-
tions and reflections on these processes. A glimpse of this is presented in the following section
on Anand Niketan.

Revival of Anand Niketan

Anand Niketan was a village school founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1938 in the Sevagram
ashram premises. It was part of his ideal vision of a self-­sustaining village, complete with a village
school where crafts practised in the village were taught not as hereditary occupations but as
educative work that would facilitate the development of mind, body, and spirit. Teachers lived in
the school or ashram premises and in some cases the classroom was an extension of the teacher’s
house. For example, the art room at Anand Niketan was in front of the cottage of the art teacher,
celebrated artist Devi Prasad, who also designed it. The two rooms were so close that at night
when children put their clay objects in the kiln, they would use their teacher’s kitchen to make
tea and pakoras while waiting. Similarly, the music teacher’s cottage was next to the music room.
The school was shut down in the 1970s and was reopened in 2005 by some Gandhians with
the help of the Jamnalal Bajaj family. Now it functions from 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. in summer
and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in winter. Gardening, spinning, embroidery, stitching, and weaving
are some of the crafts taught in the school. Some classroom observations are described in the
following paragraphs.
The school appears to be a vast, open space dotted with trees and cottages. The vastness of
the sky is just as overwhelming as the feeling of sand under one’s feet. The quiet and serene sur-
roundings and the chirping of the birds is welcoming. On the porch of a cottage on a rainy day
I saw a group of Class V girls sitting and talking. Since it was lunch, I thought they were eating
but I found them with small bowls of water cleaning a transparent paste. They had scratched
some ‘dink’ sap from the bark of the neem trees around. The dirty sap was being cleaned to make
gum. First, two girls cleaned it with their hands. Two other girls then gave it a rinse with water
and kept the clean ‘dink’ on a piece of white paper. A chain was thus formed. They stored it in
a bottle with water. In some time, it would get mixed with water, they said. This was not a
learned technique but a childhood instinct. They were aware of their surroundings and thought
of an activity around them. They broke the activity into smaller tasks, divided the work among
themselves, and executed it well. There are two points to note here. First, the ethos of the school
provided the children with an opportunity where they could devise such plans and work on
them without fear. They lived among trees, birds, and animals and had developed an intimate
relationship with them. Second, they were attentive and observant and comfortable in trying out
their instincts. They knew the creative process and could confidently pull it off.

Gardening
In a gardening class, a teacher was helping a student prepare soil with a large fork. The girl fol-
lowed his instructions but found it difficult to push the fork because she was not applying

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enough pressure at the right point. The teacher stood by her side watching and waiting patiently
for her to look up and ask for help. He would then repeat the instruction. While this was going
on, another student was handling the fork on his own. I asked him what he was doing. He
explained that he was preparing the plot for sowing. I asked him about the seeds he would sow.
He said he was still thinking. ‘Spinach takes more time to grow than fenugreek, but then its
produce is better and sells more. Last time, I planted spinach’, he said. A student was taking out
spinach, another was measuring his produce, and some others were watering their plots.
I observed a group of students plucking fenugreek from a plot. They were busy talking when
I joined them. One of them was talking about the recent appearance of berries on the shrubs
near the ashram farms. They were all planning to go there after helping their friend harvest
fenugreek from her plot. Then one of the girls got up to get a rope to tie the produce. Another
one ran to the school and ashram to inform people about the produce, so that interested buyers
could come and buy. A third stood in a queue to weigh the produce. The other two were still
plucking. As soon as the rope was brought, they took the produce to the weighing scale. Two of
them weighed while the third jotted down the weight in a notebook, after which the produce
was tied up. Soon, a group of teachers arrived to buy fenugreek. Details of the sale and purchase
were diligently noted. Once the job was done, the girls ran to the other side of the garden to
pluck the berries. At this point, I noticed a small rocky gate-­like structure on one of the plots.
I went and asked about it. A student told me that it was the grave of a frog that was killed in the
process of preparing the plot.
After the initial set of instructions on how to use a fork to prepare a plot of land and different
kinds of seeds and their needs, children worked independently on their plots. But things like
speed and keeping up with others did not appear to be a concern for anyone. They decided on
everything from the choice of seeds to the processes of sowing, watering, and harvesting. There
was no right answer or the right way of doing it. They learned by doing. They learned from
their failure. Helping each other and working with each other came naturally and it was neither
encouraged nor discouraged by their gardening teacher. Not even once did the teacher ask the
children to work silently or to focus on their own plots or to do their work. The students took
responsibility for the task at hand and did it on their own.
Each plot looked different not only because of the variety of crops, but also because each
child had embellished his/her plot with their choice of materials. The thought of making a
grave for an animal that died during working reflects a student’s relationship with nature, which
developed from his gardening experience. The instinct to decorate their plots and to give them
an identity also reflects their sense of ownership.

Science
It was 11.45 a.m. and the sun was warming up the winter noon, making the Class V classroom
comparatively colder than outside. So when the bell rang, the science teacher entered the room
and suggested holding the class on the porch, provided they shifted there quickly with their mats
and bags. The teacher brought her chair outside to sit. The next few paragraphs describe this
science period and analyses the classroom interaction as well as its content. Since the Maharashtra
State Board of Education (MSBE) teaches all its subjects in the Marathi medium, an attempt has
been made to translate the discussion in English as accurately as possible.
The teacher opened a science textbook provided by the MSBE and announced that this was
an introductory class on a chapter titled ‘The Chemical Properties of Plastics’ that they would
be dealing with in the next few classes. She did not ask the students to open their textbooks, but
some of them opened them anyway. After speaking for about ten minutes on the properties of

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plastics described in the book, she asked if the students had any questions. Many hands went up
immediately. The discussion that followed is given below:

STUDENT 1: What if we bury a plastic bag in soil for a long time? Would it stay there as it is?
TEACHER: Yes, it would.
STUDENT 2: How does plastic decompose? How much time does it take?
[There was complete silence in the audience as the students appeared eager to hear their teach-
er’s response.]
TEACHER: It does not decompose at all.
[The students expressed shock on hearing this with some repeating her words. A minute later, a
third student told the class that Kurkure, a spicy snack brand, was said to contain plastic. She
then asked, ‘What happens to plastic when it enters our body and is not digested?’]
TEACHER: I know everyone likes to eat Kurkure because of its taste, but it is harmful and we
must avoid eating it.
STUDENT 4: What happens to plastic, if it does not decompose?
STUDENT 5: I have seen big machines on Discovery channel. Maybe they destroy it.
[Just then the bell rang, and the teacher left, but the students took a little longer to get back into
the class. They were still talking about plastic among themselves.]

Two kinds of classroom interaction could be observed in this description. One, the teacher
used Ausubel’s technique of an advance organiser to acquaint the students with the concepts of
the new chapter so that they were able to assimilate new information. Here she was the actor
and her students were listeners. The equation changed completely when the floor was opened
for questions. The students who had been listening so far were now actively asking questions
while the teacher answered them. The kids could also respond to each other’s questions.
Together the group was actively engaging with the newly acquired information in accordance
with the knowledge they already possessed.
The focus of this active engagement was the fact that plastic is a non-­biodegradable sub-
stance. The children had learned from their intimate engagement with the environment (includ-
ing gardening) about nature’s law – anything that is born will die. Their experience of
composting was a major source of the counter-­questions they asked. However, personal experi-
ences and information acquired at home was also used effectively when a girl talked about
Kurkure. She was talking about a rumour that Kurkure contains plastic in some form. However,
its manufacturer, PepsiCo, rubbished these rumours.
The practice of gardening facilitated experiential learning among the children and showed
that experience is more pervasive and deep-­rooted, and has strong roots in a person’s affective
domain. This was evident in the questions asked, which were rooted in both cognitive and
affective domains of learning. At one level, they were drawing inference from nature and its law
that whatever is born must die after its due time. At another level, on realising that manmade
objects are disturbing the law of nature, they became concerned about their implications for
their surroundings. This concern for the environment was facilitated by their experience.

Spinning and weaving

In the spinning room, the weaving teacher was struggling to set up a handloom for Class VII.
During the summer vacations, two teachers had gone to Guwahati for ten days to learn weav-
ing. They planned to introduce weaving in Class VII in January. By the end of the semester, the
students were expected to weave at least one mat – and, if possible, a mat for Class I students too.

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Two looms were to be set up in the spinning room and students were to learn it as and when
they got time.
Working on a handloom requires a strong body since the loom is attached to the weaver’s
back for support. But the excitement that the sight of the loom generated among the students
who were spinning was far more than any worry about their frames. Some of them who had
completed spinning gathered around the teacher to observe her weaving. They started asking
her questions about the loom and what she was doing. They wanted to know the product they
would get after the process and also when they would be allowed to work on it, and so on. The
teacher explained to them the terms ‘tana’ (warp) and ‘bana’ (weft). The loom then had threads
in two colours, one used as ‘tana’ and the other as ‘bana’. They quizzed her about the eventual
design and the colour that would be prominent. They then started discussing which two colours
would look good together. The teacher let them help her out.
The students’ questions about the colour and design of the final product reflected the degree
to which they could imagine it even in the early stages of weaving. They could already tell
which one of the colours would dominate the pattern, as they had noticed that the bana went
through the tana only once, which meant addition of a single thread. In her design, however,
while moving the bana from one end of the tana to the other, the teacher was using double
threads of the tana together. This 2:1 ratio of tana to bana meant that the colour of the tana
would dominate the pattern. The teacher explained that since the yellow thread wasn’t enough
for use as tana and the white thread also looked dull, she had decided upon using yellow as bana
to add colour to the mat. Crafting products leads to an early understanding of breaking down a
task into smaller ones to create a desired final product. This question–answer session indicates
that the natural urge to observe and ask about something new was given due space in a class of
students who may not be weaving for another two years.

Conclusion
This chapter began by distinguishing between modernity and modernisation. The distinction
between the two is essential to realise their deep-­rooted implications for our everyday lives.
Modernisation is state-­imposed development resting on the use of technology. Modernity is an
individual-­centric approach resting upon the growth of the individual leading to the progress
society. India chose to modernise itself, with Nehru referring to dams as the temples of modern
India. However, Gandhi presented another alternative based on the principles of modernity, but
it ran into controversies even before its trial. This was his alternative to Western civilisation and
was explained in Hind Swaraj. From this alternative concept derived the scheme of education he
proposed, also called craft-­centred education.
Gandhi’s scheme of education was a rare experiment in education for several reasons. One, it
was not an isolated scheme but an integral part of his alternative to Western civilisation. Two,
the village was the foundation of this alternative as it presented itself as the site of modernity.
Three, it was rooted in modernity and the concept of individual freedom, but unlike Western
civilisation it aimed to develop direct ties with neighbours through self-­reliance and interdepen-
dence. It saw modernity as an individual experience and aimed at strengthening the individual
to strengthen community. Thus, modernity was a popular struggle and not a top-­down approach,
and it translated in the same way at the national level, depending on the demography and its
strength and then building on it. It would have helped the nation develop an identity and stand
on its own.

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Gandhi saw the potential of craft-­centred education in countering caste by diluting it through
its separation from occupation. School would then have become an agency to introduce children
from across classes and castes to learn crafts, which were given an inferior status in society. This
would have separated caste from occupation, and learning it in school would have brought out
the science of crafting. This would have not only dignified craftwork but also brought out its
inherent scientific approach that was passed on over generations. It would have created a social
awareness of the value of crafts. This separation from craft and caste would have diluted the
hierarchical structure of caste through a healthy exchange of crafts across castes. It would have
given other academic opportunities to lower-­caste children who then had a fair choice to choose
a field and have a career in it. This field could be any craft or any academic discipline. Similarly,
it would have given an upper-­caste child the choice of a variety of activities to make a career in.
In this manner, the community would have interacted in many other constructive ways than just
traditional castes. This separation would have been the first step towards change – a change that
dignified the strength of the human hand and mind and its potential to create a civilisation.
Social change is a slow and gradual process. The first section of this chapter explained how
even the developed world took nearly two centuries of social reorganisation to lay the founda-
tion for the Industrial Revolution. Feminists and social activists are aware of how this change
occurred from generation to generation. Therefore, this separation would have certainly paved
the way for an initiation of the gradual process of social change.
We have already mentioned the understanding and application of science in the first two
sections. Science in craft-­centred education is seen ‘as an approach to knowledge’ (Kumar 1996:
2368). This education facilitates the development of scientific temper. The school also upholds
this view of science. Students are observing, hypothesising, experimenting, reflecting, compar-
ing, analysing, and manipulating objects not just in the class but in routine activities too. All the
above examples show how students are taking responsibility for their learning and are actively
engaging in various classroom situations. They come up with activities, break it into smaller
tasks, divide these tasks among themselves, and do them. They are operating on the environ-
ment and looking for tools and materials from the environment that can help them complete
their task. They are active and independent. They are taking decisions and going forward with
those. Science is applied here for strengthening the individual worker/craftsperson. It retains the
labour-­intensive model. Implications of this alternative would have affected rural–urban rela-
tions and our relationship with technology and our concept of time and efficiency that are
intimately connected to technology.
The idea appears convincing, but the desired growth is slow and its path is unknown as it
remains uncharted. It unfolds as we grow. This has two kinds of problems. First, we have the
impatience to catch up with the world, so we are always worried about our speed. Second, we
fear that the idea may not unfold as it is envisioned, and since we don’t have any examples we
find ourselves ill-­equipped to deal with the problems that may be presented during the process.
But still it presents a worthy alternative that needs to be given a fair trial.

References
Franklin, U.M. 1999. The Real World of Technology. Ontario: Anansi.
Gandhi, M. 1938. Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Ahmedabad: Navjivan Publishing House.
Gaur, N. 2016. ‘Gender and Craftwork in Rural Society: Role of Education’. Unpublished doctoral
thesis, New Delhi.

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Nidhi Gaur

Kumar, K. 1996. ‘Agricultural Modernisation and Education: Contours of a Point of Departure’. The
Economic and Political Weekly, 31 (35–37): 2367–2373.
Kumar, K. 2014. ‘Rurality, Modernity and Education’. The Economic and Political Weekly, 49(22): 38–43.
Parel, A.J. 2009. ‘Hind Swaraj’ and Other Writings. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.
Srinivasan, S. 2015. ‘Locations of Knowledge: The University, Liberal Education and the Case of India’.
PhD, Manipal University.
Taylor, C. 1991. The Malaise of Modernity. Ontario: Anansi.
Touraine, A. 1998. ‘Modernity and Cultural Specificities’. International Social Science Journal, 118: 443–457.

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 Part III
Training for professions

In this part, the readers will find three chapters that discuss professional training in three differ-
ent fields, along with a chapter on vocational education. The three professions are hardly repre-
sentative of the vast area of higher professional education in India. All they do is introduce you
to the nature of the development that has taken place in this sector of higher education and also
the nature of the problems and challenges that professional education faces. Although each field
of professional education faces challenges that are specific to it, the three chapters included in
this section might give a glimpse of some general or theoretical problems. These have to do with
knowledge and its active application in the course of a professional career or life. A professional
career implies specialised learning, which is used for a public purpose. The training for such a
career involves learning of a kind that might include the experience of using it. This is particu-
larly important for vocational and technical education, generally denied the status of ‘profes-
sional’ education. Santosh Mehrotra discusses the chronic obstacles this sector has suffered, both
on account of the paucity of institutions and due to poor coordination with the economy, while
professional education can be distinguished from higher education of a general kind. The latter
aims at imparting knowledge without necessarily focusing on a skill or a set of skills required to
use such knowledge for a career devoted to providing a service based on such skill. The lower-
order vocational education, which is all about skills, tends to ignore the knowledge component
that the practice of any skill requires in an increasingly complex economic environment.
Professional education in law, engineering, and medicine started during the colonial period.
The first chapter in this section concerns engineering, and it demonstrates the importance of
taking into account colonisation as a factor for shaping the character of engineering education
and its problems or challenges. We are not talking about the colonial legacy, a frequently used
term in the context of education, but rather a wider inheritance that shapes the perception of
knowledge and the role its application might play in addressing the problems of human life. In
his chapter, Milind Sohoni first explains the development of engineering education in the West,
especially the USA, in order to argue that the idea and image of a professionally qualified engi-
neer there is embedded in socio-economic needs and expectations. He contrasts this case with
that of India, where the engineer learns advanced knowledge in order to receive a high qualifi-
cation, not in order to respond to or address any real and immediate needs. Thus, the engineer-
ing curriculum, even of apex institutions, fails to equip the young engineer to notice the

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Training for professions

problems that his knowledge and skill might solve in the Indian milieu, urban or rural. These
characteristics of engineering education may be similar to other areas of professional education.
A general point can be made about the social status that education leading to a medical, engi-
neering, or architecture degree offers to its recipient. If Sohoni’s analysis is extended, we can say
that the status associated with professional qualification in an area like engineering may be the
driving force behind the continued popularity of these courses, rather than the knowledge and
skill they impart. A wider phenomenon of the ‘commonisation’ of the engineering degree over
the recent period may also be linked to this. This phenomenon has resulted in a glut of private
institutions and a decline of enrolment in pure science courses at higher levels, noticed by
Shobhit Mahajan earlier in this volume.
Training of teachers is another area of professional education examined in this part. Concern
for the quality of teaching has been a consistent theme in public documents and scholarly litera-
ture on education, and the expression of this concern has become shriller over recent years, with
the recent expansion of the system and an increase in the number of children enrolled at all
levels. Demand for trained teachers has mounted, and the state has responded to this demand by
encouraging private initiatives in establishing and running teacher-­training institutions. Over 80
per cent of all institutions offering training degrees today are private. The apex regulatory body,
the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE), has recently launched a series of reforms
in various courses, including the Bachelor of Education (BEd.) course that qualifies a teacher to
be appointed at a secondary school. In her chapter in this section, Latika Gupta examines the
established structure of the BEd. curriculum, focusing on the division between ‘theory’ and
‘practice’. She also presents an analytical description of the ethos of a teacher-training institu-
tion. An obsessive emphasis on methods of teaching, coupled with the inability to link educa-
tional theory with subject knowledge, is identified in this chapter as a key weakness of the BEd.
curriculum. The ethos accentuates the absence of academic depth of the course, reinforcing the
influence of an unreformed school education system on the new generation of teachers.
Unlike engineering and teacher education, management education has no historical legacy
as such. It is a relatively new area of professional education and it does not seem to suffer from
financial constraints. Pankaj Chandra examines the growth of management education in India
and the role it has played in providing specialised personnel to the expanding industrial estab-
lishment. This chapter brings out the strengths that institutional responsiveness to the needs of
industry has imparted to the curriculum in apex institutions. It also points out how the state’s
attempt to regulate the sector has made it vulnerable to problems similar to other areas of profes-
sional education.

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 10
The making of India as an
engineering society
Milind Sohoni

Education, especially higher education, is perhaps the most direct intervention that a society may
make in changing itself, and thus its design offers an effective formal tool for social transforma-
tion. Within that, engineering education is certainly privileged, since its very objective is to
prepare agents of material change. The training of an engineer within a society offers a unique
insight into what the society attributes as important as well as amenable to scientific or techno-
logical analysis, the nature of accumulation and transmission of material knowledge, and finally
the effectiveness of the society in delivering material wellbeing to itself. It is within this broader
connection with the material society that we explore engineering and scientific education.
Hence, it is important that we examine the massive problems of inequity and development
in our society, at least partly as problems of design and conduct of higher education. In this
chapter I look at the profession of engineering and of applied physical sciences in India and the
system of training and research that supports it. The objective is to tease out its structural fea-
tures, its social and cultural embedding, and, increasingly important, its linkages with global
knowledge. In the first three section, I will (1) describe a mechanism of knowledge formation
and delivery, (2) narrate a history of the evolution of this mechanism in the West, and (3) use the
above two constructions to analyse the Indian system of engineering education, post-­
Independence, and its outcomes. I use the West as a reference, since it is one which is closest to
us in organisation, and which has served as a role model, and yet which is antipodal in initial
conditions and conduct. In a later section, I collect together various strands from the earlier parts
and point out the central role of culture and of rigour in the trajectory of an engineering or
scientific society. I will also look at the emerging global knowledge system and its key axioms as
an example of a scarce and (culturally) hegemonic science. Finally, I propose a science and engi-
neering system that is more likely to deliver development. In the final section I conclude by
embedding the outcomes of our analysis into the broader question of the design of higher edu-
cation, its political economy, and the role of the social sciences.

The meaning of a profession

Professional education, as opposed to a ‘liberal education’ such as in the humanities, social sci-
ences, or the pure physical sciences, is by nature instrumental and embedded in society. It aims

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Milind Sohoni

to produce agents (1) who satisfy an expressed demand for a particular service or social value
and expect to be rewarded in money or in kind, and (2) who access a body of professional
knowledge and yet tailor it to suit a particular situation. Inherent in the notion of a profession
is an association or group of professionals, their body of professional knowledge, and, finally, a
charter, i.e. a social recognition of the profession and the above transaction. The profession is
then a mechanism organised as (1) a paired vocabulary: an external or social vocabulary in which
problems or demands are specified, and an internal professional vocabulary in which knowledge
is expressed and solutions are designed; (2) a professional knowledge and a system of translation
which is sound, i.e. which is successful in meeting posed demands; (3) a method of accumulation,
i.e. an epistemology which is rigorous – which maintains soundness and expands the profession.
The translation from the external to the internal vocabulary may well be called analysis and
design, while the reverse may be termed as synthesis or implementation.1
A simple example of a profession is football coaching, where, for example, the social vocabu-
lary would be of scoring goals and executing popular manoeuvres, while the internal vocabulary
may have theories of physical fitness and technique. The social charter of the profession is
achieved through certification exams aligned with national and international sports associations.
Note that the internal vocabulary of the professional may well be an interdisciplinary combina-
tion, e.g. in this case, of human physiology, ergonomics, and strategy.
Engineering is largely the profession of bringing about change in the material wellbeing of
a society. It is concerned with the building of bridges and buses, shampoos and phones, various
other gadgets, of provisioning services such as water supply and electricity, and also of goods and
services sought by other industries, such as steel and shipping. As a profession, engineering is as
old as history itself. Early engineers included shipbuilders, blacksmiths and smelters, lens-­makers,
and masons and other craftsmen and artisans. Their knowledge was largely situated within
guilds and their practices, and entry into these guilds was frequently difficult. The modern engi-
neer, however, is typically a university graduate and has access to a public body of professional
knowledge.

Engineering in the West

Let us now quickly review the recent history of engineering in the West in terms of the mecha-
nism that we have outlined above. It will serve to illustrate the various strands that have contrib-
uted to the evolution of the mechanism and also set up a framework for analysing Indian
engineering.

Phase 1
Early organisation and transmission of engineering knowledge in the West was largely through
two mechanisms, namely the guilds and the state machinery. Guilds were professional bodies of
craftsmen organised around commercial production and services, e.g. for printing and stationery,
leather-­work, carriage-­building, and apothecary. Entry into the guilds was managed through an
elaborate apprenticeship protocol that was partly cultural and partly technical. The social
embedding was frequently achieved by obtaining a royal charter, i.e. a monopoly on standards,
regulation, and training of the particular activity within the royal domain. This charter was
essential in maintaining the profession.
The second organisation of knowledge came from the engineering needs of the state; for
example, in public works such as bridges and roads, in military engineering, and shipbuilding.
This was organised around state departments, key contractors and companies, and their

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institutions of training. Civil engineering (i.e. the non-­military part of the state agenda) was the
first to achieve the public-­access structure that is known today. The Institute of Civil Engineers
was formed in England in 1818 and was itself preceded by the Society of Civil Engineers,
founded in 1778. The institute began as a body of professional engineers and heads of building
companies, which met regularly. It then transformed into a professional body with its own
library and publications. By the late nineteenth century, it had evolved a curriculum and was also
conducting certification examinations that were widely recognised. In fact, the Indian university
is based on this tradition of certification on a recognised curriculum.
In France, the early 1800s saw the founding of the grandes écoles in various areas such as mili-
tary engineering, shipbuilding, and bridges and roads. Similar progress was made in Germany as
well as in the USA. The first degree/certificate in engineering in the USA was in civil engi-
neering and was awarded in 1835 by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which was also the
first purely technical university in the country. The need for professionals to run India’s colonial
administration led to the formation of the Thomason College at Roorkee in India in 1847.
Though open to the public, it had separate programmes for Englishmen and for natives and its
graduates were absorbed into the public works department of the colonial state.
There was a third knowledge tradition – the university. However, till the early eighteenth
century, the European university was largely denominational and its training was in the classical
traditions of metaphysics, philosophy, history, jurisprudence, and medicine. It was only in the
eighteenth century that science entered the old university as a part of the philosophy of nature.
Recognition of experimentation and theorisation as a method of science and engineering came
much later.

Phase 2
The Industrial Revolution led to many innovations in engineering, and much of this happened
outside the universities. In fact, one of the tasks of the scientific societies in Europe was to docu-
ment and codify these inventions. With the advent of factories, and the capitalist mode of pro-
duction, the producer no longer owned the means of production.Whence, the earlier role of the
craftsman bifurcated into two distinct roles, namely the workman or tradesperson, and the pro-
fessional engineer. The workman was to perform a fixed role of operating certain machines,
while the engineer was to keep the machines and the factory in good order, and perhaps invent
or adapt existing machines. In this connection, two important examples are the Mechanics
Institute at Manchester, England, founded in 1824 jointly by the city and local industrialists,
which later became the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and the
Technical University at Dresden, Germany, in 1828. Both were non-­denominational, open to
the public, and were started to train existing workers in applied science and thus help them
transcend their class and become engineer-­inventors. This model of the technical university to
prepare the engineer-­inventor, as distinct from the workman, was replicated across Europe and
led to many private and state-­funded technical institutions.
In the USA, an important experiment in engineering education was the public land-­g rant
university, which was funded and managed by individual states. These were large multidisci-
plinary public institutions founded around the 1860s, with the explicit agenda of knowledge
provisioning for regional needs and preparing human resources for regional development.
Agriculture, its mechanisation, management of natural resources, and urban and rural planning
were important areas of applied research and training. Thus, these combined the cultural agenda
of the older universities and yet provided for the ‘extension’ requirements of society. To this day,
the Universities of Illinois, California, Minnesota, and others are important knowledge

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instruments in the hands of the states within the USA. In fact, the popularity of the American
scientific fairs and other formal and informal extension activities led Oxford University to start
its own version in the 1830s, called ‘Continuing Education’. This was implemented as an out-
reach programme of public lectures in small towns on all aspects of knowledge and culture.
American professional bodies started in the 1850s, with the American Society of Civil
Engineering (ASCE) in 1850 and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1880.
These bodies devoted much energy to journals, standards, and curricula.
There was still much engineering and experimentation outside the university, and an active
patent regime to protect inventions. A typical thread is the development of the external com-
bustion engines, i.e. the steam engine of James Watt in 1788, the Stirling engine in 1818, and
later the internal combustion engine of the 1860s, which eventually led to the modern car
engine.
By this time, the scientific societies and the classical university had joined hands in the fur-
therance of the ‘natural sciences’. This contributed many fresh ideas to engineering and to the
economy. An important example is the discovery of electricity in scientific circles, and its uses in
industry, e.g. in electroplating and telegraphy. The founding of the Institution of Electrical
Engineers in 1871 in England marked the absorption of electricity and magnetism into profes-
sional academia as well as industry.
An important philosophical thread which emerged in this phase was the exploration into the
role of science in the design of society, pioneered by Bacon and then later by Rousseau and
Comte (see Scharf and Dusek 2014). Economic models of society, such as the fictional dog-­and-­
goat island of Townsend, actually motivated Darwin to look for such islands in the natural
world (Polanyi 1944). Many philosophers, such as Marx and Weber, and later Heidegger and
Foucault (again see Scharf and Dusek 2014), have commented on the influence of technology
on society, such as disenchantment, ‘enframing’ of nature and society by technology, and the
creeping governmentality of personal and social interactions.

Phase 3
By the 1900s there was an effective convergence between the old university, the new technical
university, industry, and the state. This was exemplified by the formation of the Imperial
College of Science and Technology in London in 1907. Both science and technology entered
into a new partnership, and so did theory and practice. Professional bodies had matured and
served as a bridge between academia, industry, and state. They did this by publishing journals,
through certification, curriculum design, and maintaining state-­supported industrial standards,
and therefore the charter. Research was conducted both in industry as well as at the research
universities. For example, in Germany the Max Planck Institutes were founded in 1911 to
extend the Humboldtian vision of the research university. This network of research institutions
rested on the foundations of a large state-­sponsored university system. As the civic infrastruc-
ture was put in place, the traditional ‘civil’ requirement of the state for engineers slowly
declined, and by the 1960s it was the industry and the professional firms that hired the engi-
neer and set the curricula. In 1958, MIT did away with the Sanitary Engineering Department
and now, in 2017, the word ‘sewage’ does not appear in the body of knowledge document of the
ASCE (ASCE 2008).
The engineer was now typically trained in a large, public, multidisciplinary university and
his/her training was complemented by a ‘liberal education’ in the social sciences, humanities,
and the physical sciences. The university was largely residential and provided a unique cultural
experience and a common social understanding.

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There also emerged two paradigms of research. Foundational and disciplinary research in
both the sciences and engineering was done by the university and this was largely in the public
domain. On the other hand, industrial laboratories of large companies, which had now emerged,
did proprietary research in applied areas. Much of the research in these laboratories was done by
interdisciplinary teams of professionals from all disciplines of engineering, sciences, economics,
and other social sciences. This eventually grew to what is now called Mode-­II research, i.e.
highly technological and fundamental research, with large investments and long gestation peri-
ods, and yet proprietary and profitable. This intruded upon the earlier Mode-­I university-­driven
research of the early 1900s, which was publicly supported, in the public domain, and moderated
and critiqued by peer groups (Nowotny et al. 2001).
Today, in the West, there is a clear and dominant paradigm of ‘scientific engineering’ in the
modern engineering curricula and that is a belief in abstract models of phenomena and the use
of mathematical techniques for analysis. This highly disciplinary and specialised approach was
pioneered by American colleges in the 1960s and now dominates engineering curricula world-­
wide, right from the design of core subjects for first-­year undergraduate students. It is also insti-
tutionalised by the way research is evaluated, and in the sites for applied research. Perhaps this
viewpoint arose from the great success of ‘deep science’, e.g. theoretical physics in the early
1900s, and its connection with actual technological devices, e.g. relativity translating into nuclear
energy, quantum mechanics into the transistor and other semiconductor devices.
Behind the disciplinary curriculum is also a corporatist belief that (1) the society is well
served by the corporation; (2) it is also the correct location to operate and reward the interdis-
ciplinary vocabulary of the engineering profession; and finally (3) the corporation is again the
correct location to absorb the deeper disciplinary knowledge of the employee scientist-­engineer
and convert it into something useful. Thus, it is the corporation that generates social value and
shares it with its employees.
This viewpoint has been challenged on two fronts. The first, which is still corporatist, views
the modern engineer as a member of various interacting and interoperational teams who will
design and test large engineering systems such as an aircraft engine. The disciplinary training
fails to imbue in the student various interfacial skills of working within deadlines, designing
around legacy black-­box systems, the role of testing and standards, and the overall value of good
practices. All of this, it is argued, must find a place in the training of the modern engineer.2 The
second criticism comes from the outside and points to the missing societal interface in profes-
sional training, and wants it unmediated by the corporation. This viewpoint, as followed by, e.g.
Olin College, USA, sees designing for concrete users such as an urban cyclist as essential to its
pedagogy. This is the entry point to teaching innovation as well as to framing broader normative
concerns such as sustainability and global development.
On the whole, the progression in the profession of the engineer first as a guildsman, then as
a state engineer, later as an engineer-­inventor, and finally as a deep-­science employee-­engineer
(i.e. ‘the geek’) has been an important ingredient in the social and material processes in the West.
Moreover, the evolution of engineering into a curriculum within a public-­access university was
the amalgamation of several historical and cultural strands. This included the social churn aris-
ing from ‘enlightenment’ and the Industrial Revolution, and also numerous experiments in the
definition of the university, e.g. the extension role or the technical university and the training of
workmen. It was also shaped by a wide range of socio-­economic and political agents, and a
broad understanding within society on the role of science and technology in its transformation.
Finally, the de-­socialisation of the modern engineer in the West is a culmination of its current
economic processes, and is not without its critics from within and without science and
engineering.

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The outcomes
Let us connect this with the socio-­economic and cultural trajectory of the West. Life expectancy
increased from about 50 in 1830 to about 65 in 1940, and is now close to 80 (Roser 2015).
Better engineering has contributed as much to this increase as the ‘governmental’ role of gather-
ing data and putting it to use. Remarkably, having a theory for the price of prevention, i.e. the
counter-­factual, is a hallmark of the West and this led to many investments and innovations in
engineering and medicine. In fact, these empirical systems also led to the emergence of the
‘rational’ bureaucrat and a revolution in governance. The basic needs of water, food, etc., and
energy in the form of electricity, have long been met. Professional bodies remain strong and peer
groups define the conduct of science and technology all over the world. Culturally, too, the
university continues to be a strong influence on the conduct of the state and the market. It has
contributed to a common social appreciation of the sciences and the arts and a social compre-
hension of the state. People of Western societies are remarkable in their broad understanding of
a common rigour and causality, which in turn allows collective action and a view of the future
as amenable to a shared design. Science and engineering in the West, behind its material facade
of gadgets and factories, ‘natural’ theories, and ‘physico-­mathematical’ laws of causality and con-
servation, remains a deeply cultural tradition.
Given our colonial past, and the material successes of the West, it is only natural that Western
traditions of science and technology should serve as a role model for us in India.

Engineering in India
Let us now turn to India and take a brief look at its evolution as an engineering and scientific
society. Persistence of medieval socio-­economic and cultural arrangements alongside cultural
and material upheaval caused by years of colonial rule was the backdrop against which India
gained Independence. The 150 years prior to 1900 was also a period in which the country suf-
fered major de-­industrialisation and a significant loss in wages and numbers. The number of
industrial workers, largely in cottage industries, came down by half to about 8 per cent of the
population. In the second half of the period significant land was devoted to cash crops, namely
cotton and indigo, which were used by the British as tribute. India was wracked by many fam-
ines, including the great famines of 1896 and 1943, which wiped out five million people each.
The life expectancy actually fell from about 26 in the 1800s to 24 in 1900, and then rose to
about 32 in 1947 (Roser 2015).
At the time of Independence it was clear that engineering was to play an important role in
India’s development, and naturally so. India had begun as a poor country with few material
resources and fewer means of their production. Steel, for example, was added at roughly 4 kg per
capita per year, i.e. barely enough for a pucca house for a miniscule fraction of the population, or
an even smaller investment in infrastructure. Agricultural yields, e.g. at 1,000 kg of wheat per
hectare, were already low and falling. In most of the Deccan plateau and South India, agriculture
was largely rain-­fed and prone to failure. Ambedkar, in his analysis of small agricultural holdings,
was a strong advocate of industrialisation, which would serve two objectives: reduce the pressure
on land and produce much-­needed material goods.
There was already existing in India a tradition of the engineering college, albeit in the idiom
of the colonial project and its instrumental needs. Historically, the earliest engineering colleges
in India were the Thomason College (1847) at Roorkee, Colleges of Engineering at Pune and
Shibpur, near Kolkata (both in 1856) and at Guindy (1858). All were started by the regional
colonial administration, and their charter was to satisfy the demand for engineers and designers

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of public works. An eminent alumnus of Pune (in 1888) was Sir Visvesvaraya, who went on to
design several important irrigation projects in the states of Hyderabad and Mysore. Many later
graduates went on to lead industry houses. The next batch of colleges arose in the period
1910–47, which included the Dhanbad School of Mines, colleges at Jadhavpur, Benaras, Patna,
the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore, and others. Many of these colleges had begun as
polytechnics with a shorter course, called the ‘licentiate’ or the ‘diploma’. This course was usu-
ally for preparing manpower for operational positions and did not include design. All told, at
Independence, India had about 38 engineering colleges that were graduating roughly 2,500
engineers, and about 50 polytechnics graduating about 4,000 students, every year. Two eminent
private colleges were the Businayana Mukundadas Sreenivasaiah College at Bangalore and the
Birla College at Pilani.
The development of science in India is more complicated, linked as it is with the colonial
experience of early Indian scientists and the role of culture in the conduct of science (see, for
example, Kumar 1995). But it was also more influential in the formulation of policy and institu-
tions of engineering education. Perhaps, the country saw its first professional or salaried scientists
and engineers in those who came with the colonial administration to survey, document, and
exploit the resources of the colonies. These scientists and engineers were first-­class scientists in
the European scientific tradition and yet created extraordinary value for the colonial state.
Moreover, Indian intellectuals were also familiar with the scientific methods of the West by actu-
ally having visited their universities. This led to the formation of Indian science as a conflation
of big science – i.e. science as a salary-­paying institution of the state – with high science – i.e.
science of the well-­funded laboratories – and the dream of moulding it to serve the Indian poor.
This vision influenced the Indian elite in their conception of the role and methods of science
and technology in India and their own agency. This vision was present in the first planning
exercise of 1936 of Sir Visvesvaraya, and took more concrete shape in subsequent national plans.
These plans eventually led to the establishment of the National Chemical Laboratory, the
National Physical Laboratory, and other centrally sponsored laboratories as the first national
investment in science. Following that, they led to the formation of the centrally sponsored
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and then to the Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs,
now called the National Institutes of Technology, or NITs) as the first investments in technology.
This network of institutions now constitutes the core of the scientific bureaucracy in India.
This vision was also reflected in the holding of the portfolio of science and technology
(S&T) by the highest executive office in the country, the Prime Minister, and a nominal role for
provincial governments in S&T policy. This centralisation of conduct of S&T persisted till the
1970s, when the first few state commissions were formed. The centralisation of expenditure
continues to this day. It is also instructive that in many speeches by Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, espe-
cially those at the launch of the various central institutions, we find both a reference to the
‘autonomy’ of S&T and yet an exhortation for it to work for the deliverance of the common
Indian from the ‘grinding poverty’ that traps him. But there were very few concrete mechanisms
proposed or any concrete accountability that would bring these institutions close to the day-­to-­
day problems faced by the provincial governments in bringing development to their poor citi-
zens. The top-­down view also missed the rather important role that small inventors, artisans, and
amateurs had played in the development of Western science. It also missed the historical conti-
nuity and the deep civil society processes that had supported and shaped it.
Coming back to engineering, at Independence there were three central (overlapping) expec-
tations from engineering as an institution. These were articulated by the Sarkar Committee
report3 of 1946 as the manpower and research needs for (1) management and development of
key resources such as water and energy; (2) development of basic infrastructure and heavy

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industry; and finally (3) the supply of trained engineers for industrial production of material
goods in the private sector. One may add to this the constitutional vision of a modern Indian
people equipped with a scientific temper, who have risen above caste and superstition. Given the
enormity of the problems, it was felt that the existing institutions were not adequate and a
national investment was required.
We will divide the post-­Independence growth of engineering education into three broad
phases marked by three key policy choices. Each is remarkable in its own way and had important
consequences for the conduct of engineering in India.

Phase I: the foundations

The Sarkar Committee report led to the first visible investments by independent India in engi-
neering education, namely the setting-up of the centrally funded and autonomous IITs. Soon
after this, a recommendation by the Planning Commission led to the founding of 20 RECs. The
RECs were also autonomous and founded by the Centre, but the running costs were shared
with the states.While the IITs were to focus on excellence in research and the ‘scientific’ devel-
opment of engineering, the RECs were to satisfy the demand for engineers in regional develop-
ment projects.
The design of the first IITs was carefully done. In the Sarkar Committee report itself was the
mention that the IITs must be modelled after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or
the Manchester Institute. Correspondingly, an abstract disciplinary scientific engineering curricu-
lum, as opposed to the practice-­based curriculum of existing colleges, was carefully drafted and
generous capital as well as running expenditures were requested and approved. A faculty nurture-­
and-­mentoring programme was set up to prepare teachers of this scarce and special knowledge.
IIT Kanpur was mentored by the USA, and IIT Bombay by the then USSR. Proximity to the
West, complete autonomy in academic matters, an exclusive curriculum, a large budget outlay, a
monastic residential campus for each IIT, and a nation-­wide competitive admission exam pushed
the IITs into the national imagination. They were an immediate success with the middle and
upper classes. However, right from the first year, many IIT graduates chose to migrate and the
phrase ‘brain drain’ came into the popular lexicon (Sukhatme and Mahadevan 2004).
The IIT system had several important socio-­political features: (1) it was the first indigenous
elitisation, i.e. a systematic construction of elite agents and a belief in their ability to transform;4
(2) it was supported by a belief in the excellence of a text-­based analytic S&T which was visibly
linked to elite institutions of the West, and not to field experience of existing institutions or
agencies; and finally (3) a physical separation of science into the elite and the common, and a
physical removal of the elite from their social milieu. The elitisation was implemented by creat-
ing a national system of ‘merit’ to be measured through nationwide competitive exams and a
cloistered system of centrally funded institutions, removed from the hurly-­burly of the regional
universities. Thus an elite, scarce, and transcendental knowledge system was created. Remarkably, all of
these features – elite agency, abstraction, scarcity, selection, and separation – have spread to other
disciplines and continue to be the pillars of Indian higher education. The separation of engi-
neering students, both from society and from the social sciences and arts, in curriculum as well
as in location, persists to this date.
Next, the old colleges, the IITs and RECs, were further complemented by a system of gov-
ernment engineering colleges (GECs) within each state. Most of the GECs were not autono-
mous, but affiliated to various regional universities. The IIT and REC system first sat in parallel
to the older premier colleges of Roorkee, Pune, or Benaras, and specialised institutions such as
the Department of Chemical Technology at Mumbai (UDCT) and the Dhanbad college.

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Eventually, however, these older institutions were eclipsed by the new institutions, largely
because of greater financial outlays, administrative autonomy, a more competitive student body
and better outcomes for its graduates outside Indian engineering. Ironically, the possibility of
exactly this outcome was pointed out by two dissenting notes in the Sarkar Committee report.
Surprisingly, the RECs were not modelled after the land-­g rant universities of the USA, with
their strong regional connection. In fact, most of the RECs have no academic programmes of
regional relevance. This was further cemented in 2007 by the Centre renaming the RECs as
NITs and taking over full control. Thus, an important bridge for the states to connect with the
Centre and to organise their engineering system was lost to the Centre.

Phase II: growth and decoupling

The number of engineers graduating every year grew steadily so that in 1987 there were about
30,000 graduates from about 300 institutions, most of which were state-­funded. The output of
the IITs were about 1,500, i.e. about 5 per cent of the total. However, in the late 1980s, the IT
boom began and this led to a proliferation of the private engineering college. The All India
Council for Technical Education (AICTE), though formed as an advisory body in 1945, was
empowered in 1987 to regulate the entry of new colleges and to ensure that student interests
were protected. These colleges were required to demonstrate adequate finances, equipment,
space, and qualified faculty members, for example, to meet AICTE requirements,5 and site visits
by AICTE inspectors were dreaded events. Most private colleges would still affiliate themselves
to state universities for their curricula and examinations, and that was generally found acceptable
by the AICTE.
The numbers of graduates and institutions rose rapidly to 120,000 and 400 institutions in
1997, 187,000 in 2000, and 550,000 and 1,600 institutions in 2006. By 2014 there were over
1,000,000 students graduating from about 3,000 institutions.6
The sheer enormity of these numbers is without parallel around the world. For example,
about 110,000 engineers every year from about 400 engineering colleges suffice for the USA.
What these numbers do not show is a severe loss of quality and distortion of engineering educa-
tion in India. This increase was largely because of the boom in the IT sector, which grew from
240,000 employees in 1999 to 690,000 employees in 2005, to about 13,000,000 employees in
2009, and used engineering colleges as recruiting grounds. While the colleges responded by
expanding their seats in the IT-­related streams such as IT and CS/CSE, IT firms would gladly
poach from other streams of engineering as well. This practice continues today. For example, in
2012, the IT sector hired 65 per cent of the graduating batch of 440 at GEC Thrissur, most of
whom were not from the CS/IT branch. At IIT Bombay, too, in 2013 the IT sector hired about
24 per cent of the graduating enrolment, of which only about half came from the CSE stream.
Thus, the IT boom effectively converted the engineering college into an aspirational market-
place for English-­speaking and well-­paying, intermediate economy service sector jobs. This
caused many distortions within and without college. Core engineering companies found it dif-
ficult to find fresh engineers at reasonable salaries. IT and CS departments faced a faculty short-
age, while core engineering departments faced a lack of student interest. This was visible in
macroeconomic indicators as well: it was service sector employment, especially in IT and com-
munication services, that grew the most and best rewarded tertiary education. This decoupling
of engineering jobs from engineering education was one important outcome of this phase.
Ironically, an important impetus to this ‘de-­industrialisation’ was provided by the World Bank
project IMPACT (1989–1993), which trained faculty members of engineering colleges to teach
an IT/CS/EE curriculum.

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The IT boom was a precursor to the overall service sector boom for fresh engineers and was
again led by the IITs. By this time, given the number of engineering graduates, the IITs were
graduating about 1 per cent of the total number of graduates. These elite found jobs in the
financial and consulting companies, and global IT majors, as more rewarding and better paying,
than engineering companies catering to domestic needs such as cement or construction com-
panies.7 The high salaries of a few IIT graduates fed into a thriving coaching class industry of
several hundred billion.8 This led to the second decoupling of the actual aspirations and trajec-
tories of IIT students from the stated charter of the IITs as an institution. All the same, its reputa-
tion as a global merit-­based technological institute was crucial for the branding of the IIT
graduate.
It also marked the emergence of ‘brand IIT’, of the smart and well-­marketed institute, a
national example of global values of knowledge and merit, iconic jobs for a few graduates, and
yet an underbelly of a huge coaching industry and inordinate media attention. This emergence
was driven by several factors. First, the IITs had long ago exempted themselves from the AICTE
and its bureaucracy. Second, they are far less accountable to regional demands and budgets, and
their students better connected and more adept at industry relations and brand-­building. As
compared to state colleges, they also receive far more funds from the MHRD directly, and from
S&T funding agencies that are typically situated at the centre. Third, and most importantly, the
IITs are the high-­priests of engineering education since they administer both the iconic JEE
(Advanced), which defines ‘scientific’ prowess at the high-­school level, and the GATE exam, an
entrance examination for engineering graduates for postgraduate study within the IITs, which
has now become the de facto standard for engineering education.
Thus, the end of this phase was marked by decoupling of engineering institutions from engi-
neering jobs, a consolidation of the definition of engineering, and, paradoxically, elite branding
and deployment of the elite engineer into global service.

Phase III: the global alignment

In 2003, the MHRD and the World Bank launched the ‘Technical Education Quality
Improvement Programme’ (TEQIP), a Centre-­sponsored scheme of Rs. 13 billion that sought
to improve the overall quality of select engineering colleges across the country. Not surprisingly
and without offering any analysis, the project documentation began by installing the IITs as role
models and offered a roadmap for the selected 127 colleges (henceforth, TEQIP colleges) to
become like the IITs. These colleges were largely government colleges, i.e. the NITs, the GECs,
and a few well-­performing private ones. The programme was rolled out in two phases. In phase
I, participating colleges were to ‘(i) develop academic excellence, (ii) network with selected
institutions for the benefit of faculty and students, (iii) provide service to community and econ-
omy, (iv) develop management capacity’.9 The words ‘excellence’ and ‘global quality’ appear
about 100 times in the project documentation. The roll-­out of TEQIP was accompanied by (1)
the formation of the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), under the AICTE, and (2) move-
ment towards signing the Washington Protocol (which was accomplished in 2014), which com-
mitted India to a global definition and certification of engineering education.
The objectives of TEQIP translated into requiring TEQIP colleges to (1) improve academic
and management processes (but not to review the curricula) leading to academic autonomy; (2)
improve infrastructure; (3) accredit their programmes to the NBA; and (4) incentivise faculty
members to do research and report it in national and international journals. Though provision
of service to the community was an objective, there was very little design in the programme to
actually affect it or to measure outcomes, and it largely did not happen. Shockingly, the NBA

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 India as an engineering society

points to the American accreditation agency, ABET, as one of the references, thus in effect push-
ing the TEQIP colleges to accredit to ABET – i.e. to a curriculum that does not have ‘sewage’
as an area of study.
Phase II selected 160 colleges, largely covered by phase I, and cemented these ‘global’ out-
comes in existing TEQIP colleges by sponsoring ‘Centres of Excellence’ and by initiating grad-
uate programmes.
The outcomes of TEQIP were as designed. The number of research publications shot up and
new and mysterious fields of research were discovered.10 Actual student outcomes and their
participation in the Indian engineering industry were not measured. Most TEQIP colleges
adopted accreditation, which further consolidated the power of the NBA. Accreditation is now
mandatory for new programmes or increasing the strength of old programmes in all colleges,
new or old, public or private, except for the IITs and the NITs.
Requiring accreditation severely limits the space for new initiatives in engineering educa-
tion, for either these must find a place within ABET or must be led by the IITs and NITs. More
importantly, the TEQIP reform missed an important opportunity to respond to the inherent
needs of the state agencies for new knowledge and new partnerships. It also failed to acknowl-
edge small and medium enterprises as legitimate partners in engineering. These small producers
have little access to quality control, standardisation and certification, packaging, and branding –
i.e. areas where regional institutions would have helped. Thus, TEQIP failed to step outside the
corporatised straitjacket of the disciplinary curriculum. Even today, most engineering graduates,
including those from the IITs, have not seen any of the following as a part of the curriculum: a
factory, small or medium enterprise, a public system (such as a railway station or an urban water
supply system), an ordinary drinking water well, or a chulha. Thus, the final phase established an
alignment of the top tier of engineering colleges with the global definition of engineering and
also put in place a global research metric for faculty performance.
On the vocational side, the polytechnics of the early years bifurcated into the Diploma-­
granting polytechnics governed by the state ministries of education and the Industrial Training
Institutes (ITIs), which offered training in ‘trades’. The Diploma has been slowly decaying until
recently. The ITIs were roughly 11,000 in number in 2014, of which about 2,500 are state-­
funded and the remaining are private institutions. These train roughly 1.2–1.6 million students
each year. Besides this, there are the fewer Industrial Training Centres, which are integrated
within large companies. Typically there is at least one state-­funded ITI in a block, and perhaps
several in industrial towns and cities. These are governed by the Directorate of Vocational
Education, an agency of each state’s ministry of industry, and receive funding and attention based
on its priorities. The objectives, curricula, and pedagogy are, of course, quite different from a
typical institute under the state’s higher education department. Each ITI teaches several ‘trades’
in variable-­duration programmes, but the typical course is between one and two years long.
However, most courses prepare students for trades in the formal sector, which has traditionally
employed a small fraction of all workers. It was only recently that several new trades – e.g. food
processing – have been added which actually cater to the self-­employed or the informal worker.
The input to the ITI is usually secondary or pre-­secondary, and instruction is in an informal
mixture of vernacular and English. A work-­week is typically of 40 hours, of which more than
20 will be spent in the workshop where students work on standard machines and are trained to
measure, quantify, draw, and manufacture standard jobs. Lectures supplement this material and
cover aspects such as costing and safety. The ITI training is capped by an apprenticeship under
the Apprentice Act (and its amendment) and aims to place these graduates within a suitable
company for another year. The ITI has been an important avenue for rural youth to find indus-
trial employment, but performance has differed greatly across states. While in Maharashtra the

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ITI graduate commands a substantial premium, it is only moderate in Tamil Nadu and even less
in some other states. As mentioned earlier, it is only recently that small and medium enterprises
composed of rural and cottage industries and informal enterprises have been able to articulate
their training needs and also their technical and research needs – e.g. in standards, pollution
control, and process modernisation – and bring these to the attention of the ITIs and broader
engineering education and research.
One must mention the professional bodies in India. The Institute of Engineers (IEI) was
founded in 1920 and has about 0.3–0.4 million members. It has administered a certification
exam (AMIE) for the past several decades and many government bodies recognise the AMIE as
being equivalent to a BE/BTech. Its recognition by private companies or other universities is
doubtful. The IEI also publishes a journal that is popular with regional colleges. The Institute
of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineers (IETE) is a sister body of the IEI. The ‘offi-
cial’ Indian National Academy of Engineers, a government-­supported body, started only in 1987,
and does not publish a journal.

The outcomes
The most alarming outcome is the hollowing out of the engineering academia. Elite institutions
have chosen to preserve their ‘autonomy’ and remain subservient to the global research culture.
And they have arranged their incentive structures accordingly (Sohoni 2012). Barely one-­third
of their graduates work in Indian engineering, and barely one-­fifth of their research funding
comes from the industry. As a result, they have very little practical knowledge to offer to its
graduates, the industry, or the state. Research on real-­world problems, i.e. on ‘provincial’ issues
remains largely non-­existent. There are barely a handful of Indian journals of any repute. For
institutions lower down, the projection of the IITs and their curricula as role models, the forces
of ‘global knowledge’, and the bureaucracy of TEQIP and the AICTE have made them feeble
players.
The obvious corollary of this is a uniformly poor quality of education and a job market
which is completely driven by brands and perception. For example, in the JEE (Advanced), the
entrance exam for the IITs, close to 90(!) of the top 100 students choose to study either at IIT
Bombay or IIT Delhi. This is hardly indicative of the quality of education that these provide or
other IITs fail to provide. It has more to do with a vicious cycle of multinational service sector
companies offering multi-­million ‘packages’ to graduates from these institutions, which acts as
the magnet for ‘the best’. This sets up the aspirational dysfunction in the engineering profession: a
few globalised jobs of high wages, a redefinition of the practice of engineering, and a well-­
marketed system of merit, i.e. the JEE. The JEE is based, presumably, on the autonomy and
excellence of science, but whose principal function is to offer a ‘fair’ argument to reject the 98
per cent, perpetuate elite agency and its global linkages, and bolster the legitimacy of the Indian
elite knowledge bureaucracy. As before, provincial governments and their colleges are unable to
play this aspirational game or to contest this notion of science. Nor can they fight this usurpation
of a regional curricula which, if designed well and without this severe distraction, may offer local
relevance, and a system of smaller rewards, but for a large number of graduates, at lower costs and
substantially better odds.
So is this competitive science and engineering competent enough, i.e. does it have a body of
knowledge and is it effective? These two questions strike at the essence of engineering as a pro-
fession, namely expertise and agency. The instinctive answer is of course, a guarded YES. Are we
not building tunnels and bridges? Do we not have mobile coverage over most of India? Are we
not one of the biggest manufacturers of steel? However, it is instructive to look deeper into each

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of these engineering activities. Consider, for example, the standard workhorse of Indian Railways,
the diesel locomotive engine WDM2 of 1962 to the current WDP4 introduced in 2001. Both
are imported designs which were re-­engineered here in India. The plan for the new 6,000 hp
engine is also to import the technology and re-­engineer and not to develop it in-­house.
If we look at the wellbeing of our people, our life expectancy at 65 is the lowest among all
our neighbours, and lower by a full ten years than those of China and South Korea, which had
comparable numbers in 1947. Next, in the basic engineering services of drinking water and
cooking energy, about 70 per cent of our rural households still use biomass in chulhas as an
energy source.Year-­round access to drinking water has actually fallen.11 This is largely a result of
the failure of the state in managing knowledge and practice. For example, do we know how
much water flows in our rivers to implement a reservoir control regime? Why do water supply
schemes fail? Or how does sugarcane in Pune district affect drinking water availability in
Marathwada? More generally, what is the traffic on Indian railways and optimal schedules for
them? Or how to build network routers and manage watersheds? Unfortunately, the answer to
all of these questions is ‘No’. There is no systematic knowledge and agency in any of these areas.
The Indian state remains woefully short on scientific processes, analysis, and training, and must
work without any support from its research institutions. And this is aggravating core develop-
ment outcomes such as drinking water, cooking energy, and public transport.
Looking at the private sector, consumption of engineering goods has increased, but so have
imports and charges for intellectual property. Multinational companies have ramped up their
royalty payments while spending large amounts on marketing and brand-­creation (Varman
2014). They are spending less than 1 per cent of their revenues on R&D. Investments in research
by domestic companies remains tepid and their linkages with research institutions remain weak.
The import bill on electronic equipment is now close to what is spent on importing hydrocar-
bons. The fraction of India’s GDP contributed by the engineering industry has steadily
decreased. Salaried jobs in manufacturing have decreased and casualisation has increased.
Agriculture remains the largest employer by far. Small enterprises with low productivity, poor
quality, and absent branding remain the backbone of employment in manufacturing. And these
have been unable to penetrate the more profitable urban middle-­class markets, thereby allowing
rent extraction by large branded companies.
India remains a poorly engineered society. Many state agencies are in a downward spiral so
that we now hear of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’. The development agenda,
i.e. reduction in poverty through better knowledge in the core sectors, resource management,
and industry, the very basis of our investments in engineering education, remains well outside
the training and research of the engineering system.
Finally, has the culture of science or the access to it changed? Has science and engineering
helped the common man understand and manipulate his material world, or comprehend the
activities of the state or the market? Do we have a collective understanding of how to face
repeated droughts? Is there a civil society to apprehend or comprehend on his or her behalf?
Unfortunately, again, the answer is a resounding ‘NO’. The public imagination of science
remains in elite capture as it has been for the last 50 years. It is now managed by the IITs, IISc,
IISERs, and their funding agencies, as the singular pursuit of a high science for an eventual
greater common good, and of a global race which we will, nay must, win. For students, it is thus
limited to the ‘fair’ merit to locate the top 2 per cent in national exams. Repeatedly, through
various programmes (such as the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana), national agencies identify
the same set of ‘gifted’ students and reward them and reaffirm their faith in elite agency. Excluded
from it (statistically) are the poor, the rural and the vernacular, girls, and students from State
Boards.12

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Curiously, this competitive ‘science’ of the 2 per cent may have the vocabulary of refractive
indices, aldehydes, and ketones, or the latus rectum, but there are no people in it and no events. It
has no biographies and no role models, e.g. of the illustrious chief engineer, the neighbourhood
factory or rice-­mill owner, the local blacksmith, or the girls on their machines in the village
handloom. It has no measurements, no theorising, and no comprehension. Nor does it have the
design of experiments or of arguments. It does not measure, e.g. the efficiency of chulhas in a
village, or argue for better bus routes. It has no case studies, no piecemeal social engineering, no
memory of repeated droughts, and no accounting of the long trips to fetch firewood. It has no
agency, nor a theory of causation and no outcomes for the bottom 98 per cent. In fact, it is a
bureaucracy which will never have the idioms and dialects necessary for a true science to emerge. No, Indian
science and engineering does not answer ‘Why am I poor?’ or ‘Why did my child die?’

Where do we go from here?

This is a difficult question but let us begin with some observations.

Four observations
One, much of science and engineering for a society are closely aligned and operate on a com-
mon mechanism. This cyclic mechanism is of a paired system of vocabularies, one which is
external, e.g. natural or social, and the other which is internal or conceptual and a feedback loop.
The loop is composed of cultural skills of (1) translation, i.e. of theorising and validation, or in
engineering, of design and implementation; (2) a theory of outcomes and of soundness; and (3)
a rigour, i.e. a process of accumulation of knowledge. A system of rigour may well be empirical,
i.e. borne out of experience, or may seek tight mathematical relations between the two vocabu-
laries or a combination of the two. Each of these is a social and cultural choice, and also depends
on prevalent ideologies or schools of thought for repairing faulty theories. Thus, a science for a
society is determined by various material as well as cultural realities. A potter, a theoretical physi-
cist, an urban planner, and a professional violinist from within a society will each have a different
science, and the tapestry of such sciences is the scientific culture of that society.
Two, what is claimed as global science and technology is actually such a tapestry of cultural
outcomes of the pursuit of the West for its own material and cultural wellbeing. This science has
been developed by both amateur and professional scientists, by political agents, and shaped and
chiselled by the many scholarly and popular critiques of cultural and philosophical agents. Its
libraries and journals, the Ivy League, Fermat’s Theorem, the Bunsen burners, and round-­bottom
flasks are artefacts of this pursuit. None of these are predestined to be on the trajectory of every
culture in its hunt for its science and engineering. Many of the West’s programmes, such as
anthropometry in the past, or neoclassical economics and genetic biotechnology of the present,
are fraught with danger. Moreover, the West itself is going through a crisis of elite capture, but
more on that later.
Three, there is a great reliance of elite Indian institutions on the borrowed rigour of Western
science and engineering and its artefacts such as journals, universities, and institutions, and there-
fore on its external and internal vocabulary of describing society. Much of this reliance is hard-­
wired into professional curricula and career advancement within academia and also within large
national and multinational corporations. This is accompanied by an insistence on the apparent
‘autonomy’ of this borrowed science as being its true nature. There is also a great confusion
regarding the very nature of rigour and whether Indian problems are actually amenable to rigor-
ous articulation and solution in the chosen vocabularies. The answer to this last question is, of

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course, ‘No’. The claim of universality of Western science by a few agents of the West or our
elite must be viewed as arising from this confusion, or as the purely strategic objective of rent-­
seeking, or finally as the intellectual laziness in constructing the required vocabularies and sys-
tems of rigour and soundness. The water sector, or for that matter computer science and
engineering, in India presents us with examples of all of the above.
Finally,Western science has now been superseded by a modern global science, an agency of the
global economy. This is a coalition of iconic researchers spanning all disciplines of knowledge,
multilateral agencies, and elite institutions which seeks to propagate and consolidate elite agency.
It does this by insisting on (1) an idea of a ‘rational’ behaviour which is natural, i.e. without
culture or politics; (2) an idea of a scarce and rarified science of breathtaking power and global
reach, i.e. an overarching explanation for all phenomena, regional or global; (3) an insistence on
‘gold standards’ for evidence, thereby controlling the legitimacy of regional studies by regional
agents and restricting its impact on the conduct of science; and finally (4) appropriation of words
such as Development Economics or Development Engineering13 to deal with the ‘irrational’
world, and to put their usage under expert supervision. It obviously sees a useful client in Indian
elite science.

The way ahead

The way ahead is to set aside the hegemony of a scarce and transcendental science and build the
empirical foundations for a broader and more democratic knowledge formation. This new sci-
ence should move away from the purely disciplinary and industrial employee-­engineer to a
model of the engineer-­scientist as a social agent. It should prepare our youth for a more direct
role in probing their material reality and to try to change it. The exact design of such a science
and engineering must be done carefully for it must slowly disentangle itself from the 2 per cent
outcome game of elite science and its aspirational ladder. On the other hand, it must engage
with the small and medium enterprises, the core sectors of agriculture, water, energy, and envi-
ronment, and local agencies and state departments. The state should, in turn, see these social
agents as essential collaborators if it must ride over the severe environmental stresses which lie
ahead.
This must begin with hundreds of rigorous case studies that students can execute and which
formalise the problems in their vicinity and thus set them up for discussion and eventual solu-
tion. These may be, e.g. templates for government programmes such as the watershed pro-
gramme, or energy and technology audits of neighbourhood enterprises, or computer models
of urban water supply systems. Over the years, these case studies will develop into a body of
knowledge and of practitioners who will deliver engineering value to the community. It will
define a new and innovative profession – the vernacular engineer – as one who is well-­versed with
the interdisciplinarity of everyday life, the normative concerns of community development, and
who can access various disciplinary skills to deliver solutions. It will define a rigour of its own,
which is sound, which has agency, and yet which is accessible to the community to contest and
refine. The faculty member is then a community consultant as well as a role model, and the
institution the regional knowledge resource. Such an approach will restore science and engi-
neering as the cultural pursuits they really should be.14
Broadly speaking, a cultural and convivial society and a matching science and engineering is
the only path that will avoid the ‘rational’ traps of modern global science. Perhaps, more impor-
tantly, it will empower us as a society to understand that the contours of the state and the market,
and even of science, depend on the consumption choices that we make. Ultimately our consump-
tion, and what attributes we choose to discern in it, will decide the modes of production and

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the knowledge of that society to produce it. If we must have branded and world-­class (but mass-­
produced) goods offered by a few iconic companies, then science must locate the ‘top’ 2 per
cent to manage such companies, and shove a lot of wealth and power into their hands. If we
must live longer at any cost, and track every courier package online, then our science will create
cocoons of managed environments for a few of us, while the rest of us, and our co-­habitants on
this planet, must stay in a largely degraded and unstable biosphere. It is this cultural choice of
consumption that will underpin the viability of the vernacular engineer and the sustainability of
our diverse society and its environs. Perhaps it is the only path to ensure that the beauty and
bounty of the seasons and a teeming multitude of cultures and organisms remain on this earth.

Conclusions
How does all this connect with the broader contours of higher education in India? First, the
focus on numeric and universal targets of access, equity, and quality hides an essential confusion
about the destination society for which the design of higher education is needed. Only after this
confusion is resolved can the objectives of higher education be stated and the choice of a cur-
riculum and pedagogy, of rewards and recognitions, be made.
The heart of this confusion actually lies in the theory and practice of Indian social science. It
comes from the inability of elite Indian social science to see vernacular life and the vicinity as
subjects of common study and vernacular practices as possible instruments of change. Or per-
haps from its fear of an unreconciled past placing unforeseen obstacles in forging a culture for
the future. In engineering, it appears simply as an unsaid commitment to a corporatist society as
a matrix in which culture may be expressed, and a devotion of the state’s energy and treasure to
train employees for this future society. It ignores, as we have argued, the agency of cultural agents
and the historical antecedents of Western corporate societies, our role models, and their science
and engineering. As a corollary, it pays scant attention to the knowledge needs of the vast num-
ber of non-­corporate entities – the small enterprises, the district administrations, the elected
representatives – who serve an increasing fraction of our population. It also ignores the incom-
prehension of the vernacular student who must look at her own immediate material environ-
ment with great detachment, become ‘globally competitive’ and yet not be assured of such a job.

Table 10.1 Starting jobs by sectors for IIT Bombay graduates in 2013

Placements IIT Bombay 2013

Sector Engineering Finance Consulting IT

Super-­GG 25 (2.77) 10 (3.5)   7 (5.4) 42 (5.13)

GG 116 (0.79) 82 (1.17) 110 (0.96) 102 (1)
IG 54 (0.65) 19 (0.72) 11 (0.58) 28 (0.72)
GI 24 (0.93) 10 (1.42) 10 (0.52)   5 (0.93)
II 64 (0.65) 13 (0.95)   8 (0.58) 22 (0.79)

Source: All tables in the chapter are compiled by the author; prepared by the author from data provided by the
Placement Office, IIT Bombay.
GG refers to a global company serving a global market (e.g. Bank America or General Electric), while II refers to an
Indian company serving the Indian market (e.g. Ambuja Cement or Tata Motors). IG and GI are similarly explained (e.g.
Infosys and Hindustan Unilever respectively). Super-­GG are placements abroad. The number, e.g. 116 (0.79) indicates
the number placed and the average annual salary in rupees (million).

170
Table 10.2 Average household spending on education by families having one studying member

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh Rajasthan Rajasthan Odisha Odisha Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu
Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural

Households with Mean (Rs.) 9,919 5,706 19,096 4,362 5,765 1,787 11,046 8,493
one studying Number of 365 373 235 263 143 291 373 293
male samples
Gini 0.61 0.58 0.56 0.64 0.65 2.70 0.64 0.67
Households with Mean (Rs.) 9,233 3,752 9,369 3,431 4,270 2,292 12,653 6,949
one studying Number of 281 245 98 126 94 191 321 259
female samples
Gini 0.61 0.55 0.60 0.56 0.82 0.76 0.65 9.69

Source: the author’s analysis of 68th round data, NSSO, 2012.

Milind Sohoni

Table 10.3 Number of papers published with at least one Indian author, by word appearing in title of
the paper: novel areas of research

Topic (Phrase) All years preceding 2003 2003–09 (TEQIP I) 2010 onwards (TEQIP II)

Neural network 692 1,818 2,467

Fuzzy logic 110 327 759
Wavelets 96 905 1,846
Genetic algorithms 262 989 1,373

Source: prepared by the author from data obtained from Scopus, an online catalogue of scientific publications.

Table 10.4 Number of papers published with at least one Indian author, by word appearing in title of
the paper: research in engineering services

Topic (Phrase) All years preceding 2003 2003–09 (TEQIP I) 2010 onwards (TEQIP II)

Water supply 84 74 87
Sanitation 30 51 63
Groundwater models 11 29 70
Public transport 5 15 25
Power grid 12 56 288

Source: prepared by the author from data obtained from Scopus, an online catalogue of scientific publications.

Table 10.5 Statistics of students appearing for and qualifying for entrance to the IITs by gender

JEE 2012 JEE (Advanced) 2013

Appeared Qualified Pass (%) Appeared Qualified Pass (%)

Boys 337,916 21,226 6.28 103,660 18,468 17.8

Girls 168,568 2,886 1.71 23,089 2,366 10.2
Percentage girls 33.2 11.9 – 18.2 11.4 –

Source: prepared by the author from various publicly available sources.

Table 10.6 Statistics of students appearing for and qualifying for entrance to the IITs by place of passing
the XII standard (%)

JEE 2011 JEE 2012 JEE (Advanced) 2014

Cohort Registered Qualified Registered Qualified Registered Qualified

Village 19 10 19 11 13 10
Town 29 25 29 26 19 14
City 52 65 52 63 68 76

Source: prepared by the author from various publicly available sources.

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 India as an engineering society

It ignores that the skills of manipulation, articulation, description and argumentation are essential to
any science and that the vicinity is the real laboratory.
How will this change? Indian science lacks both an external as well as an internal critique.
The internal non-­elite critic has been delegitimised by elite capture. The absence of a systematic
external critique is more remarkable, for it is the dog that did not bark. It perhaps hides vested
interests within other areas of our academe or a true confusion about where our society is
headed. For the social sciences, elite or vernacular, this constitutes an important responsibility
which they must squarely face. They must design alternative worlds for a diverse society such as
ours and inform us on our choices. They must tell us what is amenable to science and engineer-
ing and what is not. They must tell our vernacular youth what is worth learning and who are their
role models. Must we chase mirages of global jobs or resign ourselves to ‘skilling’ for mundane
temporary jobs? Is there anything in my decrepit world which is beautiful which I must learn
to describe? Is culture malleable? How do I articulate and argue for a different social reality and
bring it into existence? Can both knowledge and agency exist within me? Can I and my com-
munity forge a common future? Or is escape for the few the only solution?

Notes
1 A broader discussion by this author, of engineering and society and the creation of value, is avail-
able as Knowledge and Practice for India as a Developing Country, at www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~sohoni/kpidc.pdf
(accessed on 12 October 2015). A shorter version was published in Seminar in February 2014.
2 See, for example, the agenda of the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems at the Carnegie Mellon
University.
3 The Viceroy’s office set up the Sarkar Committee in 1946 to consider the setting-up of new institutions
for the industrial development of India. An online version is available at: www.iitsystem.ac.in/admin/
SarkarCommitteeReport.pdf (accessed on 12 October 2015).
4 By an elite class, we mean (1) a class which has inordinate influence as compared to its size, and (2) an
acceptance of this influence as being reasonable. See, e.g. Gramsci’s writings on cultural hegemony.
5 AICTE Approval Process Handbook, published every year by the AICTE, India.
6 See statistics available at AICTE website. Also see Banerjee and Muley (2007).
7 See Table 10.1, taken from author’s submission to the AICTE, available at www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~sohoni/
commentsAICTE.pdf, and which is to appear in the Current Science journal. It illustrates that much
of the IIT Bombay goes into the global services sector, that which is left is pressed into engineering
services for a global society.
8 The NSSO data also reveal that households are spending huge amounts on education and that there is
great inequality in this spending across states, across genders, and across rural and urban households. See,
for example, Table 10.2.
9 TEQIP phase I and II documents are available with the National Project Implementation Unit of
MHRD. They are also available online at: www.npiu.nic.in/archives.htm (Phase I) and www.npiu.nic.
in/ongngprj.htm (Phase II) (accessed on 12 October 2015).
10 Research areas such as ‘Wavelets, Simulated Annealing’ and ‘Genetic Algorithms’ have thousands of
papers published by Indian researchers (see Tables 10.3 and 10.4). Thus, we see a proliferation of areas
of research with little practical relevance, and very little research on our basic engineering systems such
as groundwater or electricity.
11 This is seen from various rounds of the NSSO survey on basic amenities or by the census data of 2001
and 2011.
12 See Tables 10.5 and 10.6. Girls constitute only about 11 per cent of the total student strength in the IITs.
This is in stark contrast to the fact that about 30 per cent of engineering students are now girls. Moreover,
in the less competitive CBSE XII exam, girls excel at all levels. Similarly, about 11 per cent of IIT students
come from rural backgrounds. More than 70 per cent come from cities (as opposed to towns). More than
50 per cent of students who succeeded in the JEE (Advanced) 2014 were from the CBSE.
13 See, for example, the composition of the editorial board of the highly regarded journal Development
Economics, or the new journal Development Engineering. Also see the scope of these journals and their
notion of rigour.

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Milind Sohoni

14 One step in this direction was taken in October 2014 by the launch of the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan
(http://unnat.iitd.ac.in) by MHRD, which mandates the IITs to (1) build an understanding of the
development agenda as an academic pursuit; (2) to bring interdisciplinarity, stakeholders, outcomes,
and fieldwork into the curricula; (3) to work as a regional knowledge resource by consulting with
local bodies; (4) to improve development outcomes by collaborating with state agencies; and finally
(5) to foster a broader dialogue on science, society, and environment. It also requires each institution
to form an empowered cell to execute the programme. The mandate thus requires the IITs to recast
their incentive structures. Moreover, the abhiyan offers a unique window of opportunity for state gov-
ernments to reclaim the science and engineering agenda and use elite institutions as a part of their
regional knowledge infrastructure. Most importantly, through provision (3) it makes the elite institu-
tions accountable to the common person for his or her knowledge needs. In principle, by citing the
abhiyan, a gram panchayat may approach an IIT to analyse their water supply problems. The programme
does not come with attached funding; this must be found within each state’s governance processes.
Locating such processes (which are ample) and aligning them with the abhiyan should be an agenda
for civil society organisations to pursue with their state governments. In January 2015, the state of
Maharashtra launched the Unnat Maharashtra Abhiyan (see www.dtemaharashtra.gov.in/teqip/CMS/
Content_Static.aspx?did=325 or www.ctara.iitb.ac.in/tdsc/uma, the mirror site hosted by CTARA).

References
ASCE. 2008. Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st Century, 2nd, edn. American Society of Civil
Engineers.
Banerjee, R., and Muley,V.P. 2007. Engineering Education in India. Observer Research Foundation.
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 11
Discourse of teacher education
in India
Latika Gupta

The context
This chapter focuses on the Bachelor of Education (BEd), i.e. training programme for second-
ary-­and senior-­secondary-­level teachers offered by Indian universities in their departments of
education and in affiliated colleges. In the last three decades, beginning since the mid-­1980s,
there have been widespread efforts to reform elementary education in India. However, the sec-
ondary and senior secondary stages of school escaped with sketchy efforts to reform. The only
significant effort relevant for these stages has been the identification of priorities in the National
Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 (NCERT 2006) and the development of textbooks under
its aegis. The NCF 2005 based textbooks are not used by all states and systems of school educa-
tion. The training of the teachers to teach in secondary and senior secondary schools remained
largely unreformed and impervious to the growing demand for an overhaul throughout the
entire country. In the last three decades, winds of discontent blew over different institutions
related to education, and dissatisfaction was expressed over established curricula of teacher train-
ing (TT) institutions. Despite increasing criticism, universities had failed to innovate and make
the BEd more attuned to the developments in the field of educational theory.
In December 2014, major changes were notified by the National Council for Teacher
Education (NCTE) in the Gazette of India in teacher training programmes for all stages of school
education. The background to this notification lay in the appointment of a commission by the
Supreme Court in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking judicial intervention in
matters pertaining to the recognition of private teacher education institutions. Chaired by the
late Justice J.S.Verma, this commission gave wide-­ranging recommendations for reforms in this
sector, including remodelling in the BEd and other programmes, and in the functioning of the
NCTE, an apex regulatory body with statutory powers. The duration of the BEd programme
was increased from one to two years and its curriculum was changed at the behest of the NCTE.
The two-­year BEd programme is different from its antecedent not just in terms of duration but
also in the emphasis it attaches to certain practicum and theoretical courses. The first batch of
the revised BEd programme has been admitted in all the universities and colleges of India in
2015 and its nuances are unfolding at different places in different ways. This marks an opportune
moment to interpret some of the key features of the discourse on BEd. Here, it is important to

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-15 175

Latika Gupta

remember that the demand for a reform neither came from the schools nor from the institutions
of TTs. This prompts many critics to wonder whether this change in norms and standards will
succeed in transforming the way candidates are trained to be secondary-­and senior-­secondary-­
level teachers in India and whether such teachers can bring fresh energy into school education.

Bachelor of Education (BEd): a description and reflection

The BEd programme is composed mainly of three kinds of engagement. In the first category are
the foundation courses that familiarise students with the theoretical postulates of education, its
philosophy, psychology, sociology, and political science. Conventionally, the foundation courses have
been: (1) philosophy of education, (2) psychology of education, and (3) contemporary concerns and
trends in education. As the titles suggest, these courses offer perspectives formulated in other disci-
plines but relevant to education. In some universities, the first course had a more grounded title, i.e.
issues in educational theory or similar. However, even in those universities, students and teachers
referred to this course as a philosophy paper – Delhi University being a case in point.
The second category of engagement in BEd belongs to the realm of practical work, with an
idea of giving some experience and exposure to the functioning of a school and a teacher’s
work-­life. As a regulatory body, the NCTE had prescribed a norm that trainee teachers must
‘transact’ 40 lessons for two subjects during their school placement. This implied that a trainee
teacher taught topics of two subjects over 40 school periods. Faculty members were associated
with every school group for monitoring and mentoring the trainee teachers during their school
experience. The supervisors, irrespective of their area of research and interest, observed all the
trainees in one school while teaching their subjects in different classes, and gave feedback about
pedagogy, classroom management, relationship with the students, language skills, and so on. This
involved a lot of negotiation with the schools. The supervisors had to constantly spend time and
effort in convincing the principals to allow the trainees to carry on teaching in regular periods
and not only give games or music periods to BEd trainees. There was a great deal of variation
across universities in this dimension of BEd. The students of several colleges affiliated to the
Delhi government universities never got more than a week to ten days to teach. They had to
make do with whichever class was available, whenever it was possible.
The school experience programme was operationalised in a learning–trying–learning sense.
The students went to school on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to teach and came to the
department on the remaining days of the week from September to January every week. In the
remaining months, they attended theory classes on a regular basis. This arrangement of one day
in the department and the next day in the school provided a specific character to TT institutions.
Everybody was seen to be running around chasing a goal. The students were occupied in get-
ting their lesson-­plans checked so they could use them on the following day, and the faculty
members were caught up in giving feedback to every student and counting the number of
remaining lessons to be observed for every student. Everybody was anxious and nervous.
In addition to direct school experience, there was a component of community outreach in
BEd. The students were expected to do voluntary work in orphanages, old-­age homes, or other
such institutions. The idea that a teacher was essentially a community developer originated in
educational circles immediately after Independence and seeped into the structure of TT pro-
grammes as well. J.K. Shukla (1970) has identified two trends in the professional preparation of
teachers in India. First, ‘increased emphasis on social understanding and social service’; and
­second, ‘increasing emphasis on direct experience through participation, visits, organising com-
munity service camps and so on’ (p. 30). The idea of the teacher as a community developer has

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its roots in the colonial history of India and found a place in the discourse and practice of
teacher education. The examination-­centred character of the Indian education system (Kumar
2014) ensured that this aspect of social service was assessed by the teacher educators when allo-
cating marks. This component has been dispensed with in the reformed structure by the NCTE.
However, it is necessary to take note of this component as it kept the notion alive that a teacher-­
in-­the-­making needed personality traits and acumen for social service more than professional
knowledge and excitement for ideas. For more than 50 years, teachers-­in-­the-­making donated
clothes to poor people and got marks for it.
The third category of engagement is of pedagogy courses in which the focus area is how to
teach a particular subject to students of different levels. The word pedagogy is a new entry in
this context. The term in vogue has been methodology or methods. Conventionally, pedagogy
courses have been of two levels. In level-one courses, students learned the strategies of teaching
one subject to secondary-­level students, i.e. Grade VI–X. In level-two courses, students learned
teaching strategies of the same subject to Grade XI and XII students. These levels were termed
as level A and B or 1 and 2. The students who enrolled in a BEd programme after completing
a master’s degree in their subject were allowed to opt for level B/2 methodology courses. The
students who enrolled in BEd after their graduation were allowed to take two methods courses
from related or sometimes unrelated disciplines. This often resulted in strange combinations of
subjects that students took, and had no consistency with the demands that the school system
posed. For instance, the subject combinations that students got were: English and mathematics,
English and Hindi, chemistry and English, and so on. In the reformed BEd structure, the level
distinction in pedagogy courses has been removed, but in implementation it remains a grey area.
The belief that teaching children in upper-­primary grades is absolutely different from teaching
students in senior-secondary grades is so firmly entrenched in the system that the implementa-
tion of the reformed perspective on pedagogy is currently facing considerable resistance.
The popular notion has been that the candidates preparing to be teachers need to acquire a
collection of strategies or techniques in order to make the transmission of the body of knowledge
appealing to the learner. Writing more than 45 years ago, Shukla drew a conclusion that ‘the
programme for the preparation of teachers, in order to be effective, should provide scope for
continuing increase in subject-­knowledge and the necessary skills and techniques needed for
imparting that knowledge in a classroom situation’ (1970: 39). As we can see, a teacher is perceived
as a skilful transmitter of knowledge – read: information – given in the prescribed textbooks.
Figure 11.1 presents the essential components of the curriculum of teacher education
programmes.
Minor differences crept into the organisation of the three components across universities
because of specific influences. For instance, a course in gender was a part of the elective courses
in BEd in some universities, whereas in others students completed their programme without
hearing the word ‘gender’. Across universities and a time span of several decades, the basic struc-
ture of the BEd programme remained largely the same, comprising the three categories shown
in Figure 11.1. This was observed by the National Focus Group (NCERT 2007) that was set up
to discuss teacher education in India:

A quick glance through surveys of educational research in India conducted periodically

over the years 1974–1998 substantiates the point that teacher education programmes
have remained unchanged in terms of their substance, experiences offered and modalities
adopted.
(ibid.: 3)

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Latika Gupta

A. Education
knowledge
School subject, philosophy,
sociology, and psychology

Teacher

B. Training C. Practical
skills training
Methods and techniques Exposure to school,
to convey subject classroom, art and craft,
knowledge theatrics, strategy

Figure 11.1 Three curricular components of teacher education programmes.

Source: all figures in the chapter are drawn by the author.

The knowledge of an uncanny uniformity in BEd across time and geographical location
became accessible to me in personal settings as well. My identity in the neighbourhood and the
kinship is that of a BEd teacher. Often, I faced questions from acquaintances, strangers, and rela-
tives: I am doing BEd, please tell me how should I prepare for the final exams? What are the
important topics? I faced these questions in diverse social gatherings such as birthday parties,
wedding ceremonies, and funerals, in hospitals, markets, and in tailor shops across several towns
of north India and in southern states too. The confidence with which so many diverse ques-
tioners asked it revealed to me the general perception and the reality of BEd. They did not
perceive BEd any differently from graduate and postgraduate programmes in which high scores
in the final examinations constituted the most important dimension. The examinations are
conducted in the form of a one-­time 2–3-­hour written test. The questions are based on select
topics and are direct in nature, requiring reproduction of learned information. The questioners
were aware that a BEd programme did not require any different kind of engagement from
liberal arts and science programmes, even though there was a provision of 10–15 per cent inter-
nal assessment in every course and the practicum was evaluated without an exam. The require-
ment was to rote memorise the answers to potential questions which would be asked in the
examinations and score highly. Hence, the candidates could imagine a sacrosanct uniformity
and saw me as a source of information about important topics and expected questions in the
final examinations.
The BEd programme attracted severe criticism in the reports of all the major commissions
set up to study school education over the last 50 years. The recognition of the problem of ill-­
prepared teachers led to the creation of several NGOs that tried to improve teacher quality by
providing in-­service training. However, the basic organising principle of TT wasn’t altered.
‘A whole century has gone by without the instrumentalist character of teacher training being
challenged or reformed’ (Kumar 2008: 38). Batra (2009) has identified six factors responsible for
the stagnation in this discipline, out of which two have a direct bearing on the daily experiences
of students and teachers in a BEd programme.

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The first factor is the popularity of belief in a discourse that unlinks ‘theoretical reflection’
from effective educational practice. Borrowing from Carr (2003), she draws implications of the
belief that teaching is envisaged as a matter of practical tricks which doesn’t require any theoreti-
cal support. I often heard an allegory in policy discussions which reflected this discourse: A
teacher is like a driver who should know how to work with a steering wheel, gears, and brakes
in order to drive. A driver doesn’t need to understand the machinery, functioning of the engine,
or larger issues of vehicular pollution.
Batra’s second factor is that in TT no attempt is made to ‘develop a grounded understanding
of children’s thinking and learning processes, curricular and pedagogic studies within the Indian
socio-­political context’ (Batra 2009: 128). The integration of theory into practice is either not
attempted or is over-­simplified to certain behaviouristic notions. The mechanised theories of
education, borrowed from late nineteenth-­century Europe, have found a permanent settlement
in the BEd programme. The over-­simplified link between theory and practice is the result of
this settlement. An attempt has been made in this chapter to capture the nuances of the experi-
ences of a student in a BEd programme, which can enable us to assess the extent to which the
recently brought about policy-­level changes will alter the discourse of BEd. For this assessment,
we will review three points. The first one is teacher-­educators.

Teacher-educators
Russel (1925) identified certain problems of departments of education in England; he discussed
the teacher-­educator as one of these. The job of teacher-­educators is to organise students’ learn-
ing in three categories. These three cornerstones of teacher preparation have become so sacro-
sanct in the Indian system that they define the identity of teacher-­educators and categorise them
into distinct leagues. The first constituent creates the identity of foundation course teachers; the
second creates pedagogues; and the third leads to the role-­identity of an expert supervisor who
could be from either of the first two categories. This distinction of specialisation among teacher-­
educators gets further classified into subcategories. The subcategory of the first constituent is
expert in psychological foundations or philosophical or sociological or contemporary thinker in
education (alluding to all the policies and concerns).
The second constituent created the identity of pedagogues of different school subjects. The
teachers of foundation courses are considered ineligible to teach a pedagogy course and peda-
gogues are not expected to teach foundation courses. The criteria for deciding who would fall
within which constituent category are based on the subject that the person has studied for his/
her postgraduate degree. If the postgraduate programme was in any of the three core disciplines,
then the teacher-­educator becomes a foundation course teacher. If the postgraduate degree was
in any of the school subjects, then the teacher-­educator becomes a pedagogue. Rarely is this rule
flouted. These identities are so fixed in BEd that they create impervious boundaries for any
exchange of ideas. And, it is within these impenetrable boundaries that the learning of students
takes place. Physically, the students permeate through the boundaries because they interact with
teachers in all the ‘identity’ groups, but cognitively the osmosis through which the teachings of
different teachers mingle and coalesce only takes place in a student’s mind. The teachers do not
aim for any cohesion between different theoretical viewpoints.
The interaction between the teachers of different foundation courses – at the level of syllabus
formulation and teaching – is completely uncalled for or is unwarranted because, after all, they
stem from three distinct disciplines, i.e. psychology, philosophy, and sociology. As a result of a
hermetic conceptualisation of these courses, students do not get a chance to engage with their
full complexity and do not develop the ability to understand children in totality by drawing on

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Latika Gupta

ideas from different fields. For instance, students are expected to engage with the criticism of
behaviourism as a framework to understand learning in one foundation course and explore its
alternatives. This engagement has the potential to introduce them to the development in the
field of cognitive theory in which the progressive perspectives on learning moved beyond the
idea of behavioural change almost 50 years ago (Bruner 2004). However, in a different founda-
tion course, students learn the theory of behaviourism as a source of ideas to ensure learning.
BEd students do learn about structuralism and constructivism, but without acquiring a develop-
mental perspective required to appreciate the shifts in the theoretical world. One doesn’t need a
genius to guess what happens as a result of this gap. The students do not get inspired by theoreti-
cal ideas to function as a teacher in most cases. They start viewing behaviourism and construc-
tivism as equally relevant and efficient theories. As a result, when they teach they end up
interacting with children with the instincts that they imbibe in the socio-­cultural ethos of
Indian society in which adults interact with children by hitting and scolding them regularly
(Kumar 2011).

Lesson-plan
A specific kind of hiatus exists between foundation and pedagogy courses. It is important to
point out here that though the students get theoretical perspectives from several teachers, their
pedagogical perspective comes only from one teacher, who is the method master.1 The students
learn in foundation courses that teaching is not ‘telling’. The real meaning of teaching is to cre-
ate opportunities in which learners arrive at an understanding in the same manner in which that
knowledge was developed in a specific field. They also engage with epistemological issues that
knowledge is not a compilation of topics and sub-­topics. It involves grasping of fundamental
principles, development of basic attitudes and hunches for a discipline, and excitement for its
applicability. However, in pedagogy courses, this understanding does not get related to the spe-
cifics of a discipline and its constituent school subject. This epistemological nuance does not
acquire a specific discipline-­based flavour in the pedagogy course. The discourse of the peda-
gogy course is largely shaped by the terms shown in Figure 11.2.
The use of the word ‘method’ can be easily found in the syllabus of pedagogy courses across
Indian universities. Kumaravadivelu (2001) states that in the 1990s congruence was achieved in
teacher education between the two mutually informing currents of thought in America. One
argued for the need to go beyond the limitations of the concept of method and another empha-
sised the need to go beyond the limitations of the transmission model of teacher education.
These currents of thought reflect a long-­felt dissatisfaction with the concept of method as the
organising principle of teacher education. However, departments of education in Indian

Resources based
approaches in
teaching, teaching-
Approaches to
learning material
learning,
teaching-learning
Teacher’s
methods, techniques
personality,
and strategies
outlook,
presentability

Figure 11.2 Discourse of pedagogy courses.

180
 Discourse of teacher education in India

universities remained ignorant of such ideas and maintained the water-­tight distinction between
theory and method. Furlong has analysed this distinction as ‘one of the most abiding dilemmas
in the UK’ (2013: 69). According to him, four broad discourses about what it means to know as
a teacher have been identified so far in the UK. They are: liberal education, propositional
knowledge, practical knowledge, and moral knowledge. The dilemma remains how much time
should be devoted to each of these and in what manner. In the Indian context, this distinction
continues to escape any sense of scrutiny, and faculty members teach without any quandary.
There is no common will to recognise this distinction as a challenge and to work around
addressing it. To this, the flavour of India’s socio-­cultural hierarchy gets added and the introduc-
tion of any ideas becomes a personalised battle. ‘My idea is better than your idea’ or ‘I do not
like your idea’ are the general reactions to the feeble attempts made to raise issues such as soften-
ing of the boundaries between foundation and pedagogy courses.
As a result of this, pedagogy and foundation courses carry on as several parallel streams in the
lives of students. In the foundation courses they think about future learners’ caste, age, develop-
mental stage, identity, and so on; in the pedagogy courses they think about school subjects. The
imagined learners’ (to be taught by BEd students in schools later) caste, religion, and adolescence
cease to be important factors. The imagined learner in school becomes a recipient of the
knowledge offered by political science or chemistry or English in isolation. In this method
model, it falls outside the realm of political science how a young person conceptualises the idea
of choice and decision making in school when she is facing an identity crisis in adolescence as
theorised by Erikson (1959). For instance, the pedagogy course in mathematics does not engage
with the challenges that students face in Grade VI and VII, when they are 12–13 years old and
the capacity for formal operational thought begins to develop (Elkind 1981). The units of alge-
bra and arithmetic acquire a different kind of pedagogic challenge if the teachers-­in-­training
realise that the learners in school may not have reached the stage of formal operational thought.
This requires a convergence between knowledge that psychology offers and the nuances of
mathematical concepts.
This example helps us to identify the two distinct worlds that BEd students inhabit when
they sit in the classes of foundation and pedagogy courses. The aims of education (discussed in
the foundation courses) never get synchronised with the purpose of teaching chemistry or
geography or any other school subject. The criticism of behaviourism never finds an extension
in pedagogy courses. Thus, students make Thermocol2 models of polling booths, election sym-
bols of political parties, atoms, animal cells, bulbs, telephones, and equilateral triangles, and so on.
Environmentalism is a concern that all the disciplines address and students develop notice boards
and organise events to draw attention to these environmental concerns. However, even while
making their own models, the students do not exhibit any sensitivity towards the environment.
No pedagogy course trains them to use disciplinary knowledge to take decisions about their
own conduct. The culmination of pedagogic discourse is in the form of lesson-plans that stu-
dents make to teach certain topics during their school placement (the erstwhile term is ‘practice
teaching’; now in vogue is ‘school experience’). A lesson-plan includes a topic to be taught,
specific and general objectives, children’s previous knowledge (as expected by the trainee), mate-
rials to be used, questions to be asked and answers to be expected, and finally, recapitulation and
homework. One important dimension of lesson-­planning is that of questions to be asked by the
teacher as well as the expected answers that children would give. BEd students read Socratic
dialogues and Buber’s (1958) construction of dialogue, but in their lesson-­plans they perceive a
teacher’s main job as that of posing questions. Ideas like child-­centred education and construc-
tivist teaching remain confined to the theory courses and are not reflected in lesson-­plans.
Often, students recognise the tension, but carry on with the flow of ritualised, mechanised

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teaching that their lesson-­plans reflect. Sinha observed that ‘they are depressingly similar to the
usual teaching that goes on. Nothing strikes new in terms of the conceptualisation of classroom
transactions’ (2002: 19).
There is a sharp contrast between the expectation from the BEd students and the reality.
They are taught to become critical about the manner in which schools function and teachers
teach. They learn about the importance of critical engagement with the learner and the subject
matter when they study Dewey, Krishnamurti, and Freire, but they do not get the opportunity
to apply this learning while planning their teaching activities. As a result, within their BEd pro-
gramme span, they fall back on the ritualised manner of teaching. The journey of ideas that they
pursue in foundation courses does not carry on in pedagogy courses. ‘The lesson-­plan culture
perpetuates a “product” model of pedagogic work’ (Kumar 2002: 12). In this culture, the teach-
er’s job is to create products that give a structure to their work and which become evidence of
their work. The lesson-­plan has become established as the most important product. In this
dichotomy, ideas do not inform their practice. What informs their practice is the stuff about
transmission given in pedagogy courses. This degree of desynchronisation between ideas
expressed in different courses certainly creates cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957).
Raina and Raina conducted a study to determine what concepts teacher-­educators in India
have of the ideal student in terms of characteristics to be encouraged, as well those to be dis-
couraged. Out of 62 characteristics, the chosen top six were: (1) industrious, (2) considerate of
others, (3) receptive of others, (4) obedient, (5) courteous, and (6) does work on time. Indian
teacher-­educators assigned less importance to asking questions, independent thinking, and
unwillingness to accept things without examining the evidence. The authors speculated that
‘the emphasis on industriousness is perhaps associated with the concerns of the teacher’s colleges
to equip prospective teachers with all the “tricks of the trade” during a short span of one session
extending to 200 working days’ (Raina and Raina 1971: 305).
The desire for an industrious student is prevalent even now and, in that, lesson-­plans play a
big role. Students spend a lot of time in writing the same objectives repeatedly because they
make a couple of plans to use one textbook chapter. BEd students work hard to make a sketch
of the blackboard in their lesson-­plan files to convey its final appearance when they have written
everything on it, as planned. They paste black paper in their files and write on it with a silver
pen to give the impression of the final look of the blackboard. In addition, students decorate
lesson-­plans with colours, strings, ornamental strips, sparkles, glitter, ribbons, and colourful
paper. I will always remember a student who had written his lesson-plans on sheets of letterhead
paper, not plain. It had hearts drawn in several colours, with sparkles on the cupid. The decora-
tive presentation of lesson-­plans reveals that it is not perceived as an intellectual exercise that
involves knowledge and cognitive dimensions. Rather, it is seen as a product that has to be
presented to somebody. The emphasis on industriousness meets the lesson-­plan-­making skill
component in the life of BEd students and creates a solid bond. The presentation of information
becomes an end in itself and occupies the student’s time and energy fully. It isn’t for nothing that
students miss classes to make their lesson-­plans and get them checked by their respective method
masters. There is no room for serendipity in the life of BEd students as they end up becoming
tricksters rather than rationally independent professionals. The distinction between the roles
played by teacher-­educators contributes to this end.

Material of instruction
The general understanding has been that a BEd student learns to make lesson-­plans; to exe-
cute those plans, one needs some material. Mellan (1936) prepared a key of educational

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material patented by various people in the USA since 1790. The key is divided into a couple
of sections based on the title under which the material was patented. The titles were: inven-
tion, apparatus, device, means, appliance, instrument, and machine. The entries in the key are
reminiscent of experimental psychology in which the current of thought was to train animals
to prove various points about learning. According to Mellan, after World War II, active steps
were taken in the USA to equip a large number of classrooms with appropriate apparatus to
demonstrate the role that planning plays in the pursuit of efficient teaching methods. At that
time, the most widely discussed educational problem was ‘classroom procedure known as the
instruction by mechanical devices’ (Mellan 1936: 291). According to Bruner, this kind of
psychology conceived of learning as essentially an individual process in which the individual’s
mind acquired neutral and objective knowledge with the help of related or unrelated material
(Bruner 2004).
Searching for teaching-­learning material (TLM) or making such material themselves is a
major activity that BEd students engage in while making lesson-­plans. They practice instruction
with mechanical devices. That learning takes place when the work done in the classroom is
aided by concrete material has become the most accepted stance. BEd students spend more time
on the task of collecting ‘appropriate’ material compared to philosophical reflection on ideas
and theories about learning and the specific nature of knowledge in different fields. Mannheim
and Stewart’s deconstruction of the use of the word ‘training’ is consistent with what BEd stu-
dents experience in Indian universities. Referring to the word training, they postulated that

it [training] is associated with the tricks of the trade, with dependent attitudes and with a
limited understanding of the purposes of any activity.… It has to do with technique and it
is for this kind of reason that ‘training’ has often helped to confuse some of the principal
issues in education.
(Mannheim and Stewart 1970: 13)

The dominance of the idea that a teacher must acquire all the ‘tricks of the trade’ leads to a fixed
routine, a procedural orientation to teaching, and views the child as somebody who needs text-
book content in easily graspable and attractive forms. Dewey warned us against seeing education
as an enterprise of routine application. Dewey’s progressive education required teachers to be
prepared in a way that they would become self-­reliant in setting new aims and accordingly fresh
ways of teaching, and not become accustomed to the plans and material. He was anguished with
teachers colleges in America during the middle of the previous century, for in them the ideas
and principles were converted into a ‘fixed subject matter of ready-­made rules, to be taught and
memorised according to certain standardised procedures and to be applied to educational prob-
lems eternally’ (Dewey 1952: 132). The departments of education in India work in this manner.
The BEd students pick up some rules and procedures, and become familiar with certain prob-
lems that they are taught to expect later when they start teaching in schools.
The relationship between ideas about children, learning, knowledge, society, and aims of
education acquire a distant location in the minds of BEd students, while material acquires
immediacy. They are seen mostly in the open grounds making charts and models, and rarely in
the library with books. The need to read classics in education, the latest and old research, com-
mentaries and other kinds of books, acquires the status of a not-­so-­necessary intellectual activity.
For them, teaching does not become an ‘interaction of the minds of teacher and the taught’
(Mannheim and Stewart 1970: 14), and influencing the younger generation’s knowledge and
attitudes; it rather becomes an activity of passing on information in an appealing way. Describing
the character of the TT institution, Zaidi put it succinctly:

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Latika Gupta

It is not an uncommon though only a tacitly-­owned belief in the Training College circles
that ‘method is the thing’, that a student teacher who is initiated in the mystic lore of
method will, by some mysterious process, be transformed into a paragon of pedagogical
virtues. A mystique of method has come into being, which is handed down to successive
generations of teachers with the fond hope that it will somehow more than compensate for
their utter ignorance of the relevant subjects.
(Zaidi 1971: 160)

The inordinate importance of method keeps alive the out-­of-­proportion significance of the
need for teaching-­learning material. What student-­teachers lack is the wide knowledge, enthu-
siasm for ideas, and a genuine ability to engage young people with the basic structure of any
discipline (Bruner 1960). According to Kumar (2008), NCF 2005 (NCERT 2006) described
two facets of a desired teacher. One was the social facet that posed the challenge of overcoming
the social hierarchies in the classroom; the other was the facet where the teacher recognised
multiple curricular sites and the plurality of resources. To have such a teacher, it is important to
develop the capabilities of reflection. However, what we end up developing is the capacity to
arrange or make material to play better tricks on children. This keeps BEd students restricted to
viewing children as – similar to Pavlov’s dogs and Watson’s rats – capable of responding only
when stimulated and reinforced with the help of some material.

Ethos of BEd institutions: cultural and celebratory

A BEd institution has a distinct ethos that arises from the daily institutional circumstances of
students and faculty members. The combination of regularly conducted activities, timetable, and
faculty members’ and students’ way of conducting themselves create an ethos which acquires
relative stability and provides a unique character to the institution. According to Mills (1959), it
is important to understand the different ethos that people access if we want to understand the
rise of individuals in them. Using this construct, an attempt has been made here to grasp the
ethos of BEd institutions to comprehend the rise of the teacher in BEd students.
When the programme starts every year, students undergo a week-­long orientation which sets
the tone of the experiences to come in the course. The students get introduced to the practice
of a compulsory morning assembly and weekly cultural activities as an important component of
life in a department of education. There are fixed slots in the timetable for cultural activities.
These activities include singing songs, dancing, debates, extempore speeches, and certain games
for building team-­spirit. A working day begins with a morning assembly in which the students
sing the national anthem and discuss an issue of contemporary or universal relevance. Sometimes,
this discussion takes place in the form of debates or poetry reading sessions. The discussion and
singing is followed by announcements with regard to their classes and other activities. A morn-
ing assembly, involving religious prayers and a few activities of public speaking, in TT institutions
is a country-­wide phenomenon. A faculty member is designated as in-­charge of the assembly,
whose work is to supervise and communicate the need for regularity, punctuality, and active
participation in the assembly. In Delhi University, till recently, participation in morning assembly
carried scores in the form of a larger exercise that involved cultural activities and was equivalent
to some of the theory and pedagogic courses in terms of their weighting. The new curriculum
notified by the NCTE has done away with such a provision, but the singing and dancing fervour
continues unabated and its related weekly and annual events are being held, the same as earlier.
BEd students spend their first half-­hour in the morning in exactly the same manner as chil-
dren do in schools. The insistence on participation in the morning assembly and in the cultural

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activities of the BEd programme establishes an acute similarity with the lives of schools in India,
and it enables us to understand the desired personality of a teacher-­in-­the-­making. The insis-
tence takes us back to the ‘trick master’ model of a school teacher. The premise of this model is
that a teacher needs to perform tricks from morning to afternoon every day, and thus she or he
must learn to conduct assembly and organise cultural activities by doing so on a daily basis. This
has reflections of the earlier popular apprenticeship model in professional programmes that
implied that the learner learns by engaging in exactly the same activities that she or he will do
in the future. This echoes an inherently mechanical view of learning and the sense is that all
teachers are required to be ‘cultural beings’ who must have the wherewithal to organise outside-­
the-­classroom activities. It is true that this dimension has a rather direct connection with school
life. To begin with, there are several such activities for which an average Indian school suspends
teaching for days altogether; the number of these has increased considerably in the last few years.
The bureaucracy, central and local governments, and boards of examination issue orders on a
regular basis to mark and observe week-­long activities such as hand-­washing week, neighbour-
hood cleanliness week, good governance day, plantation week, and celebrating our heritage
week, and so on. So far, a critical view has not been taken of this aspect of Indian schools in TT
institutions. In fact, there has been a sense of conformity to this and thus the organisation of such
exercises emerges as one of the major enterprises in BEd.
The students are divided into groups and faculty members are designated as being in charge.
Their responsibility is to ensure that there are students willing to dance, sing, and debate. The
students often miss classes on the pretext of preparing for such activities, with a sense of legiti-
macy. It also gives them a sense of being industrious because they run around to decorate,
arrange various things such as furniture, an audio system, dresses, refreshment, etc. Such activities
are organised regularly and give rise to a celebratory ethos consistent with that of families in
India when they celebrate big or small festivals and weddings. During cultural activities, BEd
students and faculty members engage on matters which have no bearing on their academic
interaction. They talk about food, dress, films, dance, relationships, and so on. In this celebratory
ethos, faculty members shed their academic personas and emerge as cultural beings similar to
BEd students. This is how Indian schools function.While organising such activities almost every
week, teachers end up in situations in which their engagement with children in schools does not
revolve around any field of knowledge. Its epicentre remains a non-­academic activity. We can,
therefore, notice that this situational teacher–student interaction is identical in TT institutions
and in schools.
The school-­like fervour carries on in other aspects of general conduct. One indicator is the
ardour with which students wish ‘good morning’, ‘good afternoon’, and so on to their teachers
as many times as they cross them. As a practice, BEd students stand up to issue such a greeting
when a teacher enters the classroom, just like children do in schools. The verbal wish is accom-
panied by a slight bow that Indians acquire at school, and which also has a feudal heritage. The
students pay respect to the professional authority of the teacher (Freire 1970) by repeating this
gesture mechanically.
The necessity of this wishing is internalised so deeply that they wish even while talking on
their mobile phones and holding animated conversations, while stepping in and out of the toi-
lets, while noting down announcements, and even while the teacher is engaged in a serious
conversation with somebody. This is indeed a common sight in a large number of academic
institutions of higher education in India, but in a department of education it acquires signifi-
cance because the BEd students are expected to appreciate the role of a teacher as somebody
who thinks critically about real life (ibid.). In the real life of a BEd programme, the intellectual
inspiration of Gandhi and Tagore and the rituals to mark teachers’ authority go in parallel. They

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Latika Gupta

never intersect and create contradictions in the minds of the BEd students. They do not become
even slightly critical about this ritual, that their act of repeated wishing may disturb the teacher’s
flow of conversation or that it’s not needed so many times in a day. Mostly, students call them-
selves bachche (children), and also behave like them. A large number of students remain casual,
playful, and insouciant. It seems as if they just pass their time and fill their institutional life with
sporadic activities.
At a very young age, learners in India internalise that missing school often is not a big deal;
this concept becomes rock solid as they progress up the educational ladder. BEd students also
miss classes quite regularly. Under the NCTE’s mandatory provision, a minimum of 85 per cent
(earlier 75 per cent) attendance throughout the year is required. The implication of this provi-
sion is that every class either starts or ends with attendance-­taking activity by calling out the
name of every student. The attendance record of every student needs to be maintained by fac-
ulty members and submitted to the authorities at least twice every academic year. It is an inter-
esting eventuality of the attendance regime that a few students remain absolutely regular and
some remain highly irregular throughout the academic year. However, the bulk constitutes what
can be called the floating population of BEd students. They attend a few classes and miss a few
as a practice. During winter, one finds students basking in the sun and sipping tea/coffee rather
than being in class.
The reasons for missing classes are wide-­ ranging and deserve a full-­ length discussion.
However, a brief reflection is needed here. The reason for missing a class is often covered by a
few common excuses: I (or a family member) wasn’t well; I had to attend a wedding or festival
celebration in the family; I had an exam; and so on.
On average, BEd students are 21–26 years old. Many of them pursue the programme along
with several other professional options such as jobs in banks, lower and higher bureaucracy in
the state and central governments, and so on.With their minds busy with a wide range of profes-
sional options and dealing with the reality of family and kinship responsibilities, characteristic of
social life in India, there is little room left for unobstructed commitment to the choice of
becoming a teacher. This results in a sketchy understanding of issues or ideas. For instance, a
student comes to the class in which the discussion on Gandhi’s ideas on education starts, and
then she misses the next four classes for a relative’s wedding. Gandhi’s ideas become a casualty in
such a case, and this is a fairly common phenomenon. One knows very well that the student will
not make any effort to engage with Gandhi’s ideas on her own.
The fervency born out of cultural activities, students’ irregular presence in the classes, and
their conduct altogether give rise to an ethos in which the students’ enrolment in a BEd pro-
gramme does not become a distinct purpose. They carry a fluid perception of institutional
academic spaces and their function. Their minds do not become ‘disciplined’ in the structure of
the discipline of education. At best, they acquire the sense of teaching activity that encompasses
several kinds of performances. Smith (2003) has applied the construct of habitus (Bourdieu
1990) to organisations. His argument is that an educational institution’s ethos is continually
constructed under the influence of individual students’ habituses and that of institutions in the
external environment. In TT institutions, school is the external environment. A school’s life
remains a model for how students and faculty members structure their behaviour while being
members of a BEd programme. The TT institution’s habitus is not marked by the nuances of the
discipline of education. It is largely shaped by India’s socio-­cultural fabric, which comes in the
form of students’ and faculty members’ habituses and by a school’s shadow.
Every year, BEd programmes set out to prepare teachers who will be able to reform a senior-­
secondary school. In its processes and activities it replicates school most of the time and treats
school as a frozen entity in time and behaviours. At the end, the programme produces teachers

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who do not take long to fit into the structures of schooling. The secondary and senior-­secondary
schools in India have not received substantial policy attention for their reform, except a minor
scheme of the central government, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), which
hasn’t been implemented with great energy or zeal. The unreformed school becomes the
demand agency for which BEd has been supplying trained teachers. So far, there has been no
major conflict between the two. If by chance one or two BEd students pick up critical insights
and ideas and try to practise them in schools when they get jobs, in no time the school’s daily
circumstances will dampen their spirits and so they adjust to the prevailing system. They cannot
carry on the project of bringing fresh energy into that school. The biggest challenge ahead of
the reformed structure of the BEd programme is the narrowness of the discourse of teacher
training in India.

Notes
1 It is a commonly used term in the Indian context for those teacher-­educators who teach pedagogy
courses.
2 Thermocol is a commercial name of polystyrene, a synthetic petroleum product. Polystyrene is one of
the most widely used plastics. Uses include protective packaging in packing peanuts and CD and DVD
cases, clamshells, lids, bottles, trays, tumblers, and disposable cutlery. In India, Thermocol has found its
biggest use in making models of various concepts that children study in different school subjects.

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 12
Management education in India
How far have we come?

Pankaj Chandra

The idea of management is to develop perspectives, processes, and values that drive growth of
innovative ideas, products, and services in order to give meaning to human endeavour and provide
improvements in quality of life. It is also about effectiveness and efficiency in delivery of goods and
services in society. Education in the world of management was about learning to manage organ-
isations and individuals therein in the realisation of their own potential and aspirations. In that,
many different drivers have defined the pathways to growth of organisations and, more impor-
tantly, their role and impact on societies. Globally, institutions of management education have led
the changes in the world of business and industry through their graduates and their thinking.
Today, competing principles of management are readily seen driving business and industry as
they do social organisations and political institutions like governments. Strategies of focus and
differentiation, financial ideas of leverage and risk, policies on pricing and consumer insights,
integration of supply chains, and the operations of execution, to name very few, are now com-
mon influencers in such disparate fields as law and security, judiciary and governance, infrastruc-
ture and environment, etc. The reach of managerial thinking is widening and its principles and
logic are seen as complementing the philosophy, economics, and sociology behind the function-
ing of any society. The question, however, remains as to how well the practitioners of manage-
ment are able to grow their knowledge and consequently influence in helping make society
better. And, as a corollary, how well the institutions of education in management are performing
in their job towards preparing such managers who understand the organisations of the society
as well as they may do in business in order to truly become agents of social change. For, business
has the strongest potential for achieving the same.
This chapter is about the promise of management education in India and its journey into the
future. In that, it is closely linked to the transformation of the global economy and the accom-
panying changes in the world of business in India. But here, the story of Indian management
education takes a path that makes its sojourn a bit more interesting than those of many other
nations. In this chapter we track the big changes, comment on its journey, engage with the
discipline(s), explore the challenges, and identify aspects that render the current project of man-
agement incomplete.
Formal management education in India can be euphemistically called the child of the newly
independent nation, as the new nation had the need to build for itself enduring factories, roads,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-16 189

Pankaj Chandra

power plants, financial system, etc., not only to run a nation but also to lay the foundation of its
industrial future. It has come quite some way since then. Structurally, it is estimated that India
has around 3,900 institutions that offer management degrees and postgraduate diplomas, and
that enrol about 0.35 million students. The postgraduate students in management (and manage-
ment education in India has largely been a postgraduate affair) comprise about 16.5 per cent of
all postgraduate students in India across all disciplines, only second to the social sciences that
comprise 20.6 per cent of the total population of postgraduate students (Government of India-­
MHRD 2014).

The promise of management education

The promise of management was a structured understanding of organisations and all that they
stood for and undertook. To understand what has happened to management education, one has
to recall briefly the evolution of industries in India and their different managerial systems and
styles. At Independence, the country struggled to reconcile the contrasting managerial systems
and styles of the mill owners of western India, the sugar barons of the north, the jute mills and
the tea plantation owners of the east, and the big spice growers and merchants of the south. In
between there were traders from India who carried goods to East Asia, Arabia, and Africa, the
small producers of engineering and consumer durables all over the country, and road contractors
who became the early infrastructure developers (along with the accompanying raw material
providers). There were some dissimilarities in how they conducted their business. The big dis-
tinction in managerial form, however, came from firms with British origins (mostly out of
Calcutta and sometimes Chennai) – at the most trivial level, it was suit-­and-­tie-­wearing manag-
ers versus the dhoti-­clad agency firms of western India; at a higher level of managerial sophisti-
cation was the ‘parta’ system of accounting as practised by the Marwari traders and producers
versus those working towards the annual royalty payments to the owners in England that was
used by the British companies in India! Their managerial systems were different. But the real
breakthrough in managerial form and structure came through the management of public sector
enterprises, with their largely technical manpower that subsequently became the bedrock of
Indian management until the liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991. These contrasting
forms have influenced significantly how education on organisations evolved over time.
For a long time, until the early 1950s, people learned on the job (a rare few were educated
abroad formally in management). They came with a variety of graduate degrees – largely arts
and social sciences. Entry into private firms was often through an introduction and connections.
You climbed the ladder and if you stayed long enough you would have learned most of the
managerial traits – the engineers, however, managed the plants, and the chartered accountants
handled finance; production was people management and the rest was largely implementation
of standard technology. The salespeople were considered articulate and worldly wise – they were
the ones who would travel and see the ‘world’. Finance functions were kept close to the family
or the trusted. The people management function or ‘personnel’ took care of industrial relations,
managed housing colonies, and looked after their welfare. The promise of a private industry job
was better remuneration, a style of working and living, and sometimes travelling to larger cities.
They were distinct from government jobs. Much of the thinking in the organisation was driven
by the owner’s perception of the opportunities and his connections. The bureaucracy, however,
had full control over what organisations did and both benefitted from this relationship.
With Independence came the public sector units (PSUs) – enterprises established by the
government in a variety of domains – steel-­making, machine tools, heavy engineering, large
electrical motors and turbines, telecom, pharmaceuticals, etc. – all things that were required to

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service the public and their needs. With them also came service firms like banks and insurance
and airlines, as well as the expansion of railways. All needed skilled manpower to manage these
enterprises and help them increase their reach. These enterprises borrowed heavily from both –
the rules and regulations from the government and a managerial form from the private – a truly
hybrid form of organisation, though over time the former eclipsed the latter. While the govern-
ment was the owner, it was a faceless owner and lived at a distance, at least in the perception of
most employees of a public sector organisation. The PSUs became a strategy for developing
underdeveloped regions of the country. They came with new facilities, often with the help of a
friendly foreign government and expatriate managers, newer technology, planned townships,
high-­quality schools, and a sense of brotherhood and purpose – building the newly independent
nation. They publicly recruited large amounts of technical and non-­ technical manpower.
Industrial towns (other than the older private ones like Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, Nagda in
Madhya Pradesh, Kirloskarwadi in Maharashtra, etc.) like Bhilai, Durgapur, Bangalore, and
Dehradun started to grow post-­Independence. To the list of industries from groups like Bajaj,
Kirloskar, Tata, Birla, Dalmia, Lalbhai, Mafatlal, Godrej, Scindia, Walchand Hirachand, Thapar,
Goenka, Bangur, Morarji Goculdas was added, first, the names of private firms (with British
origins) like the Imperial Tobacco Company (today’s ITC), Imperial Chemicals Industries (ICI),
Metal Box, McNeil and Magor, Martin Burns, Jessop and Co., and then the PSUs like Steel
Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Indian Telephone Industries (ITI), Hindustan Machine Tools
(HMT), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC),
Coal India, Indian Space Research Organization, Life Insurance Corporation, State Bank of
India, etc. Such was the diversified nature of the industrial base of India. For a detailed account
of Indian business see Tripathy and Jumani (2013). This growth needed people with diverse
skills (production, technical, human resources, sales, finance and accounts, industrial relations,
organisational design and behavioural science, etc.), including people to manage facilities and
townships, people to take products to potential consumers, and people to coordinate with the
government. And equally important was the need to understand the various differences in the
management systems across this spectrum of firm types. The need for management education
had been established. The first task, however, was to understand: what did people do in organisa-
tions? Who did what? And why did they do things differently? Why did ownership matter in the
way we did things? How could each be improved? These formed the early questions that became
the basis of thinking of a management education curriculum.

Phases in management education

Early managers learned on the job and came from diverse backgrounds. Development of man-
agement education in India can be described through four phases. The first two phases of mana-
gerial education in India could easily be termed as the pre-­Indian Institutes of Management
(IIM) era (until 1960) and the coming of IIMs era (1960–2001), reflecting the overwhelming
influence of the IIMs on the state of management education in India and the role of their gradu-
ates in business and industry. Subsequently, it has been influenced by the impact of liberalisation
of the Indian economy, the expansion of IIMs, as well as the establishment of private institutions
like ISB. The final phase reflects new directions post-­2015.

Phase I: the pre-IIMs era (until 1960)

The first phase of managerial education was largely driven by the discipline of ‘commerce’.
Starting in the early 1950s, three institutions started to devise curricula that were broader and

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wider than the traditional commerce education that placed heavy emphasis on accounting,
principles of finance and legal aspects of business, i.e. company law. This was found to be insuf-
ficient in managing affairs of the new enterprises. The early leaders of organisations often had
such training. Education at these three institutions was mostly practice-­driven and vocational in
nature. These institutions were the Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) in Jamshedpur,
the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) in Calcutta, and the
Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), University of Delhi. XLRI started by offering in 1949
courses for management and unions, and focused on industrial relations in organisations. It
developed a close relationship with neighbouring Tata firms in Jamshedpur and later offered a
master’s degree. IISWBM offered the first graduate-­level programme (i.e. MBA) in management
in India in 1953. Kolkata was the centre of business and industry (especially jute mills, textile
mills, tea estates, and agency firms from British times), and this programme was affiliated to the
University of Calcutta. At the same time, in Delhi (in 1953), the commerce department of the
Delhi College of Engineering was closed down and the FMS of the University of Delhi was
established in its place with a faculty member from the engineering college as its head. All these
programmes were amalgamations of commerce education, some behavioural skills that involved
understanding labour and unions, a sprinkling of topics that would provide skills in planning, an
understanding of the economy, as well as some inputs on markets. These were pioneers in man-
agement education, but their way of looking at organisations was still quite traditional.

Phase II: the coming of IIMs (1960–2001)

The coming of the IIM in 1961 in Calcutta (a decision taken by the government in 1960 after
the submission of the Robbins Report on setting up IIMs) and at Ahmedabad in the same year
with their contrasting circumstances, styles, and cultures announced the beginning of a new era
in industrial management. They also started to produce managers in larger numbers and quickly
made their presence felt with greater engagement with industry and government, as well as their
commitment to quality teaching. Calcutta attracted stars of management education; Ahmedabad
decided to go with younger academics. Calcutta was quantitatively driven; Ahmedabad was
process driven. Calcutta chose a lecture-­driven pedagogy; Ahmedabad adopted a case method of
teaching. Calcutta became close to theory; Ahmedabad was close to practice. It showed careful
experimentation by early adopters. Was it a replay of the urbane British-­styled Calcutta and its
rivalry with the pragmatism of entrepreneurs of western India? One was led by a lawyer and
celebrated practising manager, K.T. Chandy (who had been a Director at Lever Brothers and
rose to become the Chairman of the Food Corporation of India) and the other was conceived
and nurtured by celebrated technocrat and entrepreneur Vikram Sarabhai. Both came with the
academic support of two distinctive institutions of Boston – MIT and Harvard, respectively. The
Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) and Indian Institute of Management
Ahmedabad (IIMA) were pioneer institutions. They did two things that innovators do – one,
they educated the industry on the role of young managers in their organisations and the need
for imparting structured learning of managerial principles to junior, middle, and senior manag-
ers of the companies (Anubhai 2011). This led to the tradition of executive education and the
building of cadres of managerial talent. And two, they formalised the structure of management
education in India (as distinct from ‘commerce’ education) as:

• understanding the individual and the collective in the context of an organisation and the
setting of its goals;
• understanding the environment and the forces that define its constraints;

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• understanding the nature of competition facing the industry and its sources; and
• building of skills to address managerial problems – structuring the problems and learning
the art and science of problem-­solving and decision-making.

These two institutions laid the foundation of managerial education both within the company
and outside. IIMA, with its unique case-­based pedagogy, captured the imagination of organisa-
tions as well as institutions that were to follow them. It made them understand the issues of
companies better. Hence, they were able to respond with managerial options. Like the ice-­
breaker ship, they did much of the heavy lifting and convincing of people in industry, govern-
ment, and society at large of their value. They also established the structure of the managerial
curriculum and provided a framework for functional learning from both a strategic perspective
as well as a discipline of execution.
IIM Bangalore (IIMB) came about a decade or so later (in 1972) with a distinctive focus on
the public sector; it started to prepare graduates for these government-­run enterprises. Its gradu-
ates, in addition to learning about general management, focused on health, energy and environ-
ment, transport, etc. It was also established indigenously without any external support. Over the
years, IIMB gave up its public sector focus as its graduates looked towards private enterprises for
employment. New IIMs subsequently came up at Lucknow, Kozhikode, and Indore. Liberalisation
of the economy in 1991 changed the demand for managerial education and a large number of
institutions in the private sector started to establish management schools and provide the post-
graduate diploma in management, the same as the IIMs.

Phase III: ISB and the newer IIMs

By the end of the 1990s, graduates of the two older IIMs (IIMC and IIMA) were leading
national organisations both in the public and private sectors. A few had started to head global
organisations. Their graduates, fresh out of college (though largely engineers by now), were get-
ting hired by Indian and multinational firms, both for their national and global operations. The
placement of these institutions, unfortunately, became the focus of media attention. The institu-
tions had, however, changed – from having a scholarship and learning-­oriented ethos to becom-
ing platforms for placement of young people. This created a new kind of hierarchy among
undergraduates, with management institutions leading the preferences.
Two events changed managerial education once again in the decade of the 2000s: one was
the establishment of the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad, with immense corporate
support and a one-­year graduate programme in management (until then all programmes were
two years in duration) and the second was the decision of the central government to blanket the
country with more IIMs. By 2013, there were 13 IIMs operating while six more were announced
in 2014–15. Suddenly, the nature of the relationship of the IIMs with society at large (and the
government, in particular) had changed – the students, faculty, governance, curriculum, place-
ment – were all struggling to adjust not only to the new global economic reality, but also to the
new regulatory stance of the government. The old IIMs were starting to consolidate their pro-
grammes, especially their research, while the new ones were struggling to get themselves going.
After some time there were several IIMs (i.e. the new ones) that were not as reputable as their
private counterparts. Society did not know how to benchmark an IIM! Perhaps a new PSU
structure with its ‘navratnas’ was emerging. This period saw an unprecedented growth in private
management institutions, many with poor infrastructure – both physical and intellectual. The
private institutions were very dependent on people outside academia for teaching. The govern-
ment institutions were getting more and more structured by the whimsical thinking of agencies

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like the AICTE. The ISB, on the other hand, started to seek students with work experience,
something that has always been debated at an IIM but never received support internally; it
expanded quickly and forced the entrenched IIMs to react with their own strategy. They also
centred on research, something that government institutions like IIMs refused to do as
self-­preservation.
It must be mentioned that the private institutions have been struggling at the hands of the
government. For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, it allowed private Postgraduate Diploma in
Management (PGDM) programmes to grow; it never cared where they were established –
whether they were close to centres of business and industry or far from them, thereby cutting
off important sources of learning. The government has never known how to handle the private
institutions and their programmes.

Phase IV: post-2015 and new directions

Globally, management education is being restructured. Programmes are becoming more flexible,
more global, have more content from emerging economies, and are aimed at creating enterprises
and new jobs rather than seeking jobs. Research in management has become more interdisci-
plinary and it cuts across boundaries of disciplines outside management. Executive MBA pro-
grammes have grown tremendously. But none of the above appear to have taken root in Indian
management institutions. Institutions have established incubators to support start-­ups, but these
remain at the periphery of the institutions and have not been integrated with their core strategy.
Indian institutions look alike in their treatment of the curriculum, unlike their global counter-
parts that have experimented and created niches for themselves (Datar et al. 2010).
The government is struggling to restructure the PGDM programmes, but they lack vision
and the institutions’ deep capabilities. As a result, it might even attempt to control what they
teach by affiliating these institutions to neighbouring public universities – a bad way of reform-
ing institutions through those that are already below par. Worse still, it is once again attempting
to control the destiny and the activities of IIMs (as it has done periodically in the past) by trying
to pass an IIM Bill in Parliament that will circumscribe what IIMs can do. First, it expands the
number of IIMs; now, under the disguise of needing to coordinate, the government is trying to
standardise the activities in these institutions through a ‘coordination council’ that will comprise
lots of politicians and bureaucrats and will be chaired by the Minister of Human Resource
Development. Is it the end of a grand experiment in management education to become respon-
sive to the market? Will the IIM Bill change the degree structure, make it difficult to experi-
ment, impact their curricula, governance, and future direction? At the same time, there are now
at least 25–30 management schools that have had more than three decades of experience in
delivering programmes and are perhaps ready to experiment with a new direction in manage-
ment education. It is against this backdrop that we now look at what is happening to learning
in management institutions and what may be needed today.

The changing external environment and its requirements

While the governments were reducing management education to vocational learning and mak-
ing it trivial through attempts of the AICTE and UGC to control all aspects of its functioning –
from teachers to the content – the context of management education changed dramatically.
From the commanding heights of public sector development in the 1950s to private entrepre-
neurship post-­liberalisation, from an agriculture-­and manufacturing-­driven economy to a
service-­driven one, from government running the firms in various sectors to government

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setting up regulators to govern industry behaviour, from large firms to small start-­ups, from
manual operations to digital production – the context of business became very different. The
global business environment was also being revolutionised. With the coming of the WTO and
bilateral free-­trade agreements, the flow of manufactured products and services across borders
grew manifold. The East Asian meltdown of the late 1990s, the dotcom bust of 2000, the finan-
cial crisis in the USA in 2008, falling oil prices, the slowdown in China, and the recent problems
of Greece, as well as the upcoming exit of the UK from the EU have all led to restrained growth
in economies and consequently managerial employment, a restructuring of economic leverage
and consequently a slowdown in national wealth, and a search for new business paradigms for
survival. At the same time, extreme poverty around the world is more visible today. These factors
have all been responsible for changing emphasis in management schools.
Three phenomena have also had significant impacts on the world of business – growth of
civil society (through non-­governmental organisations) who would monitor the impact of busi-
ness on society, the mandating of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the influence of the
digital world. The last two have made the former more effective. At the same time, CSR invest-
ments and the digital revolution and social media have ensured that civil society is held respon-
sible for its actions. The internet and e-­commerce have changed the way goods and services are
procured and distributed. These have been accompanied by many innovations and changes in
the way businesses operate. New forms of aggregating firms like Uber, Ola, or Airbnb are rapidly
changing the structure of the industry, nature of employment, and even the locus of revenues
and taxation. In the last two decades many skills have become obsolete and demand for several
new ones has grown, especially with the expanding use of technology. Competition from across
borders has been intensified, particularly from China, and Indian businesses have become vul-
nerable in many traditional areas of strength. On the labour market side, as skills started to
become obsolete, young people started to change jobs more frequently – sometimes to extract
the maximum returns from existing skills and sometimes to move into newer domains of exper-
tise so as to remain current for longer periods. Managerial wages led by the IT industry kept
going up and demand for management education, as a consequence, kept increasing – all this
while existing skills remained current for shorter and shorter periods of time. This was an
opportunity for academic institutions in the form of executive education, full-­time as well as
part-­time. At the same time, new areas of industry and instruction were growing in the form of
banking, finance, services, and insurance (BFSI), analytics, and digital – all related to the IT sec-
tor. New opportunities for managerial learning were also arising.
This led to three distinct requirements:

• service professions grew and became more formal – requirements to manage them grew as
well;
• some sectors of industry started requiring technical manpower with greater managerial
skills. For example, the telecom sector required people who could combine telecom tech-
nology knowledge with telecom strategy and related knowledge on pricing as well as
spectrum allocation expertise;
• new sectors opened up for private and multinational corporation (MNC) participation –
some were new to the country like biotech or arts and heritage management, while others
were liberalised, i.e. moved from the government to the private sector, like health, energy,
infrastructure, primary and secondary education, transport.

All of these created a new demand for managerial knowledge. For instance, organisations like
Ranga Shankara that was set up to promote theatre and related commerce started looking for

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people who could help them develop strategic models of engagement and run the organisation
as a business. Energy companies needed new skills to merge or acquire and grow or raise capital
for infrastructure investments. The e-­commerce and agglomeration models of Amazon, Flipkart,
Ola, Uber, etc. required new ways of valuing and growing firms even when they were making
revenue losses. Corporates were seeking new kinds of learning. The big and busy world of
management had changed. How did the academic institutions and their offerings fare on these
counts? Did the content and focus of learning change with the changing requirements of indus-
try, i.e. what was fundamental to management learning that would withstand time and changes
and what had to change with time?

Management education and institutional progress

Management draws on a variety of areas like humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, and
engineering to define itself intellectually. Early academics came from mathematics and statistics
(who taught quantitative and analytical skills), sociology and psychology (who studied organisa-
tions, labour, markets, and consumer choices), economics (who provided an understanding of
the micro and macro environment, including assessing the impact of policy), and industrial
engineering (who looked at the process of production and distribution of goods). Commerce
graduates provided skills on accounting and finance. At the same time, a motley crew of quan-
titatively oriented as well as engineering graduates educated the rest in the use of information
and technology for competitive advantage. It is interesting to note that the celebrated industrial-
ist N.R. Narayana Murthy, cut his teeth setting up the computer systems and related learning
environment at IIM Ahmedabad in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That is how the foundation
of the supply side was laid.
Management education as it has evolved over the years grew its own applied disciplines like
strategy, organisational behaviour and human resources, finance and accounting, marketing, and
operations and technology management, reflecting broadly organisation of knowledge systems
to manage functions in an organisation. It is interesting that management education grew gradu-
ate programmes first with a keen appreciation that one needed a basic grounding in a classical
discipline of learning before seeking a professional degree (in an applied discipline) at the gradu-
ate level. The structure of management programmes also followed a similar philosophy – a two-­
year master’s programme comprised teaching of core subjects that covered knowledge essential
to understand various functions in an organisation and its strategic stances, followed by a series
of electives reflecting choices in the curriculum to cater to varied interests of students in terms
of functions of specialisation in their career. That was the MBA or the PGDM (at schools that
were neither a university nor affiliated to one nor deemed to be a university). There was no
difference in the two degrees – the latter simply provided operational flexibility to programmes
and institutions. As the need for teachers grew, institutions created their own doctoral pro-
grammes (a PhD at a degree-­granting university or a Fellow Programme in Management (FPM)
at a non-­degree-­granting institution). The IIMs started the FPM with an underlying philosophy
of producing a ‘generalist specialist’ rather than training specialists as in other parts of the world.
They first trained their doctoral students in the fundamentals of management (the first year of
the programme was the same as the postgraduate programme, i.e. PGP students) and then in
their respective disciplines. The doctoral programme was distinct from those at the universities
– it comprised two years of coursework followed by a comprehensive examination to prove
deep knowledge in the discipline and its methods before proceeding to work on a research
problem. While the MBAs or PGPs largely admitted fresh graduates, schools were looking for
people with experience to join their doctoral programmes. However, weak doctoral programmes

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of Indian institutions has been found to be a key determinant of poor research productivity at
these institutions (Sahoo et al. 2017).
On the one hand, institutions provided training on advances in mainstream business and
industry; they also focused on the management of under-­managed sectors (like agriculture,
energy and environment, health, etc.) quite early in their history. For instance, recognising the
importance of agriculture to India, IIMA started the first programme in the country on agricul-
ture management. Similarly, a special programme focusing on management of rural organisa-
tions came up in the form of the Institute for Rural Management Anand (IRMA). This made
the evolution of management institutions in India different from others around the world and
also more interesting. Understanding the role of the state and civil society in shaping business
and industry and the concomitant development of society became an integral part of its pro-
grammes (it is interesting to note that most programmes globally started to address them quite
late in their history – somewhere in the early 2000s).
But this came with immense challenges. Schools grew to meet industry requirements, but it
happened largely through standalone institutions, i.e. outside the university system without the
benefit of input of many disciplines that form a university. The management departments in
universities unfortunately acted no differently – they protected their turf, and the university
culture as well as its processes did not allow interdisciplinary teaching and learning, which is
what management education is actually about. As the management knowledge system grew in
academia, so did the isolation of management disciplines globally, and particularly in India.
While this situation has started to thaw elsewhere in the world, instruction in Indian universi-
ties remains isolated. This has had another side effect – management at a large number of
institutions started to get taught by people who came from the world of practice. Shortage of
faculty also played into this situation. This set of instructors had practical knowledge but many
did not know how to bring out deep conceptual learning from their own experiences.
Management classes at many places were filled with war stories, and rigour was lost in the
processes. The students quite often enjoy these practical insights as opposed to what they see
as ‘knowledge from books’. Lecturing as a pedagogy did not deliver cutting-­edge applications,
while case studies did not deliver rigour. It appeared that students were becoming adept at
terminology and less at deep understanding of concepts and fundamentals. Management edu-
cation in India was in utter chaos by the early 1990s. Great demand for graduates led to high
variance in the preparation levels of graduates entering the workforce. For a long time this was
one programme where the likelihood of getting a job was highest – and a well-­paying one, too.
Interestingly, growth in industry also led to growth in executive programmes that brought in
more money to institutions as well as individual faculty – more than anyone else on a university
campus. But education was suffering as the institutions had started to become complacent – less
careful about what was being taught in the classroom and less focused on the rigour of the
disciplines.

The requirements of the domain

Unlike most disciplines, students who come to do management at the graduate level (which is
indeed the majority of students) come from disciplines other than management. As a conse-
quence, the need for a set of foundation courses becomes imperative. The challenge, of course,
is to decide what will comprise the foundation, given the changing environment and the diver-
sity of roles that its students pursue (most schools, however, tend to choose functions of an
organisation and some skills as their core). The bigger question to be asked is what, if the world
of management is so disparate, should be the basis of its foundation – management, after all,

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comprises many disciplines. How should it then integrate the various disciplinary strands to cre-
ate a coherent view of the discipline of management?
Management education is premised on deep understanding of industry sectors as well as
those that require managerial intervention, like infrastructure, not-­for-­profits, government, etc.
This requires both, a deep knowledge of the issues of the sector as well an understanding of
theories and research in related disciplines outside management. There are only a few individu-
als and institutions that have cared to develop such a view on building deep expertise, even
though that is the best and quickest way of developing a strong research focus for a management
school. Consulting companies fill this vacuum somewhat. Useful as it may be, their work is not
a substitute for a rigorous academic analysis of various issues, since their objectives are different
and their work aimed at commercial clients rather than building new theories to unravel the
workings of an issue or design of systems.
Management courses place special emphasis on analytical thinking (a bit more than reflective
thinking), structuring of problems and problem-­solving, observing and understanding, and
developing a process view of execution and strategy. Of late, analytical methods for risk assess-
ment have become prominent, while understanding of people, especially in groups, has become
nuanced due to advances in our understanding of uncertainty and in behavioural neurosciences.
At the same time, organising work, handling crises, negotiation, and persuasion have become
more tactical and less strategic in their consideration in most curricula, much to the detriment
of learning how to build harmonious organisations.
The choice of pedagogy, as noted earlier, also has a deep impact on building the processes of
structuring, questioning, and learning, especially in professional educational settings. Three
aspects of this choice needs highlighting. One relates to the nature of pedagogy – the common
ones have been experiential learning (including a ‘clinic’ view of learning), case-­based and
Socratic learning, lectures and tutorial-­based teaching, learning through field observations, and
reflective learning. Different disciplines of management lend themselves to different approaches.
Among them, the case-­based pedagogy has taken root, though several experiments are underway
to create a more meaningful yet rigorous experiential learning system. Those schools that have
been established and operated by practitioners tend to bring more of a corporate-­training style
learning environment to their programmes. These tend to prepare students for the next job
rather than providing them with deep education.
Executive education has become an integral part of management education and that segment
has experimented greatly with experiential learning. Most of the premier institutions have elab-
orate executive education programmes for Indian companies, and some conduct programmes
for MNCs and companies overseas. India has a lot of demand for management education, espe-
cially when it comes to executive education. As a result, foreign institutions also conduct pro-
grammes in India. Some, like Harvard, Chicago, and Cornell Universities, have established
offices in India that write cases on Indian organisations and conduct programmes for them. This
is an area that is waiting to grow exponentially once more institutions develop mature capabili-
ties to develop innovative programmes for practising managers in the public and private domains.
The nature of engagement is quite different from traditional MBA-­style education.
Management research has all the requirements of any science – physical and social. It needs
to understand real issues and phenomena by using robust methods to explain the phenomena, on
the one hand, and finding innovative solutions to the problems embedded therein, on the other.
For example, why do people behave differently in groups than they would if they were to make
decisions individually? What mental heuristics are at play in making decisions regarding personal
life versus product purchase versus decisions made on behalf of others, especially those that are
less endowed? How do you design policies to price service exposures that provide intrinsic

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value? How do you organise production of goods and services that evoke certain technological
preferences and buyer attitudes? How do you design contracts that are compliance proof? And
so on. In fact, it is a discipline where physical and social sciences come together just as they do
in any product or service organisation that management purports to study. Management research
requires a wide set of perspectives and skills – practical knowledge via engagement with the
domain of study, theoretical understanding of various fields of enquiry, deep methodological
abilities, and a deep desire to influence decision making through implementation of one’s
research. The work of the best researchers in management spans all the above areas. However, we
also find researchers who have built expertise in one or few of these areas. For instance, there are
some who develop new methods of decision making. There are others who may be designing
strategies for organisations, implementing them and measuring their effectiveness. The discipline
of management, globally, has evolved into its own disciplinary culture comprising academic and
industry conferences, journals and publications, granting systems, etc. The Indian management
education community, unfortunately, has not been able to organise itself intellectually and con-
sequently remains restricted to teaching and training using knowledge derived from elsewhere
rather than developing its own markers of universal appeal. Indian academic institutions have
systematically ignored and often opposed building such scholarly cultures that are premised on
curiosity and rigour of their own research and subjecting them to peer review globally.
India, today, is a researcher’s paradise as its context is one of a traditional society transiting
through rapid changes in technology, urbanisation, and social systems, and aspiring to become
an economic leader in the twenty-­first century. It faces several serious challenges of social devel-
opment as well as numerous opportunities linked to a large population of young people. Linking
management of undermanaged sectors to technology and cutting-­edge scientific developments
while creating opportunities for innovation in organisations and new enterprises is the real chal-
lenge for Indian management. Can the Indian management educational system lead the change
with its ideas and thinking? Will its research matter to India?
The India of tomorrow will have young people whose experiences are going to be very dif-
ferent from their parents’ generation. They will have to develop their own tools and methods
for understanding issues in this new India. Their success will depend on how they traverse the
bridge between the past and the future. Do we have an understanding of what it will take for
them to change India and succeed? Large Indian organisations are scaling through jobless
growth. Automation and digital technologies in industry and especially in the services sector
(e.g. IT) are leading to changes in job content. It appears that the youth of tomorrow will expe-
rience many more jobs than ever before, will change their skillsets several times in their working
lives, will work for smaller firms and for themselves, and will work increasingly with people of
varying backgrounds and abilities. Do we know what will be the impact of these changes on
work productivity, family life, working with others, and on concepts of employment and even
nationality? Understanding tomorrow’s India and the organisations of the future will require
intense imagination, dedication, and research. Are Indian institutions up to that challenge? Do
we have faculty and institutional systems to attract and prepare scholars who will lead thinking
on such changes and translate their impact for the society to understand? At the same time, can
Indian institutions generate research that will have local application but global appeal?
Students of management will have to understand more intensely the society in which their
organisations operate and where people work. This would mean engaging intellectually, and not
anecdotally, with its changing values, with its motivations, and with its aspirations. It would
require creating a more diverse learning environment and situating management learning as well
as institutions amid other disciplines that could help unravel these mysteries for our organisa-
tions and the people of the world. Why would a college of arts and sciences of a university not

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become a centre of managerial learning? Do the numerous standalone institutions like the IIMs
and XLRIs and ISBs stand a chance of contributing to the future of India and the world with
their inherent deficiency of not being a part of an interactive university with schools like
humanities, social sciences, and the sciences from who management education draws its knowl-
edge and wisdom? The nature of contributions of numerous management programmes in all
parts of the country that do not have the wherewithal to even draw from such an ecosystem will
remain constrained and limited.

The unfinished agenda of management education

Management education, today, struggles to find a firm ground of rigour and relevance, despite
its spectacular growth and the phenomenal demand. As the challenges before industry change
and as society’s priorities transform, their requirements of educational institutions will change as
well. How will the managerial learning ecosystem cope with these requirements? There remain
several challenges before management education can truly find its place as a strong area of schol-
arship and application in India. These include the following:

• Absence of academic rigour at a large number of management institutions and fast growth
in demand. Consequently, institutions have allowed management education to become
light and often frivolous (e.g. institutions are providing etiquette training as part of the cur-
riculum) and war stories passed off as education. The rigour has not improved over the
years.Whenever a government and its agencies define a curriculum it gets reduced to being
a dead package, while education is about life and learning survives because individuals
experiment.
• Management education, as practised, has contributed to building stereotypes and in the
process it is destroying the precious individuality of employees and consequently creativity
in organisations. It has also focused too much on preparing generalists at the cost of build-
ing deep expertise. The myth that management is all about strategy and social networks is
being shattered. Most organisations paid less attention to execution and processes, which
also got reflected in mindsets of graduates coming out of management schools. In fact, the
most exciting work (read: innovation) was being done by organisations and individuals who
picked up management perspectives and skills and went back to innovate in their prior
domains of experience (especially in a technical field). They were building on their deep
technical knowledge of their prior areas of work by applying management expertise in
those domains as opposed to starting afresh in a newer domain of understanding and
complexity.
• Related to this issue is the narrow range of skills that companies pick up from management
institutions. Most students have an engineering background. This made the thinking of
companies very homogeneous and narrow (i.e. structured around numbers and not people)
in terms of backgrounds and prior perspectives. Companies in India, post growth of man-
agement institutions, did not consciously bring in people with other backgrounds like
economics, history, sociology, design, sciences, etc. into their organisations. Many elite man-
agement programmes also started to do the same. It may have led to narrowing of the space
for innovative ideas that is driven by diversity of educational and social experiences.
• As programmes grew, so did the need to teach executives with practical knowledge. This
added a new flavour to management education and a rich application of their learning and
knowledge systems. There were too many people, both academics and executives, who
forgot in the process that education was about preparing people for life and not for the next

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job. Classrooms have turned into structured sessions for gossiping with war stories. The
need is to balance practical exposure with research and new ideas. Good theory always
makes for good practice.
• Management education places too much of a premium on analysis and less on action or
generation of new ideas. Management educationists have always wondered: what may be
analogous to a clinic-­based learning approach of medicine and the codified learning envi-
ronment of cases in law for the world of management education? We believe it simply
requires construction of a new learning and practising environment within the context of
educational programmes.
• Management education also does not focus adequately on understanding, building, and
modifying one’s own and their organisation’s sources of emotions, trust, integrity, and cour-
age. It is amazing how many students will decry learning of organisational behaviour in
classrooms while coming back a decade later to claim that these were the most essential
elements of education that they use now in their working lives. It talks either of the poor
structuring of organisational behaviour classroom processes and the inputs therein, or the
students’ own poor socialisation with the world of business before coming into these pro-
grammes. The world of exploration of the self is either mechanical or is increasingly
becoming spiritual, but much less rational. Recognising that emotions can be part of the
rational self is less appreciated. As a result, management education as practised in our institu-
tions has become a collection of ideas, theories, and ways of thinking where the integration
and execution is left to the imagination of the student.

An MBA carries a variety of valuable skills that range from assimilation of ideas from several
independent disciplines to problem-­solving to thinking strategically to execution, with varying
levels of expertise. But most important, it is built on the foundation of a core discipline at the
undergraduate level. Unfortunately, the bachelor’s degree in management (BBA) in India has
not been able to build such a foundation on which a robust learning-­based career can be built.
This programme has become more vocational and less foundational in terms of deep grounding
in a discipline:

• The admissions process has become very narrow and does not judge any sort of managerial
proclivity. Its intense quantitative nature (due to its focus on number-­driven analytics) pre-
cludes a large majority of students in the humanities and social sciences and even some
sciences from looking towards management education as a possible option. Having said
that, there is also an underlying flaw in the undergraduate education of many students as
well that assumes that quantitative techniques, science, and technology are for others, and
that they can build a career in the twenty-­first century without building any appreciation
of them.
• Hiring from elite schools by bigger and prestigious organisations is nothing short of a scan-
dal: alumni hiring current students is perpetuating the myth of the tyranny of the con-
nected class. This is also unhealthy in a society that is very diverse in endowments, and leads
to loss of skills and value in corporations that are also trustees of public confidence and
wealth.
• Management has to engage much more deeply with disciplines in the humanities, social
sciences, and the sciences in preparing leaders of tomorrow. For instance, a student who
wants to work in the telecom sector should be able to take courses in execution and tele-
com strategy at the business school, pricing and spectrum allocation from the school of
economics, related regulation from the law school, spectrum design and communications

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Pankaj Chandra

and transmission technology from the engineering school, and social impact of technology
from the school of policy. Such a person will then contribute tremendously to any telecom
organisation. This does not happen in India today.

Quality of teaching needs to become more sensitive to the long-­term impact of education
and hence become more rigorous. The same is true of research as well. First, Indian institutions
need to develop stronger capabilities and engagement with problems facing the nation in their
research. Second, they need to become rigorous in their research methods and subject them-
selves to peer review globally. Third, more institutions need to engage with research to build a
larger pool of researchers in the country and for teaching to remain relevant.

• Most management programmes focus on producing general managers – generalists who

move around different kinds of organisations producing different kinds of products and
services and performing different tasks. This model is under intense pressure. It also requires
very high levels of resources that only a few institutions carry. Many others have failed to
develop sector-­specific programmes or programmes that cater to regional needs and devel-
opment. Institutions with limited resources, which is where most of our institutions will lie,
would be served well by remaining focused and building deep capabilities in a limited area
rather than being diversified as most larger institutions like IIMs are.
• Management education needs to put more emphasis on training of academics, particularly
in research methods and in key pedagogies to ensure that the classroom experience is not
frivolous, as it has implications for how organisations will perform in times to come.

The decade to come will test, much more than any period in the past, the resolve and capabili-
ties of institutions to generate new knowledge and translate this into useful applications. There is
less patience with organisations of all kinds and they will have to experiment dramatically to
deliver value to society at large. Technology and global trade regimes, on the one hand, will
ensure that global innovations reach all corners of the earth while the multitude of regulatory
regimes, on the other hand, will ensure that goods and services crossing borders are impeccable
in their construction, safety, and value. New technologies like 3D printing, synthetic and compu-
tational biology, and high-­speed transport, as well as autonomous, personalised energy systems,
consumer insight, and neuropsychology for delivering targeted value are expected to dramatically
change the industry structure as well as organisations of tomorrow. The big opportunities will lie
at the intersection of design, management, and technology and through entrepreneurial ventures.
This would require new experiments and new thinking. Whether Indian management institu-
tions can lead thinking within the nation and the world through their intellectual energy is the
real question. The answer will decide their relevance and reach in times to come.

References
Anubhai, P. (2011). The IIMA Story:The DNA of an Institution. New Delhi: Random House India.
Datar, S.M., Garvin, D.A., and Cullen, P.G. (2010). Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads.
Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Government of India-­MHRD. (2014). Educational Statistics at a Glance. New Delhi: GOI.
Sahoo, B.K., Singh, R., Mishra, B., and Sankaran, K. (2017). Research Productivity in Management Schools
of India During 1968–2015: A Directional Benefit-­of-­Doubt Model Analysis. Omega, 66 (Part A): 118–
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Tripathy, D. and Jumani, J. (2013). The Oxford History of Contemporary Indian History. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.

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 13
Technical and vocational education
and training in India
Lacking vision, strategy and coherence

Santosh Mehrotra

Developing countries face the uphill task of dealing with multiple challenges all at the same
time. They are attempting to address those challenges and compress their development trajec-
tory in a shorter span of time, a process that took two centuries to achieve in the now industri-
alised countries. There was an unfair advantage the majority of European now industrialised
countries enjoyed of having exploited their colonies over those centuries, enabling them to
change their production and employment structure from primary to secondary to tertiary sec-
tors, thus generating the resources required for investing also in their education systems, includ-
ing in technical training.
Developing countries that succeeded early in their development process in investing in edu-
cation and health services, while also adopting an industrial strategy, have demonstrated success
in similarly transforming their economies, through a consciously driven planned development
process. This holds especially true of East and South East Asian countries, especially China
(Chang, 2003). However, what is less well understood is that these countries also invested in a
general education and vocational training strategy that underpinned this successful phase of
industrialisation, making Asia the ‘Factory of the World’ in the latter half of the twentieth cen-
tury (Lee and Mehrotra, 2017). This strategy holds out valuable lessons for India, which barely
managed to universalise net enrolment at primary level (classes 1–5) only by 2007 (the reasons
for which have been analysed in Mehrotra et al., 2005; Mehrotra, 2006). Finally, by 2015 India
managed to increase secondary enrolment (classes 9–10) to over 80 per cent (from 58 per cent
in 2010), thankfully with gender parity. This fact, of course, masks the poor learning experience
of children who have benefitted from this very rapid massification of school education. This
sharp increase also led to massification of enrolment at tertiary level, from 11 per cent in 2006
to 26 per cent in 2018, again accompanied by a serious deterioration in quality of education and
employability of youth. So poor was the employability of these youth, that in fact, youth unem-
ployment shot up from 6 per cent (for 15–29 year olds) in 2012 to 18 per cent in 2018 – itself a
45-year high (Mehrotra and Parida, 2019). There is thus a serious crisis of employability of India’s
youth being churned out by a sharp upswing of school and higher education. One aspect of this
high unemployment is the serious neglect of vocation education in India’s school system.
We must begin by recognising how woeful is the educational level of our workforce of 466
million in 2018, even though it has improved compared to 2004–2005 (see Figure 13.1).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-17 203

Santosh Mehrotra

38.9
Share of Workers (%) 40

30 23.4
17.6 19.0
20 13.6 14.9
10.9 11.0 9.1
8.2 7.6
10 4.4 6.1 3.4 2.0 3.2 4.0
1.0 0.5 0.9
0
Illiterate Up to Middle Secondary Higher Graduate PG & With Tech Formal Informal
Primary Secondary Above edu Voc Voc
Training Training
Level of Education & Training
2004-05 2017-18

Figure 13.1 Distribution of the workforce by their level of education and training in India.

This chapter begins by raising two conceptual issues that are of relevance to discussing the
Indian technical and vocational education and training (TVET) situation. It then goes on to
describe briefly the five pillars of India’s TVET ecosystem (see ‘Five pillars of TVET in India’).
It then examines the performance of each of the five pillars. It then also discusses the poor
design and implementation of a national vocational qualification framework (see ‘National Skills
Qualification Framework (NSQF) in India’). Finally, it examines the latest development in the
field of education: the National Education Policy 2020 and its view on TVET, and finds it seri-
ously wanting (see ‘National Education Policy 2020 (NEP)’; Section ‘Concluding remarks’).

Two conceptual issues

We begin with two conceptual or theoretical issues, one which derives from pedagogic theory
(or to the realm of education), and the other that derives from the theory of labour markets.
Starting with these two conceptual formulations is essential because without this conceptual
foundation of TVET, skill development (SD) efforts of India’s policy-makers have been floun-
dering over the last decade (for evidence, see Expert Group, 2017; Standing Committee, 2018-19;
Comptroller and Auditor General, 2015).
A belief among SD policy-makers seems to have gained ground that SD is all about voca-
tional skills alone. That belief might be understandable a decade ago when it was discovered that
barely 2.3 per cent of the entire workforce of India had formally acquired any vocational
­education/training. However, in pedagogy, skills are defined as having three dimensions, each
equally important, and having one of these dimensions without the other two does not mean a
person is skilled. The first of these are ‘foundational skills’ (also called cognitive skills), involving
literacy and numeracy. These skills can be acquired to different levels of competence, from quite
basic to advanced. Having only basic level foundational skills may not suffice to get a formal-
sector job, or even a job of any kind besides one requiring sheer physical labour; that is why
measuring mean years of schooling in a population or workforce becomes so important. The
returns to education are higher in terms of earnings the higher the level of education acquired
by a young person. These skills are called foundational because they are not only crucial in
themselves, but also to build other skills required at the workplace: communication skills, prob-
lem-solving, and critical thinking abilities.
The second type of skills required at the workplace, that employers often complain are not
possessed by workers, is transferable or transversal (or non-cognitive) skills, so called because

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they are useful regardless of what work one does: blue-collar or white-collar. They consist of
attributes like creativity, initiative, leadership, ability to work independently; or problem-solv-
ing, teamwork, or motivation; or English language or computing skills. For instance, a
45-country survey PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) found that one-
fifth of students performed below the basic level of competence on the digital reading scale
(UNESCO, 2013).
Vocational or technical skills are the third type of skill. A properly vocationally skilled person
should have both foundational skills and transferable (soft) skills in order to perform well at the
workplace. (For evidence on India’s lack of foundational skills, see Figure 13.1)
There is another conceptual issue that is a source of great confusion among both scholars and
policy-makers. Is TVET a public good, or a private good, or a quasi-public good? A private good
is defined in economics as ‘an item that yields positive benefits to people that is excludable’, i.e.
its owners can exercise private property rights, preventing those who have not paid for it from
using the good or consuming its benefits; and rivalrous, i.e. consumption by one necessarily
prevents that of another. A private good, as an economic resource, is scarce, which can cause
competition for it.
The characteristics of pure public goods are the opposite of private goods:

a. Non-excludability: The benefits derived from pure public goods cannot be confined solely
to those who have paid for it. Indeed non-payers can enjoy the benefits of consumption at
no financial cost – economists call this the ‘free-rider’ problem. With private goods, con-
sumption ultimately depends on the ability to pay.
b. Non-rival consumption: Consumption by one consumer does not restrict consumption
by other consumers – in other words, the marginal cost of supplying a public good to an
extra person is zero. If it is supplied to one person, it is available to all.
c. Non-rejectable: The collective supply of a public good for all implies that it cannot be
rejected by people. A good example is a nuclear defence system or flood defence projects.

There are relatively few examples of pure public goods. Examples include flood control systems,
broadcasting services provided by Doordarshan, public water supplies, street lighting for roads.
Finally, a quasi-public good is a near-public good, i.e. it has many but not all the characteris-
tics of a public good. Quasi-public goods are:

a. Semi-non-rival: Up to a point, extra consumers using a park, beach or road do not reduce
the space available for others. Eventually, beaches become crowded as do parks and other
leisure facilities. Open access Wi-Fi networks become crowded.
b. Semi-non-excludable: It is possible but often difficult or expensive to exclude non-paying
consumers. E.g. fencing a park or beach and charging an entrance fee; building toll booths
to charge for road usage on congested routes.

TVET has the characteristics of a quasi-public good. The more of it that is available the better
it is for everyone. If employers or the government train people, then more people are available
to be employed at better wages. Companies often made workers it trained to sign bonds that
they will not leave until they serve the company for a number of years, so they try and exclude
other companies from poaching them, thus preventing free-riding. Given that TVET is not a
pure public good, and only a quasi-public good (with some characteristics of a private good), it
is not immediately obvious that it must be provided by the state – unlike general academic
school education, in which case the state provision of education ensures large externalities to the

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entire population, going well beyond the individual receiving it. The essential point is that the
approach to financing and providing must consist of a combination of industrial and state provi-
sion, with employers playing an extremely important part. Unfortunately, in India this has barely
been understood by policy-makers (Mehrotra and Singh, 2017).

Five pillars of TVET in India

Ten years ago, there was very little TVET available in India, except for Industrial Training
Institutes (ITI), mostly government-financed and managed. The 11th Five Year Plan of India
was the first one ever to devote a separate chapter on Skill Development, followed by another
one for the 12th Plan (Planning Commission, 2013).1 The challenge was to expand the system,
while consistently improving the quality of provisioning (Mehrotra, 2014b). India’s TVET has
evolved and grown rapidly in the last decade or so, though in an extremely ad hoc and unplanned
manner, despite efforts to guide the process through first one national skills policy (Ministry of
Labour and Employment, 2009) and then another (Ministry of Skill Development and
Entrepreneurship, 2015).
Since about 2011, five pillars of TVET in India have emerged: (a) vocational education in
schools and higher education (of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD),
Government of India (GOI)), (b) vocational education by National Skill Development
Corporation’s (NSDC) Private Training Partners (NSDCPTPs), (c) Public and private Industrial
Training Institutes (ITI) (of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, MSDE, GOI),
(d) in plant training by companies, and (e) the skill development schemes of 16 ministries of the
GOI. The Government of India through Ministry of Skill-Development and Entrepreneurship
provides the overall framework for skills development in the country. Its institutions notify/
develop courses, fund, assess, and certify the courses. In addition, the MSDE and MHRD have run
a nationwide Apprenticeship Training system since 1961 (under the Apprenticeship Act), which
has remained confined to the organised segment of economic activity, which accounts for only 15
per cent of India’s workforce of 466 million. Here, too, it is known that only the large enterprises
(mainly public sector ones and some corporates) offer apprenticeships; the registered SMEs, which
barely account for 3 per cent of all non-agricultural establishments in India, rarely do (97 per cent
of India’s non-farm enterprises are unregistered). In other words, the vast majority of youth, if they
acquire any vocational skills, do so on-the-job in the 85 per cent of units that employ them in the
unorganised sector enterprises in industry and services.
It is not surprising, therefore, that NSS 2011–12 (Employment-Unemployment Survey, 68th
Round) informed us that only 2.3 per cent of the total workforce of India has acquired any f­ormal
vocational education/training. Despite ‘Skill India’, the GOI’s much-advertised programme, that
share went up in 2017–2018 (Periodic Labour Force Survey, NSS) to merely 2.4 per cent.
For a country where the educational level of the workforce has remained abysmally low since
Independence, with precious little improvement except within the last 15 years, the lack of a
vocationally skilled force is an added disadvantage. This is so for at least two reasons: one, it
entrenches informality in the workforce, since one needs at least 8 years of education to become
even eligible for organised sector work; and two, low education levels remain a barrier to raising
income levels of the poor, which reduces the poverty-elasticity of GDP growth.

Weak TVET system: now growing fast without a vision

Successful TVET systems in the world are those where TVET is provided mainly by employers
(as we noted earlier), as that ensures a demand-based SD system. In the previous section we

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noted that most of India’s TVET provisioning is done by the government. While there is some
industry involvement in provision of vocational training, it is confined to a limited share of all
registered enterprise; the latter account for barely 3 per cent of India’s 66 million non-­agricultural
enterprises. In 2014 only 36 per cent of all registered enterprises were providing enterprise-
based training, which means that the majority were not. There is evidence to suggest that most
enterprise-based training is confined to large public sector undertakings and large corporate
entities; the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have tried to avoid providing training
(a ­subject we will return to later). Meanwhile, in this section we focus on government provision
of TVET in the remaining four pillars of the TVET system.

School-level vocational education

Until 2014 there was practically no vocational education in schools. The only VE available was
at senior secondary level for 17–18-year-olds (classes 11–12), which attracted no more than
3 per cent of total senior secondary enrolment in India. It offered poor-quality VE, and hence
did not attract many. However, since 2014, after the acceptance of a vocational qualification
framework (called the National Skills Qualification Framework, henceforth NSQF), VE was
introduced at secondary level for 15–16-year-olds, in classes 9 and 10.2 The number of second-
ary schools that offer VE has grown since 2020 to about 10,000; or still only 10 per cent of the
total government secondary schools in India.VE is offered as one of the subjects; it is not a sepa-
rate stream in VE (unlike, say, in China).
There is very limited industry or employer involvement in this vocational education, without
which this model is destined to not provide the country with the kind of staff that modern
industry or service sectors need. Second, there is little or no provision for apprenticeship, or even
internship for these youngsters, without which the VE is doomed to failure.
Third, there has been no field-based evaluation of the school VE. Preliminary evidence on
the experience since 2014 is not good. First, while there is a Management Information System
(MIS) maintained by the Ministry of Education (Government of India), it is based on what data
state governments provide, which itself is of poor quality. Second, no tracer study has so far been
conducted to assess what those students who undergo VE actually do when they graduate, so we
have no evidence if the employability of these students is any better than of those who only
undergo general academic education. The VE course is, in any case, not a stream, but an optional
course in lieu of an academic course at secondary/higher secondary levels. Third, the teachers
who come in to teach vocational subjects are all contract teachers, coming in from outside to
offer one course. Fourth, even for the courses that are offered, the aim of the teachers is to get
students to pass the exam, despite all the talk about competency-based instruction the NSQF
speaks about.
In addition to the secondary/senior secondary VE, tertiary educational institutions, especially
universities began offering Bachelor of Vocation Education degrees (or even certificates in one
year, or diplomas in two years). They suffer from similar problems in that UGC Guidelines for
B.Voc. states:

The university/college should develop the curriculum in consultation with industry. The
industry representatives should be an integral part of the academic bodies of the university/
college. While doing so, they should work towards aligning the skills components of the
curriculum with the NOSs [National Occupation Standards] developed by the respective
Sector Skill Council (SSC).

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We will discuss the supposed ‘skill components of the curriculum with the NOSs developed by
the SSCs’ below. Meanwhile, the Guidelines seem quite lax in respect of industry involvement
in B.Voc. Thus, Clause 6.7 states:

The practical/hands-on portion of the skills development components of the curriculum

should be transacted normally in face to face mode, either within the institution or at a
specified industry partner location. However, if due to the nature of the skill to be learnt,
the industry prescribes its acquisition through blended or distance mode, the same may be
followed.

Given that industry involvement through an internship or apprenticeship, neither of which can
be ‘online’ or distance mode, is a sine qua non of quality TVET, this approach is unlikely to lead
to employability of vocational students.

NSDC-funded private vocational training providers

This is the second, and like VE in schools, new pillar of TVET in India. In 2010 the government
of India decided that because the economy had been growing at an unprecedented rate until the
global economic crisis, the labour market needed to quickly train young people who can enter
the labour force after some short-term training. The implicit strategy was based on the under-
standing that school leavers, if provided with a maximum of three months’ training in a voca-
tional field by private providers will gain employment. NSDC was meant to be a private–public
partnership, with financial involvement of FICCI, CII and Assocham (the private chambers of
commerce with national reach). That proved to be a chimera, and 75 per cent of funding to get
a privately owned and managed vocational training provider (VTP) to start training youngsters
came from government sources, with the remaining 25 per cent invested by the VTP owner.
These VTP owners, it is important to note, were not employers, but private standalone training
providers (Mehrotra, 2020).
NSDC’s second role was to incubate Sector Skill Councils, which were intended, like in
many Anglophone countries, to provide employer/industry representatives a role in training
design and provision.
The model was flawed on many grounds, as elaborated at length by an Expert Group created
by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Expert Group, 2017).

Industrial Training Institutes (ITI): public and private

The third pillar of India’s TVET ecosystem are ITIs. At the end of the first decade of the mil-
lennium there were 1,896 government-financed and-managed ITIs, which have been in exis-
tence since the 1950s. There were also private ITIs, numbering below 2,000 at the time, that
were financed and managed privately, although under conditions approved by the govern-
ment. Most of the trades for which training was available were useful for manufacturing.
These were the only institutions in the TVET system that provided training for a minimum
of one year to three years, depending upon the occupation, not of very high quality, nor
involving industry engagement (Mehrotra, 2014a). All other institutions tend to provide
short-term training.
As the demand for trained young people grew with India achieving an unprecedented GDP
growth rate, and non-agricultural jobs grew rapidly, the number of private ITIs were permitted
to grow in number. However, the number of private ITIs grew so rapidly that by 2018 their

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number had shot up from under 2,000 to over 11,000. When such rapid expansion takes place,
it is inevitable that there will be a precipitous decline in quality, resulting from the incapacity of
the state to regulate these institutions, and their teaching-learning process, let alone outcomes.
A parliamentary report of the Standing Committee found the processes seriously flawed
(Standing Committee on Labour, 2017).

Central government ministries offering training courses

Other than the three types of public and private institutions discussed above, the central govern-
ment allowed at least 16 other line ministries to conduct vocational training. Most of the train-
ing that they offered was related to their line of work. The Ministry of Rural Development was
offering the largest number of programmes, even though they were mostly short-term training
programmes, lasting a few months. In fact, all these ministries were conducting short-term
training.
The end result of this plethora of ministries (Ministry of Skill Development &
Entrepreneurship offering ITI-based training and Ministry of Human Resource Development
responsible for school-based VE were the biggest) was that the entire SD ecosystem remained
highly fragmented, with practically no coherence between them. Practically no part of the sys-
tem talks to other parts (Mehrotra, 2020).

Apprenticeships: a new beginning?

Formal apprenticeships have been promoted by the GOI in the organised sector of the economy
since the early 1960s. In 1961, the GOI ushered in the Apprenticeship Act, which was applicable
to engineering, non–engineering, technology, and vocational courses. It constituted apprentice-
ship councils and advisors, and placed a statutory obligation on employers to engage apprentices
with a stipend and in the ratio prescribed for designated trades. It also imposed a penalty of six
months of imprisonment or a fine or both on the employer in case of non–­compliance
(Mehrotra, 2014a).
However, apprenticeships have stagnated between 2000 and 2014 due to the challenges cre-
ated by the 1961 Act and stood at 0.28 million in 2014. Administratively, a complex workflow
for engagement of apprentices by companies implied that MSMEs avoided engaging appren-
tices. The Act gave power to the bureaucracy to impose strict and burdensome compliance
norms on companies. The threat of a penalty was unhelpful. For the apprentice too, the attrac-
tiveness remained limited, in terms of the stipend offered and progression opportunities. Finally,
the improper dissemination of the benefits of apprenticeships led to training being perceived as
less aspirational than a general education (Mehrotra, 2014a).
The law was amended in December 2014, and the National Apprenticeship Promotion
Scheme (NAPS) in 2016 was introduced. Now apprenticeship is a valid pathway for youth edu-
cated beyond grade five to acquire a skill. Their base stipend has been increased to ensure sus-
tenance during an apprenticeship. Technology has rendered contractual paperwork and process
seamless and minimal.
An IT platform enables interface between stakeholders and apprentices for compliance. The
service sector accepts youth by making apprenticeships obligatory for this sector.
The prescriptive quota regime has made way for a percentage band of 2.5 per cent to 15 per
cent, within which employers can decide the number of apprentices based on their needs and
capacity. SMEs having four or more employees are now eligible to keep apprentices either on
their own or as a group of employers. A realistic financial penalty has replaced imprisonment.

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Furthermore, employers are empowered to decide their own curricula and the duration of
apprenticeships (between 6 and 36 months) on a need-basis. NAPS further incentivises employ-
ers by partially splitting the stipend burden between them and the government.
The government has also shown urgency in its intent to push apprenticeships through cata-
lysts in the form of Third Party Aggregators (TPAs) that can work in clusters with both MSMEs
and large industries. They are empowered to help aggregate demand in these clusters, pool
resources in the case of SMEs, mobilise potential apprentices, deliver basic training, facilitate
paperwork and, above all, educate stakeholders on the need for apprenticeships. Regulatory
powers have also been delegated to the industry-led Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) to administer
apprenticeships in their respective sectors (Agrawal, 2019).
The results are encouraging. More than 1.1 million candidates and 70,000 companies are
now registered on the apprenticeship portal; annual apprenticeships have increased by
60 per cent, on a base of about 250,000 (Mehrotra, 2014a; Agrawal, 2019).
However, the challenges of awareness, lack of a progression pathway, absence of an integrated
credit framework, the not-so-clear value proposition for certifications and training-capacity
shortages remain, which the industry can support to address. First, the government and industry
stakeholders/SSCs need to jointly promote apprenticeships as a powerful learning tool. Second,
MSMEs should leverage TPAs to create tailored apprenticeships. Third, although the regulations
protect the apprentice’s rights, the spirit of the law can only be upheld by the employer by creat-
ing a learning experience during the apprenticeship. Finally, the challenges of the new system
need to be conveyed to the government periodically, so it does not suffer fossilisation again
(Agrawal, 2019).

National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) in India: a unifying

framework for SD?
Like with each of the five pillars, and the issues remaining with a somewhat improved formal
apprenticeship system, there is still little effort to integrate the highly fragmented SD system.
There were expectations that a NSQF will be able to resolve these issues. However, as we argue
in this section, this does not quite appear to have worked like that.
Like about 100 other countries in the world, India too decided in 2011 to follow the Anglo-
Saxon tradition of initiating a vocational qualification framework. NVQFs originated in
advanced industrialised countries, where the majority of the workforce is in formal employ-
ment. The experience there with these frameworks has not been encouraging (Allais, 2017;
Raffe, 2012; Wheelahan, 2008). In India, in contrast, 91 per cent of workers are informally
employed (usually with no written contract and no old-age pension, death/disability insurance,
maternity benefit). This situation has been one factor behind the lack of success with NVQF
implementation in many developing countries (Mehrotra, 2020).
However, there were also many systemic issues with the pre-employment TVET system in
India. The promise of the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), introduced at the
end of 2013, was that it should be able to address some of these issues.
The first systemic issue was the lack of uniformity in qualifications across TVET institutions
that existed before NSQF. Another was the lack of clear recognised pathways of learning for
upward mobility for students in the formal vocational education and training stream of educa-
tion into the tertiary education system. Third, there was a lack of credibility among stakeholders
due to the poor quality of delivery and outcomes after training, partly due to shortage of train-
ers, especially teachers with industry or work experience. Fourth, TVET, unlike general educa-
tion, is supposed to lead to a certain level of competence to perform tasks in an occupation.

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NSQF was supposed to introduce competence-based training. Fifth, there was lack of horizontal
mobility in the TVET system. There should be the possibility of horizontal mobility so that the
students from the vocational stream are able to enter the general education stream, if they so
desire. The challenge, therefore, was to create a new system of secondary and higher secondary
education where all students get an opportunity to develop vocational skills along with the
academic skills.
Finally, in a highly informalised workforce, where the workforce had acquired many skills
over time on the job, there was no formal recognition of informal (prior) learning (Mehrotra,
2020).
The reality of the implementation and outcomes of the NSQF have turned out to be quite
different from what was intended. The main change that occurred after the NSQF was intro-
duced in early 2014 was that by early 2017, nearly 10,000 National Occupation Standards
(NOS) were prepared, which were clubbed together into about 1,900 Qualification Packs (QP),
corresponding to job roles. Given the problematic process of NOS-QP preparation a very large
number were prepared at break-neck speed. There seems little evidence that the methodology
followed was what should have been followed; nor did it lead to curriculum development
involving relevant stakeholders (Expert Group, 2017).
The TVET policy-makers did not confront the reality that the ecosystem was seriously short
of teacher-trainers. Moreover, the majority of TVET teachers lacked any industry experience on
the job. In India, senior vocational secondary school teachers often lack basic qualifications, are
not in regular positions (but in ad hoc or contractual posts) and in ITIs have often received their
training in ITIs themselves. In other words, an essential prerequisite of TVET reform was never
really met in six years since NSQF was implemented.
The expectation was that the NSQF will lead to the emergence of an outcome-based, as
opposed to an input-based, TVET system. The expectation for the NSQF (as specified by an
expert group appointed by the government) was that policy-makers will define ‘outcomes’ by
‘defining the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and certification norms’. However, unfortu-
nately none of what the expert group had specified actually happened in reality over 2012 to
2019 (Mehrotra, 2020). The problem is that this has been the experience of many developing
countries around the world with vocational qualification frameworks (Allais, 2017).
The Germanic TVET system (which is followed in Austria, Switzerland, and to a significant
extent in Holland) is different in design from the Anglo-Saxon system of which NVQFs are a
part. The former recognises that quality outcomes only depend in part on assessment of perfor-
mance and that, more significantly, they rely on the quality of provision and the partnerships
between employers, the state, trade unions, and TVET providers (Hoeckel and Schwartz, 2010).
For example, in the German dual system of TVET, it is the employers who set the examinations
at the end of apprenticeships. No such thing happens in India still, in 2020.
While the promise was that competency-based curricula (CBCs) will emerge, that will
improve quality of delivery of TVET, CBCs or even the NSQF have not been recognised or
accepted until 2020 in ITIs, or the central line ministry training institutions, or industry in-
house training programmes. Thus India’s TVET suffers from two debilitating weaknesses in this
regard. The notion of CBC itself has not been recognised ecosystem-wide: three of the five
pillars hardly recognise the NSQF (ITI, enterprise-based training, 16 ministries of the GOI). In
addition, CBC itself has been narrowly understood even in the two remaining pillars (voca-
tional courses for schools and NSDC-funded VTPs offering short-term courses) as simply
specifying NOSs and QPs (in other words, stating the outcome to be achieved), without com-
pletely rewriting the curricula that serve as inputs to the achievement of those trainee-level
outcomes.

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One promise of NSQF, in fact its objective, was to enable vertical mobility of trainees. Many
states have taken appropriate decisions to enable vertical progression to take place. However,
given that three of the five pillars of the TVET system have not even implemented the NSQF,
it is obvious that these decisions could have been taken regardless of whether a NSQF was in
place or not.

National Education Policy 2020 (NEP): does it offer hope for TVET?
Given the state of TVET in India, the final issue we discuss here is: does the first NEP in 30
years offer any hope of a serious vision, let alone a strategy of reform that TVET desperately
needs? The NEP begins by recognising that less than 5 per cent of India’s workforce has for-
mally acquired any vocational education/training (MHRD, 2020). The actual figure was 2.3
per cent in 2012 (NSS, 68th Round). However, after six years of Skill India, a national govern-
ment programme started in 2015, the share of formally trained in the workforce rose barely
0.1 per cent to 2.4 per cent in 2018. Given this appalling performance of the government-
managed, government-financed TVET, it is unfortunate that the NEP 2020 of the Government
of India does not even begin to recognise the nature of the challenge, and has therefore, little
hope to offer.
NEP recognises that VE in schools was also not designed to provide openings in tertiary
education to school students who had vocational education qualifications, which put them at a
disadvantage relative to the students from mainstream education. ‘This led to a complete lack of
vertical mobility for students from the vocational education stream, an issue that has only been
addressed recently through the announcement of the National Skills Qualifications Framework
(NSQF) in 2013’, the NEP claims.We have already demonstrated above that the vertical mobil-
ity was not really contributed by NSQF itself; it was achieved despite NSQF, not because of it.
The authors of NEP clearly seem oblivious to, or wish to ignore, the problems with NSQF in
India, its design as well as its inadequate mode of implementation.
The NEP goes on:

This policy aims to overcome the social status hierarchy associated with vocational educa-
tion through … beginning with vocational exposure at early ages, quality vocational educa-
tion through middle and secondary school and smoothly into higher education. Integrating
vocational education in this way will ensure that every child learns at least one vocation and
is exposed to several more.
(16.3)

This is all it has to say about making VE aspirational, which is rather little. Then, it launches into
the usual target driven approach, without explaining how the target will be met. ‘By 2025, at
least 50% of learners through the school and higher education system shall have exposure to
vocational education’ (16.4). How India will go from less than 10 per cent access to VE to 50
per cent in a matter of five years is a question.
It goes on:

Towards this, secondary schools will collaborate with ITIs, polytechnics, local industry etc.
Higher education institutions will offer vocational education either on their own or in
partnership with industry. The B.Voc. degrees introduced in 2013 will continue to exist,
but vocational courses will also be available to students enrolled in all other Bachelor’s
degree programmes, including the 4-year holistic Bachelor’s programmes.

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There is nothing new in all of this, nor is there any further explanation how this is to be done.
The need for industry involvement and engagement is barely mentioned. ‘The MoE will
constitute a National Committee for the Integration of Vocational Education (NCIVE), along
with industry participation, to oversee this effort and should also earmark budget for promoting
this integration’ (16.5). ‘Incubation centres will be set up in higher education institutes in part-
nership with industries’ (16.6). However industry partnership is a much more complicated
process, but there is little recognition of such complexities.
It also notes:

The National Skills Qualifications Framework will be detailed further for each discipline
vocation/profession. Further, Indian standards will be aligned with the International
Standard Classification of Occupations maintained by the International Labour
Organisation. This Framework will provide the basis for Recognition of Prior Learning.
Through this, dropouts from the formal system will be reintegrated by aligning their practi-
cal experience with the relevant level on the Framework. The Framework will also facili-
tate mobility across general and vocational education.
(16.7)

Given the state of the NSQF as discussed in the previous section, it is clear from this paragraph
that there is little understanding in the government that international evidence suggests that
vocational qualification frameworks have been barely successful in the highly formalised econo-
mies of the advanced industrialised countries; their success in the global South remains to be
demonstrated. Moreover, Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) acquired by the 90 per cent of
the workforce that picked up vocational skills on the job and have very low levels of education,
is given a one-sentence passing reference. There is not even a mention of the fact that for the
millions already in the workforce, this RPL might be a passport for success in a world of work
that is increasingly looking for certification as a signalling tool in the labour market.

Professional education
The NEP takes an appropriate approach to professional education.

The practice of setting up stand-alone technical universities, health science universities,

legal and agricultural universities, or institutions in these or other fields, shall be discour-
aged. No new stand-alone institutions will be permitted except in specific fields as per
national needs. All existing stand-alone professional educational institutions will have to
become multi-disciplinary institutions by 2030, either by opening new departments or by
operating in clusters.
(17.1)

The NEP also rightly notes: ‘Although Agricultural Universities comprise approximately 9% of
all universities in the country, enrolment in agriculture and allied sciences is less than 1% of all
enrolment in higher education (17.2).’ For legal education too, it takes the right approach:

State institutions offering law education must consider offering bilingual education for
future lawyers and judges – in English and in the language of the State in which the law
programme is situated. This is to alleviate delay in legal outcomes consequent to need for
translation.

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Santosh Mehrotra

Healthcare education shall be re-envisioned such that the duration, structure, and design of the
educational programmes are as required for the roles that graduates will play. ‘For example, every
healthcare process/intervention (e.g., taking/reading an ECG) does not necessarily need a fully
qualified doctor. All MBBS graduates must possess (a) Medical skills, (b) Diagnostic skills, (c)
Surgical skills, and (d) Emergency skills’ 17.4). However, the NEP shows no recognition of how
serious the shortfall of health professionals in the country generally is, nor does it notice that
public health is severely handicapped. This shortage of personnel becomes an overwhelmingly
important constraint upon India’s ability to handle the COVID pandemic; there is no mention
of the fact that India has historically underspent on public health, and its government health
system suffers from severe shortages, especially in states with the worst health indicators (mostly
in the north and east of India). These public health system weaknesses have been amplified by
the COVID pandemic and its impact on the entire population. All NEP says is: ‘Students will be
assessed at regular intervals on well-defined parameters primarily for the skills required for
working in primary care and in secondary hospitals.’
In respect of technical education, it recognises the need for ‘closer collaboration between
industry and institutions to drive innovation and research’. Again, there is not even a hint of an
effort to suggest how this might be achieved.
Finally, there is barely a sentence recognising Industrial Revolution 4.0, and the challenges
that our industry will face moving forward.

India must take the lead in preparing professionals in cutting-edge areas that are fast gaining
prominence, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3-D machining, big data analysis and
machine learning among others in technical education, genomic studies, biotechnology,
nanotechnology, neuroscience and so on in the sciences. These topics, and many others like
them, must be woven into undergraduate education at the earliest.
(17.5)

India has come to pride itself at having become the fifth largest economy in the world (which
has already slipped to seventh place after the GDP contracted post-COVID). However, the five
countries that are at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution (USA, Germany, Japan,
China, South Korea) are all also major manufacturing nations, and all have had some form of an
industrial strategy that underpinned their education system. India has neither had an industrial
strategy in the last three decades, nor has it even revised its National Education Policy. After
waiting for 30 years, we now have a NEP that mostly does not recognise the nature of the chal-
lenges, let alone address them.

Concluding remarks
This chapter has examined the five pillars of India’s TVET system, and found them each seri-
ously wanting. Given that India’s demographic dividend has been around for 40 years already
(since the early 1980s), and that there are only two more decades left for this dividend to end,
one expected India’s policy-makers would have realised the importance of TVET long ago.
However, the weaknesses of India’s education system have already shown themselves in that the
poor quality of learning in general academic education has resulted in high dropout rates, with
youth entering the labour market to join informal work. Their low level of education and its
poor quality ensured that they would not be accepted in formal work places.
India’s weak TVET system, we noted, was ignored for 50 years by policy-makers. However,
since the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, both the economy and the TVET system have

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 Technical and vocational education

been growing fast. But lacking a vision, the TVET expansion has been unplanned, without ref-
erence to any particular goals of ensuring employability, as well as actual industrial or service
sector involvement.
Foundational problems remain with a very high share of India’s workforce still either illit-
erate or only with an education up to grade 8. Most of the vocational skills acquired are on
the job in informal apprenticeships. Formal apprenticeships remain small and relatively
insignificant.
Unfortunately, the National Educational Policy 2020 lacks any understanding of the prob-
lem. India needs a vision (first to build India as a manufacturing nation like the East Asians had),
then a strategy to implement that vision, which essentially means a TVET strategy aligned to the
manufacturing strategy. Only then can a policy for TVET be developed, with a focus on all three
dimensions (foundational, transferable, technical) along with new understanding of recognition
of prior learning (which does not exist), given that 91 per cent of the workforce is informal and
an even higher share is informally trained. The vision should establish employability and
employment as a goal, which is measurable: that requires industry or employer involvement at
every stage of delivery.

Notes
1 The author had the privilege to lead the team that wrote the 12th Plan chapter on Skill Development.
However, after the 12th Plan, there has been none, since the Planning Commission was abolished at the
end of 2014 by a new right-wing government, and was replaced by another, much weaker institution,
with much fewer powers and no financial allocation authority (Mehrotra, 2020).
2 Although the author chaired the Ministry of Human Resource Development, GoI, task force that
prepared the blueprint for the NSQF (see Mehrotra, Mehrotra and Banerjee, 2012), the implementa-
tion by government officials led to distortions that undermined its success.

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 Part IV
Universities and society

The advent of universities in India is a major facet of modernity and institutionalised education.
Universities are crucial to the modern occupational structure and forms of knowledge that arose
under colonial conditions in India. Although universities existed in India, we do not have precise
knowledge about how they functioned, and even less about their relationship with society. In
any case, a vast chronological break – with obvious implications for society – separates those
ancient institutions from India’s present-day universities. The latter were formally set up to serve
the emerging colonial state apparatus and the limited social needs this apparatus recognised in
the mid-­nineteenth century. This section opens with Philip Altbach’s chapter on the develop-
ment of universities in India since that time. For a while, universities performed mainly in
examining and degree-granting roles; teaching was added later, and research later still. Thus,
knowledge generation as an aspect of the higher education system has a relatively short history
in modern India. The question Altbach focuses on is why excellence in this role continues to
elude India despite its growing importance in the global economy. This chapter also draws the
reader’s attention to the institutional diversity that prevails in higher education (parallels with
school education, discussed in Part I, are obvious). The policy-related matters this chapter dis-
cusses need to be considered in conjunction with conceptual issues raised in the context of
curriculum design and the pedagogic and examining practices discussed in Part II. A larger
theoretical perspective on knowledge and its generation is required to appreciate why so few
universities in India meet the standards of quality that are commonly applied for international
comparison. The latest strategy being used in India for pursuing quality is to encourage the
private sector in higher education. Furqan Qamar’s paper provides a historical background nec-
essary for grasping this development and for distinguishing it from the older systemic tradition
of encouraging private participation. The new private universities have emerged in the context
of globalisation, which is both an economic and a socio-cultural phenomenon, marking a
departure from the generally inclusive growth of opportunities for higher education. Readers
will greatly benefit from studying Altbach along with Qamar and the chapters included in this
section to address the issues faced by the lower castes and tribal groups in accessing higher edu-
cation in India.
The other three chapters included in this section explore the social base of higher education
in India. This, by itself, can be regarded as a factor of quality in the experience of learning

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-18 217

Universities and society

provided by institutions of higher education. However, that is not the way the debate on quality
in higher education is normally looked at. Customarily, issues of access are considered different
from issues of quality. This kind of separation permits the discussion of inclusivity as a moral
goal. Apparently, the higher education sector in India has remained largely bereft of reflection
and research on the role that pedagogic issues such as the social composition of the classroom or
the medium of interaction play in determining the quality of teaching and learning. The Indian
university has remained remarkably unchanged as far as its role as an examining body is con-
cerned. In the matter of language, too, English has maintained its dominance. What has changed
is the composition of the clientele, and the two main reasons to which this change is related are
expansion of school education and the policy of reservation for the Scheduled Castes, the
Scheduled Tribes, and the Other Backward Classes. In terms of their presence in the classroom,
universities and colleges have become more inclusive. To an extent, the curricula and syllabi in
certain areas have accommodated larger social concerns, but this kind of change is restricted to
a handful of institutions.
This bigger picture of an institutional set-up helps us grasp both the nature of the problem
that higher education faces in India and also enables us to assess more objectively the relevance
of new remedies such as online or distance education and private universities. These remedies
bypass the core problem that has to do with the social base of universities and the manner in
which the extant narrow base keeps the pedagogic environment stagnant.
The chapters included in this part are aimed at assisting the reader to assess the size of the
social base and the change it has undergone in the recent past. The chapter by Karuna Chanana
focuses on the participation of women in higher education. She looks at both the presence of
women and the areas of knowledge in which it occurs. The chapter underscores the practice of
associating certain areas of knowledge with men and others with women. The chapter by Satish
Deshpande examines university enrolment and performance from the perspective of social jus-
tice. More specifically, this chapter examines the provision of caste quotas as a means of pursuing
the Constitutional goal of equality with social justice in higher education. The other chapter on
this theme in this part discusses the experience of tribal groups in obtaining higher education.
Here, Virginius Xaxa examines the status of higher education among the Scheduled Tribes of
India. Xaxa locates the problem in the meagre expansion of the sector. Owing to limited expan-
sion, higher education has become a site of intense competition. Data show that tribal groups
continue to be a victim of deprivation of opportunities for knowledge and mobility that higher
education is supposed to provide to all sections of society on an equitable basis. In as much as
inclusivity is a factor of quality of educational experience at any level, these chapters demon-
strate how large a constraint is placed upon the quality of higher education by the inequitable
distribution of higher education among women, lower caste strata, and tribes. Inequitable distri-
bution is also an indicator of the limited role that universities and colleges have been able to play
in building a democratic social order.

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 14
Indian higher education
Twenty-first-century challenges1

Philip G. Altbach

The saga of Indian higher education since the 1960s is complex, variegated, and reflects the
country’s development over time. The country’s education development has, for much of this
period, lagged behind economic and social development. Like India itself, higher education
realities are contradictory. India, in 2015, has the world’s second largest higher education system
in terms of student numbers, having recently overtaken the United States in enrolments, with
20 million students enrolled in post-secondary education, attending more than 35,500 colleges
and 574 universities. It is estimated that more than half of the world’s post-secondary institutions
are located in India – many of the colleges are uneconomically small. Approximately 20 per cent
of the 18–22-year-old age cohort is in post-secondary education – with a goal of enrolling 25
per cent by 2017 and 32 per cent by 2022 – an extremely ambitious target (Rashtriya Uchchtar
Shiksha Abhiyan 2013). Dropout rates are high, with many of those who enter the system failing
to complete a degree. Quality is generally poor – although there are significant islands of excel-
lence, the system overall is a sea of mediocrity – and none of India’s universities score well on
any of the international higher education rankings (Altbach 2006).
India, like many developing countries, has been swamped by massification – the rapid expan-
sion of higher education enrolments that is the result of an unstoppable demand by growing
segments of the population for access. India’s challenges have been magnified by increased
demand for access, combined with overall population growth. In no country has rapid expan-
sion been accompanied by improvement in overall quality, and in this respect India is no differ-
ent than many other countries (Carnoy et al. 2013).
India had several advantages at the time of Independence in 1947, but was unable to capitalise
on them. English was the near-universal medium of higher education, giving India immediate
links to the outside world, access to scientific information, and textbooks. India had developed
a fairly mature, although fairly small, higher education system, with several reputable universities
and specialised institutions at the top, and a respectable number of undergraduate colleges, a few
of which were of international standard.While access was limited to a small urban elite and most
higher education institutions were located in metropolitan areas, colleges and universities could
be found throughout India.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-19 219

Philip G. Altbach

Though the system grew fairly rapidly throughout most of the post-Independence period,
population growth and an expansion of primary and secondary education meant that higher
education could not keep up with demand. In line with global thinking concerning education
and development, emphasis was placed on primary education and not on higher education. In
most developing countries, overall quality declined as enrolments increased.
Despite considerable rhetoric in the past few years about India’s higher education ‘takeoff ’
and the link between higher education and recent economic growth, there is little evidence that
economic success has had much effect on improvements in higher education. Indeed, it is
argued that if higher education is not improved, India may lose the advantage of its ‘demo-
graphic dividend’ of a large population of young people who could, if well educated, spearhead
continuing economic growth (Altbach and Jayaram 2010).
It is worth examining some of the broad trends that characterise Indian higher education.
These are presented in no special order of importance. They are, however, linked and constitute
a pattern of development over time.

A challenging history
Like much of the developing world, India experienced a long period of colonialism. British rule
over much of the subcontinent lasted for several centuries – longer than the colonial experience of
most other countries. British-style higher education dates back to 1823, when several colleges were
founded – significantly by Indian initiatives rather than by the colonial rulers. Universities were
established in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras in 1858 – around the same time that higher education
was expanded beyond Oxford and Cambridge in England (Kaur 2003). When compared to most
developing countries, India has had a longer history of modern higher education. For example,
higher education was largely absent from sub-Saharan Africa until the 1960s (Ashby 1966).
While the British were in general not avid supporters of higher education in India, they did
not prevent its establishment. After a laissez-faire period, higher education was organised as part
of the colonial policy, ensuring that the language of instruction was English and that the organ-
isation and structure of academic institutions conformed to British patterns and policy. The
British were more supportive of higher education in India than they were in their colonial pos-
sessions in Africa (Ashby 1966). The colonial authorities spent few resources on higher educa-
tion, and the impetus for the modest expansion of higher education in India during colonial
rule was from Indians. Indeed, there were efforts to keep enrolments small in order to prevent
the emergence of a subversive intelligentsia or unemployed graduates. Both of these goals were,
at least in part, failures, since educated Indians spearheaded the Independence movement. The
British sought to ensure that the graduates of the colleges and universities were suited to serve
the needs of the colonial administration, rather than the emerging Indian society and industry.
At the time of Independence, there were 19 universities and 695 colleges, with an overall
enrolment of fewer than 270,000 students. By the standards of newly independent developing
countries in the mid-twentieth century, India was well situated. It had a relatively comprehen-
sive array of higher education institutions, although few were vocationally or scientifically ori-
ented. The quality of this small system was relatively high. While serving only a tiny proportion
of the age cohort – well under 1 per cent – India had the basic structure of a higher education
establishment to build.
The challenge of coping with the demands for expansion, combined with political and other
pressures on higher education, meant that it was not possible to take advantage of existing
strengths and to build for both quantity and quality. For example, the basic organisational

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structure of the higher education system inherited from the British and designed for a tiny elite
remains largely in place in 2015.

Language: a continuing dilemma

At the time of Independence, the language of instruction in higher education throughout India
was almost exclusively English.While there are no accurate statistics for English literacy in India,
it was quite unlikely that even 5 per cent of Indians were literate in English in 1950. Thus, the
huge majority of Indians did not have access to higher education. There were fundamental
disagreements among the founders of modern India about language policy. Mahatma Gandhi
argued strongly for the use of Hindi as the national language – and the medium of instruction
in higher education. India’s first prime minister, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, was sympathetic to the
continued use of English. Many political leaders in the south and in some other parts of the
country were opposed to Hindi and, thus, favoured English as a ‘link language’ and some empha-
sised the use of regional languages in education, while others favoured English. India’s federal
constitution gave authority over education largely to the states, which had considerable power
to decide on language issues. These post-Independence realities resulted in a hodgepodge of
policies in different parts of the country.
Some of the states in the ‘Hindi Belt’ in north India stressed the use of Hindi, and the central
government made some efforts to produce and translate textbooks into Hindi for use in under-
graduate education. Almost all of the universities and specialised research institutions, most
sponsored by the central government, continued to use English as the language of instruction
and scientific work. The states varied considerably in language policy. Most southern states
continued English as the main language for higher education. Some permitted the use of
regional languages. States in other parts of India varied in their policies. A few used a combina-
tion of English and the regional language. In some cases, specific universities preferred to retain
instruction in English despite the state policy. Thus, language policy and practice in higher
education was, and remains, varied throughout the country.
Without any reliable statistics, it is certainly the case that the use of the English language has
increased in Indian higher education, especially in the more prestigious universities and colleges
and in the highly selective institutions – such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the
Indian Institutes of Management. Much of the private higher education sector functions in
English as well. The research sector is entirely dominated by English, and most scholarly com-
munication in journals and on the internet takes place in English. While the language debate in
Indian higher education has not entirely ended, English has emerged as the key language in
Indian higher education. Its role, always strong, has increased in importance as globalisation has
affected the higher education sector in the twenty-first century.
The traditional role of English has given India significant advantages in global higher educa-
tion. Professors and students can communicate easily with peers in other countries, and mobility
is enhanced. Indian universities can more easily enrol international students. Indians may con-
tribute directly to the global knowledge network (Altbach 2007).Yet there are some disadvan-
tages as well. English is not the mother tongue of Indians, and it remains to some extent a
foreign language. A large majority of Indians do not speak and are not literate in English – thus
they are at a significant disadvantage in the higher education sector and unable to gain access to
the social and economic mobility that English medium conveys in India. While there seems to
be no accurate estimate of the proportion of Indians who speak English, 10 per cent seems to
be a realistic number. This constitutes more than 100 million English speakers – more than the

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Philip G. Altbach

populations of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada combined – but still
a modest percentage of Indians.

Indian universities in a globalised world

Indian higher education has interacted gingerly with the rest of the world. The higher educa-
tion sector, as the economy in general until recently, has been largely protectionist. While many
Indians have gone abroad for postgraduate study – and many have contributed significantly to
technological and economic development in, for example, Silicon Valley in California as well as
in India – Indian higher education has been largely closed to the rest of the world. Non-citizens
cannot normally be hired as permanent members of academic staff, and branch campuses and
other foreign academic transplants have not been allowed.
In the past decade there has been a lively debate in India concerning how Indian higher
education should engage with the rest of the world. Kapil Sibal, the minister for human resource
development from 2009 to 2012, proposed to open India’s education market to the world and
asked Parliament to approve legislation for this purpose. However, the legislation was repeatedly
delayed, and thus India remains largely closed to foreign universities and other education provid-
ers. Even if the law is passed, the conditions for establishing branch campuses and other initia-
tives are sufficiently unfavourable for attracting foreign institutions – despite considerable
interest overseas in the Indian education ‘market’. However, many less formal arrangements have
been put in place – including a number of joint-degree programmes, franchised arrangements,
partnerships, and others. Thus, the door is perhaps half-open.
Some have argued that India is better off developing higher education on its own. Others
favour an open door, and the idea that the rigours of the market would have a positive impact
on Indian higher education. Clearly, India needs good ideas – and insulating the system from
international concepts and practices is not helpful.

The sea of mediocrity

Indian higher education can be characterised by a sea of mediocrity, in which some islands of
excellence can be found. A large majority of Indian students attend the 574 universities and the
35,500 colleges affiliated to them. While a few of the universities – most notably those without
affiliated colleges, such as Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, several other universities
sponsored directly by the central government, and some colleges offer high quality teaching –
most provide mediocre to poor quality instruction. Most of the 286 public universities that are
managed by state governments, 111 private universities, and 129 ‘deemed’ universities provide
poor to middling quality education. The vast majority of colleges, particularly newer private
‘unaided’ colleges that receive little or no government funding, are of quite low quality. A small
number of well-established colleges managed by state authorities, some of those established by
Christian and other religious organisations, and a small number of others are quite good – but
these are a small percentage of the total. As with much in India, there are exceptions to these
generalisations. For example, several new non-profit private universities established by wealthy
philanthropists, such as the Azim Premji University, the Ashoka University, and the Shiv Nadar
University, show much promise.
Graduate unemployment in many fields, especially in art and science subjects, is a perennial
problem in India. This situation, in part, is due to too many graduates for available jobs in these
fields and in part due to the low quality of many degree holders. Even in fields such as manage-
ment and engineering, where there is a demand from employers, graduates from many colleges

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and universities are considered deficient in quality and poorly trained for the positions available.
Employers indicate that they must retrain many of those they do hire.
To some extent, a decline in quality at the bottom tier of Indian higher education is an inevi-
table result of massification and can be found worldwide. Students with poorer academic quali-
fications are able to gain access to higher education. In India, the complex system of the
reservations policy for disenfranchised groups has exacerbated this problem – while at the same
time providing opportunities that did not exist before. The existing modest admissions standards
are relaxed for these groups, while little extra help is provided for students without adequate
secondary school achievement, thus contributing to high dropout rates. The reservation system
identifies specific historically disadvantaged groups, such as lower caste populations, tribal
groups, and ‘other backward castes’, and reserves a specific proportion of admissions place – and
faculty slots – which can be filled only by these groups. The percentage that is reserved is often
close to half of the total. This system also applies to faculty hiring in most fields, and contributes
to a shortage of qualified teachers, since in many cases an insufficient number of applicants from
the required groups seek employment.
Expansion has also brought many new types of institutions onto the post-secondary educa-
tion landscape – mostly at the bottom of the system. Many of the ‘deemed universities’ are
institutions of modest to poor quality – although some of the older ones are well established.
New private universities present a similarly mixed picture, with most of lesser quality. Thousands
of ‘unfunded’ undergraduate colleges in engineering, information technology, and other fields
have emerged in the past several decades and are affiliated with universities and thus able to offer
degrees. Again, the overall quality of these colleges is often quite poor, and many are quasi-for-
profit institutions.
The traditional universities and their affiliated colleges have proved resistant to reform. In
terms of their structure, role, and governance, these institutions have been virtually unchanged
for half a century, despite widespread recognition of their problems. Some reforms have been put
in place, such as permitting some of the best colleges to become independent of the universities
and offer their own degrees, but implementation has been limited. The entrenched bureaucracy
of the affiliating system remains the core of higher education; and until it is significantly improved
or modified, essential improvement in Indian higher education will not be possible.

Islands of excellence
Despite the immense problems of the Indian higher education system, a small sector of globally
competitive, high-quality post-secondary institutions exists. It is significant that all of them are
outside the established university structure. Planners were unwilling to entrust new and innova-
tive ideas to the traditional universities. The best known of these institutions are the Indian
Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management. There are many others. These
include the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (both in Mumbai), the Indian Statistical Institute in
Kolkata, and others. Several of the national universities supported by the central government,
including Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, are also held in high regard.
These institutions share several attributes. They are all public and funded by the central gov-
ernment. All are relatively small and are outside of the structure of the traditional universities.
These institutions have a significant degree of autonomy that is somewhat unique in the Indian
higher education system. They are all initiatives of the central government, with little or no
involvement by the states.While none of these successful institutions are lavishly funded – indeed,
by international standards they are all underfunded – they have achieved considerable success.

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All of these successful institutions were able to attract professors committed to high standards
of teaching and innovation – without paying exceptionally high salaries – showing that some
Indian academics are attracted by new ideas and high standards. However, it is sometimes dif-
ficult to attract top talent – and some of the Indian Institutes of Technology have experienced
difficulties in recruiting. These top institutions also attract the best students in India – and
indeed they and some of the others may be the most selective institutions in the world, accept-
ing only a tiny fraction of the students who take the national entrance examinations for these
schools.

The failure of planning

Indian higher education has not failed to create a ‘world-class’ system because of a lack of ideas.
At least half a dozen high-level commissions have issued intelligent reports over the past 60
years, starting perhaps with the University Education Commission (Radhakrishnan Report) in
1948, and including the National Knowledge Commission Report in 2007 and the Committee
to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education (Yashpal Committee) in 2009.
The most recent effort, the 2013 Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan (National Higher
Education Mission), is the latest well-documented and thoughtful analysis of current realities
and recommendations for the future. These reports have recommended many ideas for thought-
ful reform, development, and improvement. Over time, elements of some of these reports have
been partly implemented, but in no case at all have any been comprehensively applied. The
Planning Commission’s five-year plans generally paid little attention to higher education,
although occasionally initiatives were outlined and funds provided. The current 12th Plan for
the first time gives some comprehensive focus to higher education. The Modi government’s
reorganising of the Planning Commission and new priorities at the central government level
make it unlikely that the 12th Plan’s recommendations will be implemented – joining the many
other thoughtful suggestions on the shelf.
Although most of the funding and supervision of higher education is in the hands of the
states, there is little evidence of planning or innovation at the state level. In general, the states
have simply tried to keep up with the demand for expansion of higher education. A few have
made some effort. Kerala has attempted to think systematically about higher education develop-
ment, and Gujarat has recently focused on higher education as part of the state’s development
strategy in the ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ project.
The University Grants Commission – responsible at the national level for funding, innova-
tion, and planning of higher education under the control of the central government – has devel-
oped some small-scale programmes in curriculum, teaching, and other areas, but by and large has
not played an active role in large-scale innovation. The current proposal to establish a National
Commission of Higher Education and Research will bring together a number of central gov-
ernment initiatives and provide a central focus for planning, research, and innovation.
As a result of divided control – lack of coordination among the different agencies with
responsibility for higher education at the central and state levels, inadequate authority for imple-
mentation of change, and inadequate funding – it is fair to say that higher education planning
has not been successful, despite a range of good proposals over the years.

The necessity of systems

Massification requires a higher education establishment, with institutions serving different pur-
poses and missions that are organised logically to cater to different clientele and meet various

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demands. The best organised examples, such as the renowned California public higher educa-
tion system, articulate different kinds of institutions so that students can move from one type of
college to another. In California’s case, the public system has community colleges, four-year and
master’s degree universities, and research universities – such as the University of California,
Berkeley – that offer doctorates. Students may enter one type of school and, if the quality of
their academic work permits, can transfer up to a different type of institution. Systems of this
type hold costs at appropriate levels, provide access, and ensure that the various societal needs are
met. Government authorities control the missions and budgets of the institutions at the various
levels – deterring ‘mission creep’ and ensuring that institutions stay focused on their established
mission.
India has never developed a clearly articulated academic system, at neither the central nor
state levels, although informal systems have evolved over time. India is a federal system, with
much of the responsibility for higher education in the hands of states and some authority with
the central government. India’s 35 states have little in common and range from Uttar Pradesh,
with a population of 200 million, to small states with just a few million. All of India’s universities
have a research mission; some are better able to engage in research than others. Few universities
at the state level receive adequate budgets for research, and few have a research-oriented aca-
demic staff. The rapid expansion of undergraduate arts and sciences and also professional col-
leges has also taken place largely without planning. The specialised high-quality institutions
such as the IITs are treated separately from the mainstream colleges and universities.
The recent centrally supported initiative to establish state higher education councils is a
move towards more rational higher policy and planning at the state level. However, only a small
number of states, such as Kerala, have fully implemented councils and have appropriate coordi-
nating bodies in place.
India requires, at both the state and central levels, higher education systems that are rationally
organised and differentiated in order to ensure that the increasingly diverse needs of higher
education can be rationally met.

Politics
Indian higher education, much to its detriment, is infused with politics at all levels. Colleges are
often established by political leaders as a patronage machine and a way of providing access and
jobs to supporters. The location of universities is sometimes influenced by state or local politics.
Even the central universities have occasionally been enmeshed in politics.
University and college elections are frequently politicised. National, regional, and local polit-
ical machines are frequently engaged in campus politics. Student unions are often politicised.
Academic decisions are determined more by political than academic considerations. Political
intrigue and infighting may infuse campus life. In extreme cases, campus politics can turn vio-
lent, and disruption of normal academic life is not uncommon. More often than not, the politics
is not ideological but rather regional or caste-based.
Universities and colleges, which employ considerable numbers of staff and offer access to a
highly sought-after commodity – an educational credential – are valuable political engines.
Academic institutions are often local power centres and are clearly seen as valuable sources of
patronage.
As long as political calculations enter into decisions about the location of universities, the
appointment of vice-chancellors and other academic leaders, approval for establishing new col-
leges and other institutions, and other aspects of higher education, India will be unable to fulfil
its goals of quality, access, and the creation of a world-class higher education system.

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A pattern of inadequate investment

Higher education has never been adequately funded. In 2011–12 India spent a modest 1.22 per
cent of its gross domestic product on post-secondary education – a more modest investment
than some other rapidly expanding economies and below European levels of expenditure. From
the beginning, emphasis was placed on meeting the demands of mass access and expansion
rather than building up a meaningful high-quality university sector, and even financial support
for mass access has been inadequate.
The divided responsibility for supporting higher education by the states and the central gov-
ernment was an additional detriment, since coordination was difficult. In any case, most of the
responsibility fell to the states, many of which were unable to provide the needed support – and
in any case were more concerned with basic literacy and primary and secondary education
rather than higher education. Indeed, for much of India’s post-Independence history, the con-
cern of policy-makers at all levels was for literacy and basic education, rather than higher
education.
In the twenty-first century, with the beginning of the Indian economic transformation,
higher education has received greater priority. The National Knowledge Commission’s (2007)
reports stressed the significance of the universities and encouraged both expansion of access and
improvement in quality. Little has been done to implement the recommendations. Without
adequate funding, higher education can neither expand appropriately nor improve in quality.

The fall and rise of the guru

At the heart of any academic institution is the professor. By international and particularly devel-
oping country standards, the Indian academic profession is relatively well-off.While most Indian
academics have full-time appointments, service conditions are poor in most private institutions,
especially the private colleges. Academics typically have job security, although a formal tenure
system does not exist. Salaries, when compared with other countries according to purchasing
power parity measures, fall into the upper-middle ranks of a 2012 study of academic salaries in
28 countries (Altbach et al. 2012).While Indian academics will not become rich with their sala-
ries, they can generally live in a middle-class style, at least outside of the major metropolitan
centres. This is in sharp contrast to many other countries, including China, where academic
salaries must be supplemented by additional income.
Yet, the academic profession faces some serious problems (Jayaram 2003). The differences in
status, working conditions, and salaries are significant between the large majority of the aca-
demic professionals who teach in undergraduate colleges and the small minority who hold
appointments in university departments and teach postgraduate students. Yet, even college
teachers can in general live in a middle-class style, based on their academic salaries, due in large
part to significant salary increases in the past few years.
The academic profession is characterised by high levels of bureaucracy and is bound by civil
service regulations. Most colleges are hierarchical in structure and provide few opportunities for
participation in college governance or decision making. College teachers, particularly, possess
little autonomy and only modest control over what they teach, and teaching loads tend to be
fairly high. It has been observed that college teachers have only a little more autonomy than
high-school teachers (Altbach 1979). For the large majority of colleges that are affiliated to
universities, control over many aspects of teaching, curriculum, and examinations is regulated by
the university.

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The small minority of academics with appointments in university departments is expected to

produce research: they have modest teaching responsibilities and much greater autonomy.
Indeed, almost all of the published research by Indian academics is produced by university-based
academics and not by college teachers. Salaries are also more favourable. University staff also
supervise postgraduate students and, thus, play a key role in educating the next generation of the
academic profession. Many university departments work closely with the colleges to organise
curricula, set and administer examinations, and carry out other responsibilities of the affiliating
system.
Indian academics are seldom evaluated for their work. Their jobs depend mainly on longev-
ity and rank. Few, if any, efforts evaluate productivity in teaching or research, and those whose
performance is seen as marginal are allowed to continue. Salaries are also allocated by the length
and rank of service for the most part, and there is no way of rewarding good performance or
punishing inadequate work. Where top quality is the norm, such as in the Indian Institutes of
Technology, it is more the culture and tradition of the institution than any reward system that is
responsible.
The Indian academic profession is in a somewhat paradoxical situation (Patel 2012).
Compared to academics in other developing countries, Indian post-secondary teachers are not
badly off – either in terms of salary or working conditions.Yet, for the most part, the organisa-
tion of the higher education system does not encourage academics to do their best work.
Further, well-qualified academics are in short supply. The Indian Institutes of Technology, for
example, report that they are understaffed by approximately 25 per cent – indicating that the
‘best and brightest’ are not attracted to the academic profession.

An increasingly dominant private sector

India’s higher education system has always been a curious, and perhaps internationally unique,
combination of public and private institutions. Almost from the beginning, most undergraduate
colleges were established by private interests and managed by private agencies such as philan-
thropic societies, religious groups, or others. Most of these private colleges received government
funds and thus were ‘aided’ institutions. The universities were all public institutions, for the most
part established by the states.
This situation has changed dramatically in recent years (Agarwal 2009). Most of the private
colleges established in the past several decades are ‘unaided’ and thus fully responsible for their
own funding, through tuition charges or other private sources of funds. Where tuition fees are
capped, some institutions levy other capitation (a kind of required donation) fees and other
charges. Similarly, many of the ‘deemed’ – this term refers to an arrangement for government
recognition of some institutions as universities outside of the normal pattern – universities are
also private institutions, receiving no government funds. Some of the unaided colleges and uni-
versities seem to be ‘for profit’, although management and governance is often not very trans-
parent. Most, although not all, are in the lower ranks of the academic hierarchy. The unaided
private colleges are affiliated to a university in their region; and it is increasingly difficult for the
universities to effectively supervise the large numbers of colleges, particularly when the financial
aspects of the institutions are not obvious.
As in many countries, massification has contributed to the rise of the private sector in higher
education. The state has been unwilling or unable to provide funding for mass access, and the
private sector has stepped into the void. Public control over the direction of the new private
sector has often been lost, and quality has suffered as well. The Indian case is particularly

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complex, since the public sector universities that provide affiliation to the new unaided private
colleges are directly involved in legitimising and supervising this new sector.
A new trend in private higher education is emerging as well. In the past several decades, a
small number of civic-minded philanthropists have begun to invest in higher education, several
of them creating non-profit universities with high standards and a social mission. The Azim
Premji University, for example, focuses on the education system and is attempting to improve
teacher education and research on education. These new institutions – if sustained, allowed suf-
ficient autonomy, and endowed with innovative ideas as well as funds – may help to create
world-class universities in India.

What has India done right?

If one were searching for international ‘best practices’ or ‘top ideas’ in higher education, there is
little if anything from India that would spring to mind. As this chapter points out, India’s con-
temporary higher education reality does not compare favourably with the most successful sys-
tems. When compared with two other BRIC nations, Brazil and China, India lags behind on
most measures of higher education achievement.
At the same time, India has made significant progress in the context of post-Independence
challenges. India’s policy-makers stressed literacy and primary and secondary education in the
first half-century of Independence and made significant progress in these areas, particularly tak-
ing into account continuing population growth.While post-secondary education did not receive
the support it required, expansion was steady, and access has been steadily widened. Students
from rural areas, disadvantaged groups, and especially young people from Dalit (formerly
untouchable) communities have all gained greater access to higher education.
While the quality of Indian higher education has, overall, probably declined over the past
half-century, it has not collapsed. The rigidities of the affiliating system and the bureaucratic
arrangements have no doubt prevented the segment of the system from improving, but at the
same time these systems have ensured stability in the context of continuing stress.
India has produced remarkable talent in the past half-century. The problem is that much of
this talent left the country and is highly successful overseas. The statistics concerning graduates
from the Indian Institutes of Technology are remarkable: a very high proportion of each gradu-
ating class leaves India and achieves remarkable accomplishments overseas.While a small number
of graduates return to India, a somewhat larger group, based overseas, works with Indian col-
leagues and companies. Yet, it is fair to say that the ‘brain drain’ is still alive in the twenty-first
century, although it is now combined with ‘brain exchange’ (Saxenian 2006).
A small but visible and impressive group of post-secondary institutions has flourished in the
otherwise inhospitable soil of Indian higher education. Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian
Institutes of Management, and a group of specialised teaching and research universities were
built around the edges of the established academic system. Further, a small number among the
thousands of colleges affiliated to India’s universities have achieved high levels of excellence in
undergraduate teaching. These examples clearly show that it is possible to build world-class
higher education in India, if the conditions for their development are right.
There is no shortage of ideas for improving higher education in India. Various reports and
commissions have pointed to a variety of ways forward. Small-scale experiments and innovative
institutions have also proved successful. If these ideas and experiences could be used as templates
for improvement, India may be able to move forward.

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The challenges ahead

Given the realities of contemporary Indian higher education, it is not possible to be optimistic
about a breakthrough in quality. It seems quite unlikely that any of India’s existing universities
will soon become world-class. Even if the Indian government identifies a dozen or so existing
institutions for massive investment and upgrading, significant reforms in management, gover-
nance, and other areas would be required. It might be more successful to create entirely new
institutions, without the constraints of existing universities. The establishment of the Indian
Institutes of Technology shows that this can be successful, although in that case it was on a rather
small scale. However, India does have the significant advantage of a diaspora that might be lured
back for a worthy and realistic cause.
Due to the enormity of the challenges, the private sector will necessarily be a part of India’s
higher education future. But, so far, harnessing the private sector for the public good has been
problematic. Yet, elements of solutions exist. Many of the traditional private non-profit colleges
provide excellent undergraduate education, as do some private postgraduate professional colleges.
A few of the new non-profit universities seem quite committed to their educational mission.
The greatest challenge, of course, is continued expansion of the system to provide access. In
2012, India enrolled approximately 20 per cent of the relevant age cohort – well under China’s
26 per cent and below the other BRIC countries. Thus, India will need to devote resources and
attention to continued expansion of post-secondary education. The National Knowledge
Commission noted that 1,500 more universities will be needed. It has been estimated that China
and India will account for more than half of the world’s enrolment growth by 2050.
At the same time, India’s increasingly sophisticated economy will need some colleges and
universities of world-class standing – institutions that can compete with the best in the world –
if manpower needs for the future are to be fulfilled. If India is to take advantage of its ‘demo-
graphic dividend’ and provide appropriate access and equity, the traditional universities and the
thousands of colleges affiliated to them must be improved and reformed – this perhaps is the
greatest challenge facing Indian higher education.

Note
1 An earlier version of this chapter entitled ‘A World-Class Country without World-Class Higher
Education: India’s 21st Century Dilemma’ appeared in Pawan Agarwal (ed.), A Half-Century of Indian
Higher Education (New Delhi: Sage, 2012), pp. 78–83.

References
Agarwal, Pawan. 2009. Indian Higher Education: Envisioning the Future. New Delhi: Sage.
Altbach, Philip G. 1979. The Distorted Guru:The College Teacher in Bombay. In Suma Chitnis and Philip
Altbach, eds, The Indian Academic Profession:5–44. Delhi: Macmillan.
Altbach, Philip G. 2006. Tiny at the Top, Wilson Quarterly (Autumn, 2006): 49–51.
Altbach, Philip G. 2007. The Imperial Tongue: English as the Dominating Academic Language, The
Economic and Political Weekly 42: 3608–3611.
Altbach, Philip G. and N. Jayaram. 2010. Can India Garner the Demographic Dividend? The Hindu, 8
December.
Altbach, Philip G., Liz Reisberg, Maria Yudkevich, Gregory Androushchak, and Iván F. Pacheco, eds. 2012.
Paying the Professoriate: A Global Comparison of Compensation and Contracts. New York: Routledge.
Ashby, Eric. 1966. Universities: British, Indian, African: A Study in the Ecology of Higher Education. Cambridge,
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Carnoy, Martin, Prashant Loyalka, Maria Dobryakova, Rafiq Dossani, Isak Froumin, Katherine Kuhns,
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, and Rong Wang. 2013. University Expansion in a Changing Global Economy:Triumph
of the BRICS? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Jayaram, N. 2003. The Fall of the Guru:The Decline of the Academic Profession in India. In Philip Altbach,
ed., The Decline of the Guru:The Academic Profession in the Third World:199–230. New York: Palgrave.
Kaur, Kuldip. 2003. Higher Education in India: 1781–2003. New Delhi: University Grants Commission.
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Patel, Pravin J. 2012. Academic Underperformance of Indian Universities, Incompatible Academic Culture,
and the Societal Context, Social Change 42: 9–29.
Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan (National Higher Education Mission). 2013. New Delhi: Ministry of
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Harvard University Press.

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 15
Gendered access and participation
Unequal subject choices in Indian higher
education

Karuna Chanana1

Globalisation, privatisation, and higher education

What is central to globalisation is that the world has become increasingly interdependent and
ever closer. Further, the direct nexus between the industry, corporate world, and higher educa-
tion has brought a transformation in the skills needed for jobs. The most salient development is
the rise of the for-profit private sector in higher education, which offers academic programmes
and subjects in response to market demand. This explains the rise of private universities and
colleges providing self-funded/self-financing education around the world and in India.
Simultaneously, the government or public universities are also increasingly expected to be
financially self-sufficient, thereby forcing them to cut their costs and to think of ways and means
to raise funds. The ‘social compact’ (Brennan and Naidoo 2006: 223) between the state and
society to provide for education for all (Slaughter and Leslie 1997) has broken down. Slaughter
and Leslie term this development as ‘academic capitalism’ (1997: 8), in which one of the easiest
options is to ask students to finance their own education, giving rise to the phenomenon of
self-funded education. Additionally, banks provide loans to students. And institutions introduce
academic subjects with high market demand. This is a critical development in the nexus between
the market demand for higher education and the proliferation of specific masculine subjects,
namely, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), management, etc., which
have gendered outcomes.
While globalisation has increased opportunities and benefits, it also raises serious concerns
about cultural identity, social justice, and equity. The higher education system has suffered a
precipitous decline in state support, and the self-funded academic programmes have given rise
to debt-ridden graduates and contingent faculty. How can women cope with these develop-
ments in a society where parents, by and large, are reluctant to invest in the education, especially
higher education, of their daughters?
This point is discussed here by looking at the participation of women vis-à-vis their subject
choices. This is done within a broader framework flowing from the questions: why do women
in comparison to men choose different subjects and specialisations? Does higher education
reinforce the difference or gender inequality in subject choices?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-20 231

Karuna Chanana

Gender and subject choice

This section looks at the reasons for the predominance of women students in arts and humani-
ties and of men in physical sciences, engineering, and technology. In order to understand this
phenomena, one has to understand the ideas of masculinity and femininity vis-à-vis their social
construction. It is argued that students make the selection of subjects on the basis of qualities
that these subjects are perceived to hold which, in turn, are related to the perceptions about
masculinity and femininity (Thomas 1990).
Feminist educational researchers have written about the segregation of girls into arts and human-
ities and boys into science in schools. They argue that gendered socialisation,2 which is related to
traditional role ideology, impacts the subject choices of girls and their future roles. In fact, the binary
opposition of masculinity and femininity is communicated at an early age to girls and boys through
socialisation in the family and later on in educational institutions. In other words, similar ideologies
underlie the socialisation processes at home and at school and its classroom processes, structure, and
organisation (Chanana 2006: 269). The patriarchal imprint on the subject divide and choices, there-
fore, has received much attention (Acker 1994; Gautam 2015;Thomas 1990).
So far as the subject choices and resultant gendered segregation are concerned, it begins in
school, especially at the secondary level. As well as gendered subject choices in school, this phe-
nomenon in higher education has also received the attention of scholars (Acker 1994; Becher
1981; Harding 1986; Hudson 1972; Keller 1983; Thomas 1990). They went further and argued
that the clustering of women in specific subjects narrows their occupational choices and leads
to their occupational segregation (Deem 1978; Sharpe 1976; Wolpe 1978). Therefore, the sub-
jects, when they are perceived as feminine and masculine, are social constructions in as much as
masculinity and femininity are. According to Becher (1981), ‘academic subjects are not neutral,
they are cultures, each with its own way of perceiving and interpreting the world’ (quoted in
Thomas 1990: 7).
Harding (1986) says that the subject choices have to be understood in relation to women’s
place in society. Thomas (1990) goes further and argues that it is a reflection of the balance of
power in society. Millett (1983) extends the argument further by saying that this assumption
perpetuates male dominance in science. ‘To both scientists and their public, scientific thought is
male thought, in ways that painting and writing – also performed largely by men – never have
been’ (Keller 1983: 188).
According to Snow (1961), practitioners of science and of arts inhabit two distinct cultures.
Arts and science are more than subject groupings, there are meanings attached to them (quoted
in Thomas 1990: 24). More recently it is being argued that the concept of science and arts is a
social construction. Further, subject specialisation reflects ‘differences from’ rather than ‘com-
munality with’ (Thomas 1990: 24). Becher (1981) also looks at ‘cultures’ of various disciplines
and talks of cultures across disciplines and also within disciplines, e.g. applied and theoretical
physics, academic and practitioner lawyers (quoted in Thomas 1990: 24).
The UNESCO World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education 2012 underscores the point that ‘it
is essential to contextualise and ensure a nuanced understanding’ of the phenomenon (2012: 77
quoted in David 2014: 31). It goes on to look at the significant differences in the fields of sub-
jects selected by women and men.

Masculine/male and feminine/female subjects?

One of the major concerns in the context of subject choice and gender has been the low rep-
resentation of girls and women in STEM. Research has been conducted abroad to answer the
question: why are there fewer women in STEM?

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To answer this question, Kim Thomas looks at the relationship between subject and gender,
between academic constructions of arts and science, and students’ own sense of and perceptions
about masculinity and femininity. According to her, masculinity/femininity and arts/science are
both socially constructed oppositions. They make sense in relation to each other. Additionally,
evaluation is inherent in this dual construction so that one is rated higher than the other.
Further, gender has a cultural meaning because it is based on the differences between women
and men. Moreover,

the question of subject choice is not a neutral one and that individual school subjects can
be seen to embody certain kinds of values. Further, the very notion that scholarship can be
divided into two completely distinct areas, known as arts and science, in itself implies a
value judgment. To choose to study arts rather than science is to make a statement about
the values one considers important.
(Thomas 1990: 24)

She observes that although education is expected to be the site for promoting equality, it also
perpetuates inequality of opportunity (Thomas 1990: 2).
In her book she takes physics as an example of science and English as representing arts, and
looks at the two cultures of these subjects. Throughout, her emphasis is on the social construc-
tion of the differences imputed to the subjects and perceived by the students who make the
choices. She refers to the

contrast, both implicit and explicit, that is made between the activity of studying science
and the activity of studying the humanities. We discover that the contrast is based upon a
particular set of values which science is believed to embody, and which is apparently lacking
in humanities … in describing physics, for example, as a particular kind of subject, students
are also saying something about themselves, as people: the qualities … which are central to
their self-image.
(Thomas 1990: 38)

She adds that the ideas about subjects and about gender, to a great extent, mutually reinforce
each other (1990: 172). Further, students also perceive physics and physical science as objective
and value-free, while English is subjective and uncertain (1990: 172–173). She argues further
that ‘these perceptions far from being simple or accidental, are intimately related to issues of
authority and control, and the need to concentrate power in the hands of certain groups of
people’ (1990: 36).
Thomas goes on to argue that higher education does not actively discriminate against
women, but by accepting certain beliefs and values about subjects and their appropriateness for
women and men, ‘it makes it difficult for women to succeed … as a liberal social institution,
women may be allowed to enter in good numbers in higher education yet by allowing gender
divisions to be maintained it promotes “illusory liberalism”’ (Thomas 1990: 179).
According to a recent study by Leslie et al. (2015), certain qualities perceived to be innate in
men, such as intellectual brilliance, and in women, such as hard work, are also ensuring that
women do not pursue the professions of scientists and engineers. The practitioners believe that
these professions require brilliance, which men have, rather than sheer hard work, which women
are good at. Thus, the teachers reinforce this perception that these subjects require raw, innate
talent and women are stereotyped as not having that quality, and so remain underrepresented in
STEM subjects. In order to understand the gender imbalance in STEM subjects, a nationwide

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survey of 1,800 graduate students and university teachers from across 30 academic subjects was
undertaken in the USA. It was found that a misconceived idea of brilliance is preventing women
from taking subjects like physics, engineering, and mathematics. Instead, they take softer subjects
such as humanities, languages, and social sciences. According to the authors, there is no evidence
that women and men are intellectually different. The underrepresentation of women is due not
to actual differences in intellectual ability but mainly to the perceived differences between
women and men, termed by the authors as the ‘field-specific ability beliefs hypothesis’ (Leslie
et al. 2015: 262).
The American Association of University Women (AAUW n.d.) has also been taking an inter-
est in the problem of girls’ underrepresentation in STEM subjects. Girls grow up thinking and
believing they do not belong in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology. According
to the AAUW, girls lose interest in the so-called male subjects by the seventh grade and few plan
to pursue STEM subjects in college. In the Huffington Post, Robbie Couch (2015) writes about
a Microsoft video ad which shows teenage girls who are good at science but who also believe
that it ‘is a boys’ thing’. As a result, although seven out of ten are interested in pursuing STEM
subjects, only two end up pursuing it. Couch also mentions another video ad by Verizon which
focused on societal expectations that girls need not pursue science but be pretty. The ad goes
on to say that it is time to tell girls that they are ‘pretty brilliant’.
Penner (2015) addresses the question of underrepresentation of women in STEM fields or
subjects and specialisations. He argues that one-size-fits-all does not work even though it is true
that women are generally underrepresented in STEM subjects. For example, ‘gender representa-
tion varies considerably both within STEM and within non-STEM fields’. He gives statistics
from the paper of Leslie et al. (2015) to substantiate his point. ‘As noted by Leslie et al., in 2011
women received 54 per cent of US Ph.Ds in molecular biology, compared to 18 per cent in
physics, 72 per cent in psychology, and 31 per cent in philosophy.’ He explains this difference
through Leslie’s argument that there is a correlation between the perceived ability required of a
field or subject and the representation of women and men in it. Therefore, while science is
generally perceived as a ‘male subject’, some specialisations such as molecular biology are not.
This is also true for some subfields within the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Therefore,
physics and philosophy are perceived to require innate ability associated with boys and men,
while effort, associated with girls and women, is considered important for success in molecular
biology and psychology (Penner 2015).
Moreover, those girls and boys who do not choose stereotypical subjects have to face unequal
treatment and discrimination because they are atypical (European Students’ Union 2008). Those
who do will be in a minority and may also find the classroom environment hostile. They will also
enter a workforce which will not be friendly.‘Stereotypes, gender bias, and the climate of academic
departments and workplaces continue to block women’s participation and progress’ (AAUW n.d.).

Do schools make a difference in the subject choices?

The segregation of boys and girls by subject starts at the school level (Deem 1978; Sharpe 1976;
Thomas 1990) and continues in colleges and universities. It is not related to the achievement or
performance of girls because they are doing well in school board examinations.
The type of schools make a difference. For example, girls who are enrolled in single-sex
schools ‘are more engaged and exude more competence and combativeness’ (IFUW 2014, per-
sonal communication). In these schools, girls do better even in leadership roles because there is
no male presence. In single-sex schools, girls are not discouraged from taking up one or the
other subject, provided all are taught. This is discussed below.

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There is also a difference between government or state and private schools which demon-
strates that girls in state coeducational schools are much less likely than boys to study physics.
This disparity is less visible in private schools. Of course, the students in these schools come from
better-off homes wherein they may receive support to take unconventional subjects. Nonetheless,
some state schools also bucked the trend. For example, the Institute of Physics, UK, undertook
a statistical study to explore the links between gender and subject choice in schools (2013). The
study was based on the National Pupil Database to look at the progression of students to a num-
ber of gendered A-level subjects from coeducational schools. It found that nearly half of core
educational schools (49 per cent) that are state-funded are not encouraging girls to go for
A-level physics, thereby making the gender imbalance worse. Only a small number (19 per cent)
send relatively more girls to A-level physics. Therefore, there is a smaller gender imbalance in
progression to other subjects in these schools. It concludes that the whole school environment
is critical to the progression of girls to A-level physics.
Commenting on the report of the Institute of Physics, Donald (2013) says that the state
schools ‘not only don’t do enough to counter prevailing gender stereotypes’ but also reinforce
the existing and prevalent ones, thereby narrowing the children’s choice of subjects. Donald says
that sexism is prevalent in the matter of subject choice in schools because they fail to ‘encourage
these in a gender-neutral way’. While boys are less likely to take stereotypically ‘girls’ subjects
such as psychology and English, at A-level girls avoid physics or economics, stereotypically iden-
tified as ‘for boys’. This is not good news. This is expected when teachers believe that ‘boys
can’t do English’ and ‘may be girls don’t like Physics’. So long as these are the prevalent attitudes
of teachers and headteachers, gender stereotyping in subject choices will continue and girls will
remain a majority in the English and boys in the physics classes (Donald 2013).
The same report also demonstrates that there are schools that are different and buck the
trend. The state schools were compared with the non-state-maintained independent schools.
There were 343 schools and these were equally divided into three groups: those that reinforced
gender stereotyping, those that were neutral, and those that went against the trend (Donald
2013).
Quoting an earlier report, ‘It’s Different for Girls’ of the Institute of Physics’, Donald (2013)
says that it ‘demonstrated that essentially half of state coeducational schools did not see a single
girl progress to A-level physics. By contrast, the likelihood of girls progressing from single-sex
schools were two-and-a-half times greater.’ This difference in coeducational and single-sex
schools shows that school ethos and teacher attitudes and expectations matter. It is not just a
matter of girls or boys not liking a particular subject. Schools have a critical role to play in break-
ing down gender stereotypes and helping girls and boys achieve their full potential by making
non-stereotypical choices. Donald concludes by saying that ‘we should be able to construct
school learning environments whereby teachers do not give out messages, subliminal or other-
wise, that there are subjects that aren’t for girls, or equally that aren’t for boys.’
In India, science is a mandatory subject up to Class X since the 1986 New Education Policy
made it compulsory for all students, including girls. Some schools, however, defy the national
policy by not teaching science in Class XI and XII in single-sex schools for girls. This way the
girls are denied access to science, presuming that it is not for them or that they would not want
to study it. A recent study undertaken by the MacArthur Foundation in Rajasthan found very
few government girls’ schools or single-sex schools for girls, and they did not offer science and
mathematics education at the senior secondary or +2 stage. Thus, the biggest problem here is
access. First, because there are very few single-sex schools for girls. Second, because most coedu-
cational schools teaching science are located in urban and peri-urban areas. Parents are reluctant
to send their daughters to these. Similarly, Muslim girls were not sent to schools located beyond

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the boundaries of their Muslim neighbourhood. Therefore, the location of the school limits not
only social access of girls to schooling, but also constrains their subject choices. Additionally,
senior secondary schools that teach maths and science, although coeducational, are perceived as
‘boys’ schools’ by parents and hence undesirable for their daughters. Thus, the parental percep-
tions deriving from socio-cultural traditions such as having to get married so they need not study
maths and science denies girls access to science. Further, maths and science education may require
extra financial input because of private tuition and laboratory expenses (Mukul 2015: 16).
Thus, researchers underline the fact that schools are critical in determining subject choices
and that one needs to look at what happens to girls’ choices therein because it has a long-term
impact on their subject choices in college and university, and the job opportunities thereafter.

Why gender differences in subject choices?

Several factors can explain the gender differences in subject choices.
Most of the time the choice of subjects is determined by outdated gender stereotypes. Thus,
traditional gender role ideology leads to gender inequalities in terms of subject preferences.
Socialisation at home and its link with stereotyped feminine social roles; peer group, the
school, mass media, and consumerism; parental expectations from daughters’ education; daugh-
ters’ aspirations following from their socialisation – all these factors make for a complex
situation.
Following from the above are the perceptions about subjects being masculine or feminine.
Also there is the corresponding beliefs that there are gender differences in ability, and hence the
inability of girls to pursue certain subjects such as mathematics and physics. These are social
constructions.
The type of school also matters: whether it is state-maintained/government-run or private;
and whether it is coeducational or single-sex.
Additionally, what matters is the school ethos consisting of classroom processes and teaching
styles, the expectations of teachers and the headteacher, which encourage girls to take up arts
and humanities while discouraging them from taking up mathematics and physics.

Equity and access: the contemporary situation

Social transformation or change through education presumes some fundamental changes in the
political, social, and economic institutions of the society, with a positive impact on the relation-
ships between social groups, genders, classes, or strata, and the distribution of wealth, power, and
status. However, doubts have been expressed by leading scholars in the field of education. Brown
et al. (2011: 3) say that ‘the changing economic world evokes at once a sense of admiration and
foreboding’. ‘Clearly, globalisation has not made, and will not make, the world homogeneous’
(McDonnell 2008: 146). Bowles and Gintis express misgivings and scepticism about the impact of
globalisation and the equation of knowledge as a commodity when they say: ‘Today, no less than
during the stormy days when Schooling in Capitalist America was written, schools express the
conflicts and limitations, as well as the hopes of a heterogeneous and unequal society’ (2002: 15).
According to MacKinnon and Brooks (2001), the social movements that represent civil society
have been questioning the dominance of technology in higher education. They also question the
formulation of research agendas around the new technologies and at the marginalisation of social
issues and the social policy research areas in which the disadvantaged groups, the marginalised, the
minorities, and women academic staff and students, are generally disproportionately located.

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Globalisation is also accompanied by an increased focus on techno sciences that have social
and equity implications because the disadvantaged groups, the marginalised, the minorities, and
women are less likely to be involved in those areas which are frontrunners in the new economy
and the market; they are also likely to be at the lower levels; they may also be unable to adjust to
the time-space compression that IT demands or fosters (Harvey 1993).
Moreover, the issue of compatibility between managerialism and equity (Sawer 1989; Yeatman
1990) has also been debated. It is argued that contemporary changes have an impact on pursuing
equity issues within the universities because ‘a commitment to equity and a commitment to cost-
cutting’ (Bacchi 2001: 120) may not go hand-in-hand. This situation is again a reminder that universi-
ties have always contained many contradictions that impact women (Brennan and Naidoo 2006: 226).
These contradictions can also be viewed as multiple roles which resist as well as draw on
global and national forces that simultaneously push for change and also play a reproductive role.
An important point is that at the systemic level, differentiation among higher education institu-
tions has become common and is reflected in their academic programmes. For example, there
are academic and vocational programmes, applied and market-driven professional subjects, and
those in humanities, social sciences, and pure sciences. Therefore, institutional and subject dif-
ferentiation is happening along with the diversification of the students in terms of their social
composition. These two processes of institutional differentiation and diversification of students,
‘allows higher education in the context of change to perform contradictory social functions,
namely, helping maintain the status and position of social elites while providing some opportu-
nities for social mobility’ (Brennan and Naidoo 2006: 229). This is reminiscent of what was said
long ago by Bourdieu (1977) when he expostulated the main contribution of education to the
systemic reproduction with very limited contribution to change. In this context, let us look at
the subject choices of Indian women to see whether they reflect the contradictory social func-
tions of education.

Indian higher education system

In the Indian higher education system, most of the expansion since the early 1990s in the num-
ber of institutions and in professional subjects or the male-dominated subjects such as engineer-
ing, technology, ICT, management, etc., has been in the private sector. This development is also
linked to the self-financing/self-funded subjects which are primarily market-driven professional
ones and are offered mainly in private and public institutions. All subjects in private institutions
are much more expensive than those in public HEIs. But both can deny access to students, espe-
cially those from lower and middle strata due to high costs.
Additionally, market demand has impacted the stratification of disciplines or subjects, leading
to the devaluation of arts, humanities, and social sciences. Traditionally, underprivileged students
and women have entered arts, humanities, and social sciences, which is a continuing trend. How
are the new developments in the market, its direct impact on the curriculum and higher tuition
fees impacting the subject choices of women students?
Another development is the privatisation of public universities that have introduced market-
oriented subjects on a self-funded basis in addition to those regulated by the government which
are not expensive. It raises the question: which parents are able and willing to spend more on the
education of their daughters in order to access the much-in-demand self-funded subjects? In the
absence of a database, it is not possible to answer this but it deserves to be pursued through research.
In 2011–12 there were 624 universities of all kinds, out of which 195 were private while
eight were exclusively for women. Out of 35,852 colleges, more than 71 per cent were private,

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mostly unaided (13,515) colleges, as per the report of the All India Survey of Higher Education
(AISHE) (Government of India 2014: T9, table 5). However, private colleges enrol only 62 per
cent of students. Simultaneously, the tuition fees are also increasing in the private as well as the
state sector in the name of self-funded academic programmes and subjects. The women students
have to compete for a few relatively inexpensive seats in a state-run system. Or their parents
should be ready to shell out the high cost of private higher education. AISHE mentions that the
enrolment of women students is low in private universities, which is anticipated to be due to
high tuition fees (Government of India 2014: 36). There is no need to emphasise that high
direct cost is a barrier to access, especially for women.

Women in higher education in India

Let us look at the access and participation of women in higher education in India. While access
here means enrolment, participation refers to what happens after the students enter higher edu-
cational institutions. Do they transit to higher levels, i.e. from undergraduate to postgraduate
level and to research? Which subjects and specialisations do they choose? There is a positive
development so far as access is concerned since the numbers have increased generally. In this
expansion, women have also gained. But then how do they fare when looked at separately and
at the disaggregated level?
It is pertinent to mention that the private unaided colleges are self-funded and are not
directly subsidised by the state government, while the private aided colleges receive substantial
support and subsidy from the state government. Therefore, the individual cost of education in
the latter colleges is as much as in the government colleges, while the private unaided colleges,
referred to here as private colleges, are very expensive. This has gendered implications.
According to AISHE, in 2011–12, the total enrolment excluding the open universities was
29.2 million (Government of India 2014: 4), of which women formed 45 per cent (13 million).
In addition, distance enrolment was 11.7 per cent of the total enrolment, of which 43.7 per cent
were women (Government of India 2014: 7). The gross enrolment ratio (GER) for the 18–23
age group was very low at 20.8 per cent for all students: 22.1 per cent for men and 19.4 per cent
for women (Government of India 2014: 4). Indications are that it is higher for women and men
in states with private professional colleges.
The GER of Scheduled Caste (SC) women was 13.9 per cent and men 15.8 per cent;
Scheduled Tribe (ST) women 9.7 per cent and men 12.4 per cent (Government of India 2014:
27). These figures substantiate the well-known fact that in spite of a very well formulated policy
of positive discrimination, the representation of disadvantaged groups of SC and ST students is
not adequate and the proportion of women from among them is negligible. Access is very lim-
ited for them as a whole, but more so for the women from these groups. For instance, SC and
ST women comprised 11.0 and 4.3 per cent respectively of all women enrolled in 2010–11
(Government of India 2013: 4).
At the undergraduate level, there are 45.4 per cent women and 54.6 per cent men; at the
postgraduate level, the proportion of women is 47.5 per cent as compared to 52.5 per cent of
men; at the PhD level, their proportion falls to 39.6 per cent while men are 60.4 per cent.
Women seem to drop out substantially between postgraduation and doctoral level research,
where the leaky pipeline seems to be working effectively (Government of India 2014: 19). This
is discussed below.
Let us look at the gender distribution by subjects at the undergraduate level (Table 15.1) to
see if women’s choices reflect a change away from the traditional feminine subjects while reflect-
ing a gender divide. The maximum proportion of women (51.1 per cent) vis-à-vis men are still

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Table 15.1 Subject enrolment of women and men at undergraduate level

Subject/discipline Women Men

Arts, humanities, social science 51.1 48.9

Science 48.8 51.2
Commerce 44.1 55.9
Education 60.5 39.5
Medical science 60.8 39.2
Computer science and computer application 40.2 59.8
Management 34.6 64.4
Law 32.0 68.0
Veterinary and animal science 30.8 69.2
Agriculture and allied sciences 24.6 75.4
Engineering and technology 28.5 71.5

Source: collated from Government of India 2014: T50–51.

enrolled in arts, humanities, and the social sciences, followed closely by sciences (48.8 per cent),
in which their enrolment has been increasing due to the devaluation of pure sciences because it
is no longer the first choice of men students (Chanana 2006). Again, there has been a gradual
increase in women’s enrolment in the traditionally male-dominated professional subjects such as
commerce (44.1 per cent) and engineering and technology (28.5 per cent), yet they do not
outnumber men in any of these fields except teacher education (60.5 per cent) and medical sci-
ence (60.8 per cent). In management, which is a relatively new subject, their proportion has
reached 34.6 per cent. It is still low in agriculture (24.6 per cent), veterinary science (30.8 per
cent), and law (32.0 per cent) (Government of India 2014: T50–51). The last four subjects
remain predominantly male domains, with women occupying less than or around 30 per cent
of seats. Medical education in India has been preferred for women so that secluded women
patients can be treated by women doctors, so this subject stands between the boundaries of
feminine and masculine subjects. Therefore, the enrolment of women in medicine, though a
professional subject, has passed the halfway mark. It is an increase from 48.9 per cent in 2011–12
(Government of India 2013).
The transition from postgraduation to doctoral research shows that in the four subjects in
which the proportion of women was either more than 50 per cent or close to the 50 per cent
mark, their proportions reduce substantially. For example, in social sciences the proportion of
women reduces from 51.1 to 40.8 per cent; in science it goes up from 48.8 at the undergraduate
level to 52.4 per cent at the postgraduate level, and then decreases to 39.9 per cent; in medical
science it goes down from 60.8 per cent at the undergraduate level to 51.8 per cent and further
reduces to 42.8 per cent; and in education from 60.5 per cent at the undergraduate level it
reduces to 53.7 per cent at the postgraduate level and further decreases to 52.3 per cent at the
doctoral level (Government of India 2014: T52–54).
Looking at the specialisations or substreams of these subjects at the undergraduate level and
comparing the enrolment to the postgraduate and PhD levels, women do not retain their posi-
tion of advantage. For example, out of 16 substreams in engineering at the undergraduate level,
women outnumbered men (51 per cent) in only one of them, namely architecture. However,
their proportion reduces at the postgraduate (42.3 per cent) and PhD levels (34.6 per cent).
Women outnumber men in seven of the nine allopathic substreams or specialisations3 in medical
science. In three of them they comprise more than 60 per cent – dentistry (60.5), microbiology
(66.1), and physiotherapy (69.7). In biotechnology, too, their proportion is close to 60 per cent

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Karuna Chanana

(58.3). There are more men in pharmacy (56.4 per cent) and general medicine (51.8 per cent).
They outnumber women in these two specialisations at both the postgraduate and PhD levels –
in pharmacy they comprise 57.3 and 72.6 per cent respectively, and in general medicine they
account for 63.8 per cent and 56.9 per cent respectively. On the other hand, the proportion of
women in dentistry at the postgraduate level reduces to 49.1 per cent and at the PhD level to
44.8 per cent. Even if they are able to retain their position at the postgraduate level, as for
example in biotechnology (62.2 per cent), they lose it at the PhD level (49.1 per cent). This
situation is the same in physiotherapy, where they are 59 per cent at the postgraduate level and
only 42.9 per cent at the PhD level (Government of India 2014: T52–54).
Thus, gender inequality in participation has not declined – e.g. in enrolment men are over-
represented in engineering, agriculture, and computer sciences, and women in biology-related
sciences, both in the educational and occupational spheres (Chanana 2006). This is also reflected
in the choice of subfields or specialisations. This is confirmed by a report on completed PhDs
in India (Kurup and Arora 2010).

Conclusion
There is no doubt that access has increased for women and is reflected in the higher enrolment,
GER, number of higher education institutions, and proportions of women in new professional
subjects that are applied and market-driven. However, layers of disadvantage are uncovered
when data are disaggregated by level and specialisation. For instance, the gaps by gender and
subject choice continue. Again, the proportions of women decrease as one moves from one level
to the other, especially from the undergraduate to postgraduate to doctoral level. This indicates
lower transition rates and participation. Moreover, specialisations are replacing subjects in terms
of clustering of women students. Therefore, and as mentioned above, while the vertical dimension
of unequal participation may be declining, the horizontal dimension relating to specialisations, espe-
cially at the doctoral level, remains resistant to change.
As already mentioned, a very important function of the higher education system in social
change is to assess the extent of educational opportunities for women. This is a very critical
question but is hampered by very limited data. For example, although enrolments in Indian
higher education have increased substantially and the student community is diversified, we do
not know about the distribution of women students in the public and private HEIs and in the
increasingly diversified institutional contexts. Additionally, their clustering in subjects leading to
low-end jobs with low salaries indicates that they are unlikely to move to higher positions.What
is needed is gender-desegregated data about the rapidly expanding private sector.
Moreover, while the private higher education institutions have remapped the educational
arena and increased the institutional and subject options for students, they limit access due to
high costs and so are likely to be beyond the reach of women students, especially those from the
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and from lower middle and lower strata. Thus, higher
education fails to promote equality and be more inclusive.
In this scenario, education has once again been projected as a critical instrument of social
change as well as for cultural reproduction. Classic sociological questions about the relationship
between education, on the one hand, and economy and society, on the other, are being raised
again. In the context of marginal groups and women, questions about simultaneous inclusion
and exclusion are also being asked.

Inclusion and exclusion both appear to pose dangers and opportunities. Women are simul-
taneously constructed as winners and losers. Winners, because they are gaining access, as

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students, in significant numbers, but losers because of their lack of entitlement to leadership
and prestigious disciplines.
(Morley 2009: 384)

Therefore, the role of the state in pushing higher education for promoting change and equal-
ity through subject choices in the age of globalisation and privatisation is critical. This is more
so when gender, marginality, race, caste, class, and ethnicity are pushed to the background. It is
time to frame a policy that will evolve strategies and procedures to encourage women to shift
subject choices and specialisations at school and in higher education and to initiate steps to plug
the leaky pipeline from undergraduate/postgraduate to doctoral level so that higher education
becomes inclusive and equitable.

Notes
1 This is a substantially revised and updated version of the paper published as ‘Higher Education in and
for a Changing World’, Journal of Educational Planning and Administration, 2: 141–155, 2013.
2 From a very early age the toys and the clothing for the children encourage and reinforce gender ste-
reotyping at home and later on in school through games, participation in extracurricular activities and
subject choices. Boys are encouraged to play with cars and mechanical toys while girls play with dolls.
This has been typical of the Western world, but is happening in India with the opening of the market
economy and rise of consumerism.
3 I have excluded homoeopathy, Ayurvedic and Unani, and nursing. The last one because it is well
known that a majority of nursing students are women.

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 16
Caste quotas and formal inclusion
in Indian higher education1
Satish Deshpande

Both Dr Ambedkar’s famous question and his succinct description of the Indian society that
precedes it remain as relevant today as they were 64 years ago.2 No one was more aware of the
irony that the egalitarian Constitution he had helped draft was itself the cornerstone of the ‘life
of contradiction’. By superimposing formal equality on a highly unequal society – while guar-
anteeing property rights and refusing positive constraints on social capital – the Constitution
actually empowered the rich and socially dominant ‘haves’. But it also offered the ‘have-nots’
something: one egalitarian principle of universal adult franchise; one established precedent of
protective discrimination otherwise known as reservations; and many good intentions of a pro-
gressive kind. In essence, the history of post-Independence India is the story of the intertwined
efforts to cash in on these constitutional legacies, each constrained by the other, albeit in unequal
and asymmetrical ways.
This situation, where deep inequalities persist under a thin veneer of formal equality deco-
rated with progressive rhetoric, has also been described as a ‘passive revolution’. As is well
known, the Gramscian term refers to an incomplete or truncated revolution, a ‘revolution from
above’, and it fits the Indian context very well because Independence was essentially a ‘transfer
of power’ from a foreign to a local elite. It is because Independence was indeed something of a
revolution that the Constitution of our ‘sovereign socialist secular democratic republic’ promises
to secure for all its citizens ‘justice social economic and political’ as well as ‘equality of status and
of opportunity’. But because the revolution was passive and partial, these promises are endlessly
deferred, being redeemed only in slow and grudging instalments. Madhav Prasad captures the
essence of the matter when he writes that ‘there is no militant class backing the Constitution
with its iron will’, so that ‘[w]hen we rue the absence of the will to change, we are merely
acknowledging the fact that we have the letter of the law, in the form of the Constitution, with-
out the spirit’ (Prasad 2011: 45).
The story of reservations is part of this larger saga of the interplay between formal good
intentions and substantive change. But because they are a major balancing item in the account
between the haves and the have-nots, they become the focus of attention for both sides. Indeed,
so great is the emphasis on reservations that the policy acts like a giant magnet dragging virtually
all discussion about social justice and equality of opportunity into its force field. The excessive
emphasis on reservations raises the risk of a metonymic slide that ends up equating reservations

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-21 243

Satish Deshpande

with social justice. Whereas reservations, especially in higher education, can only provide pro-
tected entry or formal inclusion – they cannot deliver social justice.While formal access is obvi-
ously an essential precondition, it is still a long way from ensuring that inclusion is ‘full’ or
substantive, which is what social justice requires. Moreover, reservations policy urgently needs to
adapt to recent changes such as the restructuring of higher education; the deepening differentia-
tions within the groups eligible for reservations; and the shifts in the stances and capabilities of
the state.3 Whether and to what extent it is able to do so will depend, once again, on the political
legacy of the Constitution and the ongoing tussles between the haves and the have-nots.
This chapter provides an overview of the conceptual, historical, and policy dimensions of the
reservations policy in Indian higher education. The first section looks at the policy perspectives
on equality of access in higher education. The second provides a summary of the history of
modalities and justificatory frameworks. The third outlines the major changes that have trans-
formed higher education in the past two decades and speculates on the possible directions that
reservations policy could take in their wake.

Higher education and equality of access: policy perspectives

The specific features that make higher education a particularly challenging field for the theory
and practice of social justice policy may be quickly summarised.4 First, higher education is
‘naturally elitist’ in the sense that it is a downstream field that presupposes prior qualifications,
which have a filtering effect on aspirants so that relatively few reach it. This filtering may be due
to ‘merit discrimination’ based on the need for high levels of skill or competence, and/or
‘resource discrimination’ due to the unequal distribution of the material and non-material
resources required to acquire skills. This leaves room for ‘social discrimination’ (based on preju-
dices related to race, caste, gender, etc.) to disguise itself as, or to work through, the other kinds
of discrimination. The need for merit discrimination in particular may be ideologically exag-
gerated by the claim that higher education (or at least part of it) is engaged in knowledge pro-
duction and must therefore cultivate ‘excellence’ to the exclusion of all other objectives (such as
those of equity), or even that it must be exempted from such social responsibilities. The key
point here is that the road to higher education passes through many kinds of ‘discrimination’
where very different types of distinctions are being made for a variety of different reasons backed
by divergent moral or social values.
Second, the nature and force of the right to higher education is a contextual matter rather
than a self-evident and universal axiom, such as the fundamental right to basic education or
medical care. Third, higher education is also a highly desirable asset because it offers the possibil-
ity of social mobility and generally carries the promise of high material and non-material
rewards. For this reason, the demand for higher education usually exceeds its supply, which
means that yet another form of ‘discrimination’ must be practised due to sheer scarcity and the
consequent need for rationing. Finally, higher education is usually a strongly contested field
because, generally speaking, it is the most legitimate means for sustaining or justifying the exist-
ing social order as well as for changing or overthrowing it. Consequently, higher education is a
field where equal access is hard to define, and policies for equalising access are always
controversial.
Of course, higher education has been elitist not only ‘naturally’ (because it necessarily pre-
supposes high levels of prior competences), but primarily socially or ‘traditionally’ (because of
customs or norms that systematically include and exclude particular social groups). The impor-
tant point here is that the major burden of excluding ‘unsuitable’ candidates is shifted to the
upstream levels of the educational system, i.e. to schooling. As Bourdieu and Passeron (1990)5

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have shown in their classic work, the ‘differential educational mortality rate of the different
social classes’ (p. 154) that is responsible for filtering the candidate pool ensures that ‘social
advantages and disadvantages are progressively retranslated, through successive selections, into
educational advantages or disadvantages’ (p. 160). The overall effect from the point of view of
higher education is that

the combination of the educational chances of the different classes and the chances of sub-
sequent success attached to the different sections and types of schools constitutes a mecha-
nism of deferred selection which transmutes a social inequality into a specifically educational
inequality, i.e. an inequality of ‘level’ or success, concealing and academically consecrating
an inequality of chances of access to the highest levels of education.
(p. 158)

Bourdieu and Passeron have also argued that the social filtering of the candidate pool as it
advances up the education ladder is achieved more through induced self-exclusion rather than
explicit elimination through failure in examinations. They even claim that the social purpose of
the examination in this context has been misunderstood or exaggerated:

The opposition between the ‘passed’ and the ‘failed’ is the source of a false perspective on
the educational system as a selecting agency … this opposition between the two sub-sets
separated by selection in the examination from within the set of candidates hides the rela-
tion between this set and its complement (i.e., the set of non-candidates), thereby ruling out
any inquiry into the hidden criteria of the election of those from whom the examination
ostensibly makes its selection.
(pp. 153–154)

This perspective fits the Indian case fairly well as a broad overview. It is well known, for example,
that dropout rates in school are inversely related to class and caste status.The most recent official
figures on dropout rates and examination pass rates are shown in Table 16.1.The data are shown
separately for ‘All’ and for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The dropout
rates are cohort-specific, that is, the three columns show the cumulative percentage of dropouts
from the cohort that began at Class I. By the time this cohort reaches Class V, about 26 per cent
of all students have dropped out, but the figure for SCs is about 33 per cent and that for STs
close to 40 per cent. By the time Class X is reached the respective dropout rates are (in round
figures) 62 per cent, 71 per cent, and 79 per cent. These figures show that the gap between
dropout rates for ‘All’ and for the SCs and STs dips slightly (by one percentage point) at the
Class VIII level relative to the Class V level, but rises by two percentage points between the Class

Table 16.1 Dropout rates and pass percentages in school, 2005–06

Social groups Dropout rates Pass percentages

I–V I–VIII I–X X class XII class

All 25.7 48.8 61.6 67.9 72.7

SC 32.9 55.2 70.6 60.4 65.6
ST 39.8 62.9 78.5 53.0 59.6

Source: Selected Educational Statistics 2005–06, MHRD.

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Satish Deshpande

VIII and Class X levels.This suggests that more SC and ST students dropout between Class VIII
and Class X than those from other caste groups. Considered as an absolute difference in percent-
ages, the gap in the pass rate for the board examinations in Classes X and XII is slightly less than
the gap in dropout rates in Class X. This suggests that although SC/ST students are less likely
than others to reach Class X, once they reach this stage they ‘catch up’ slightly with others in
terms of the pass percentage.Thus, while the data are much too fragile to bear much interpretive
weight, they do seem to lend some plausibility to Bourdieu and Passeron’s contention that

previous performances being equal, pupils of working-class origin are more likely to ‘elimi-
nate themselves’ from secondary education by declining to enter it than to eliminate them-
selves once they have entered, and a fortiori more likely not to enter than to be eliminated
from it by the explicit sanction of examination failure.
(Bourdieu and Passeron 1990: 153)

But the major problem with the data in Table 16.1 is that they seriously understate inter-
caste differences for two reasons. First, because the ‘All’ category includes the SC and ST catego-
ries, it obviously understates the difference between these categories and the upper castes.
Second, the data, like most official datasets, are silent about the Other Backwards Classes (OBCs);
even if the All category had excluded the SC and ST groups, it would still lump together the
OBCs and the upper castes into one group, thus understating the differences between them.
These limitations seem severe enough to create doubt as to whether they support the conten-
tion noted above, namely that it is not the examination but ‘unexamined exclusion’ which
accounts for the underrepresentation of lower classes and (by extension) castes as we go up the
educational ladder.
The major dataset that offers disaggregation by caste groups is based on the National Sample
Survey Organisation’s (NSSO) regular surveys, especially the big sample quinquennial ones.
A number of studies (Basant and Sen 2010; Desai and Kulkarni 2008; Deshpande 2006; Sundaram
2006) use these data to look at educational inequalities across social groups, and they offer a
much more sophisticated view of the problem of equality of access. In my own earlier work,
I have compared shares in the population of graduate degree holders across castes to argue for
the presence of significant inequalities of access, and hence for strong protective discrimination
policies in higher education. Table 16.2 is based on unit-level data from the 55th Round of the
NSSO of 1999–2000 for urban India. It makes the simple but important point that the thick
horizontal line that separates the Hindu OBC and all the rows above it from those below is the
major faultline in Indian society. Above the line are the lower-caste groups (except Dalit Sikhs
and Dalit Christians) and Muslims, whose shares in the population of graduates of various dis-
ciplines are less than their shares in the total urban population (shown in the last column). The
opposite is the case with the upper-caste groups below the line, whose shares of graduates are
significantly higher than their share in the urban population. These disparities build a prima facie
case for reservations (or similar interventions) to boost the presence of students from lower
castes and the Muslim community in higher education.
However, other scholars have argued that over- or underrepresentation of social groups in
higher education must be evaluated with reference to not their share in the total population, but
rather to their share in the population of the higher education-eligible population, i.e. the popula-
tion that has successfully completed the Class XII examination. Table 16.3 is excerpted from one
such study, that by K. Sundaram (2006) based on the 55th Round data. These data are restricted
to the 17–25 age group, and are further divided into the ‘poor’ (defined as households below the
official poverty line) and the residual ‘non-poor’ apart from the ‘all’ category that is a superset of

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Table 16.2 Graduate degree-holders by caste and community, urban India, 1999–2000

Castes and Share of graduates in various disciplines Caste/community

communities share of total urban
Agriculture Engineering Medicine Other subjects
population

Hindu ST 2.4 1.3 1.8 1.3 2.6

Hindu SC 3.8 2.2 1.8 3.6 12.9
All Muslim 9.4 5.0 10.0 5.7 17.0
Hindu OBC 10.0 14.9 10.4 13.7 24.2

Hindu UC 62.1 66.8 65.3 65.9 36.9

All Christian 8.4 5.2 6.6 4.0 2.8
All Sikh 1.7 2.2 2.1 2.4 1.6
All others 2.4 2.4 1.9 3.3 2.0
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: computed by the author from NSSO unit-level data on CD.

Note
Includes persons with postgraduate degrees. Cells show rounded proportions, and columns may not add up to 100
due to rounding.

Table 16.3 Group shares in school graduates and those currently enrolled in higher education: age
group 17–25, urban India, 1999–2000

Social groups Percentage shares of the population

Total urban Passed Class Currently enrolled in college

population XII
Technical Other All subjects
subjects subjects

ST 3.7 2.7 3.4 2.5 2.7

SC 14.6 8.6 7.2 8.5 8.3
OBC 32.1 26.5 22.6 25.9 25.2
Others 49.7 62.2 66.9 63.2 63.9
All 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: adapted from Sundaram 2006, table 6.

Note
Data shown here are for all economic levels, i.e. for the urban population in general.

both the previous categories. In each of these three divisions, Sundaram looks at the caste-wise
shares of the total population, the population that has passed the Class XII exam, and the one
currently enrolled in higher education, distinguishing between technical-professional fields and
others. His main contention is that once the reference group is the eligible population, then the
underrepresentation of groups like the OBCs is negligible. From this perspective, and based on
the above data, Sundaram argues that there is no case for reservations for OBCs in higher educa-
tion because their share in the population enrolled in higher education is not significantly differ-
ent from their share in the urban population (in the 17–25 age group). Moreover, according to
him, if the argument is that the share in higher education of the OBCs is to be increased, then
this is desirable for all groups, given the low level of overall enrolment ratios. However, it is diffi-
cult to see how the wide inter-group differences in current attainment can be ignored when
making an argument for interventions that will raise enrolment rates in higher education.6

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In a detailed econometric study focusing on ‘transitions’, Sonalde Desai and Veena Kulkarni
(2008) have used the same NSSO data but from the period between 1983 and 1999–2000.
Because the statistical separation of OBCs only began with the 55th Round of 1999–2000, the
social groups they work with are SC, ST, Muslim, and a residual category of Others (which
includes both upper castes and OBCs, as well as the minority religions like Christians, Sikhs,
etc.). The study asks two main questions. First, how do caste-class differences matter in the
transition points all along the educational spectrum, from entering primary schooling to suc-
cessfully completing an undergraduate degree? Second, have there been any changes in the
inter-group inequalities over this 17-year period? They find that relative to the ‘Others’, all the
disadvantaged groups – SC, ST, and Muslim – have a significantly lower probability of crossing
each of the educational thresholds, but that the differences are highest at either end of the spec-
trum. Thus, it is in entering school education in the primary stage, and in completion rates in
undergraduate degrees, that social differences are at their maximum. As for changes over time,
Desai and Kulkarni find that although all groups have seen rising probabilities of educational
success, along with some narrowing in differences, this is not true for Muslims. Moreover, they
also find that college completion rates continue to be lower for Dalits, and that these are not
affected by income level. In other words, higher socio-economic status does not significantly
increase the chances of Dalits acquiring undergraduate degrees.7
In what is probably the most recent study of social justice initiatives in higher education,
Basant and Sen (2010) use NSSO data from the 61st Round of 2004–05. They disaggregate
participation in higher education in terms of different age groups in the population. The ‘all
generations stock’ represents those who have a higher education degree above the age of 20; the
‘current generation stock’ represents those with degrees in the 22–35 age group; and a ‘current
generation flow’ in the 17–29 or 18–25 age groups. They look at these three measures (two
stock and one flow) in both the total population as well as the restricted set of the population
eligible for higher education. Their econometric analysis yields roughly the same conclusion as
Sundaram – namely, that ‘deficits’ in higher education participation narrow considerably when
we move from all-generation to current-generation stock and especially to current generation
flow. The effect is even stronger when the higher education-eligible population is considered
(rather than the total population). Thus, Basant and Sen endorse the view that school is the
crucial threshold; after crossing it, underprivileged social groups do not seem to be much behind
privileged groups in accessing higher education, and are even doing better in some contexts.
However, they also offer the significant insight that the strong motivation for accessing higher
education may itself be driven by the incentive of reservations, both in higher education itself as
well as in state sector employment.
If these recent studies all point to the critical nature of the school–college transition, this is
not exactly a new discovery. Indeed, it has been one of the long-time staples of the sociology of
education in post-colonial India that although school education began as a common state system
shared by all castes and classes, it was rapidly segregated along class lines. Since the upper end of
the class spectrum was at that time occupied exclusively by the upper castes, this also meant caste
segregation in the sense that only the upper castes were found in expensive private English-
medium schools, although not all upper castes could afford them. This obviated the need for
strong overt forms of social selection at the college level, because entrance into college was medi-
ated by the mass examination. More than a quarter-century ago, sociologist of education Krishna
Kumar described this as the combination of ‘early selection’ and ‘mass examination’:

By maintaining a separate system of schooling on the basis of early selection, the urban elite
pre-empted the development of a truly mass education system. The system of holding mass

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examinations did act as a symbolic corrective to a certain extent, but it could not prove
sufficiently effective in upholding the myth of open competition and equal opportunity.
Early selection impeded the erosion of ascription-based differentiation and also the emer-
gence of an achievement-based differentiation in school and society.
(Kumar 1985: 1282)

Over time, the system of social selection has been adapted into a new arrangement based on
the distinction between ‘exit’ and ‘entrance’ examinations.8 Exit examinations, like the school
leaving examination, are supposed to be generalised indicators of a certain standard minimum
competence, and do not confer any specific entitlements. Entrance exams, on the other hand,
are gate-keeping devices regulating entry into sought-after courses and institutions. Their ideo-
logical function is to act as competitive measures of merit, while their logistical function is to
ration a scarce resource in a socially acceptable manner. In India, political pressures and admin-
istrative expedience have forced ‘exit’ examinations to become ‘softer’, while entrance examina-
tions have become progressively ‘harder’ as competition increases.9 Given that entrance
examinations privilege incremental differences in relative marks over absolute levels of compe-
tence or aptitude, they serve as devices of social selection that (unduly) favour those with a bet-
ter school education.10
Finally, before concluding this section on evidence-based policy perspectives, it is necessary
to point to some critical shortcomings of aggregate data. Such data will tend to understate the
case for active intervention on behalf of equalising access for at least two reasons. First, they don’t
take into account the specific manner in which entry into higher education is regulated, i.e.
through rank or marks obtained in an examination. In the absence of reservation or similar
preferential devices, this mode of selection will ensure that disadvantaged groups will be forever
disadvantaged because merely acquiring a high school certificate will be insufficient – they will
have to ‘perform better’ than the advantaged groups in order to gain entry into higher educa-
tion. Second, aggregate data hide the enormous variations in the quality of higher educational
institutions (on which more below). The rationale for reservations also includes the fair distri-
bution of access to high-quality institutions, and this cannot be decided by aggregate data.While
they are important long-run indicators of equality of access and representation, aggregate data
need to be interpreted with care.

Reservations in higher education: modalities and justifications

The previous section discussed the general aspects of the question of equalising access in higher
education. This section moves to the specifics of how protective discrimination policies actually
work (modalities) and the implicit or explicit rationale (justifications) behind these interven-
tions. Thus, modalities have to do with the specific manner of implementing programmes, while
justificatory frameworks work at different levels to defend such programmes.

The modalities of caste quotas in higher education

Although positive interventions in favour of the ‘weaker sections’ take many forms, the most
visible and consequential one has been the caste quota.11 This basically ‘reserves’ or sets aside a
specific number of ‘seats’ or places – usually expressed as a proportion of the total available – for
eligible members of particular caste-groups legally recognised as legitimate claimants. In higher
education, this takes the form of reserved seats for the SC, ST, and OBCs (and other groups such
as the disabled or some other region-specific categories of entitlement) in educational

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institutions. Quotas have been heavily criticised recently, partly due to the strong reaction to the
93rd Amendment and the institution of OBC quotas in elite higher educational institutions, and
partly to the influence of US affirmative action discourse. One can distinguish objections in
principle – that is, to the very idea or form of quotas – from objections of a consequential kind –
that is, those based on the practical failures of quotas.
The strongest and most common objections on principle have to do with the modality itself.
Quotas are rigid and inflexible – they discourage or preempt more nuanced and graded responses
to the problem of inequality. Being fixed before the fact, quotas may act as a disincentive to
effort, at least until intra-group competition reaches the level where admission is no longer
assured. Because they are very visible, quotas provoke strong reactions and impose a heavy social
cost on beneficiaries in the form of the permanent stigma associated with them. This can insu-
late popular (upper caste) prejudices from scrutiny and can turn prejudice into a sort of self-
fulfilling prophecy that will eventually produce the truth of the very ‘facts’ that were initially
falsehoods. When applied to groups that are internally differentiated, quotas have the potential
to turn into the very opposite of what they are supposed to be. Because they can be monopo-
lised by the stronger or relatively privileged sections within the larger group designated as the
beneficiary, quotas can help to deepen intra-group inequalities. Their visibility and application
to specific social groups makes quotas vulnerable to ‘tokenism’, or what in India is referred to as
‘vote bank politics’. Governments and political parties find it much easier to announce a quota
than to undertake the difficult and long gestation programmes that will actually produce lasting
results. Thus, quotas encourage tacit collusion between ruling parties and the leaders and privi-
leged sub-groups within beneficiary categories, and become a favourite option for pre-election
announcements. Finally, quotas tend to become self-perpetuating in a pathological rather than
healthy fashion due to the vested interests they may cultivate as well as the real or imagined
political costs associated with ending them.
Although they often tend to be used in bad faith by opponents, each of these arguments
against quotas has some truth to it. But the problem is that there are no perfect alternatives –
every programme has its inevitable weaknesses and it is a question of balancing these with their
strengths. For instance, the contrasts between US-style affirmative action which shuns quotas
and Indian-style reservations are often exaggerated and the similarities understated.12 The
strengths of quotas are often underestimated. They have the important practical virtues of being
‘transparent, inexpensive to implement and monitor and therefore easily enforceable’, as Jayati
Ghosh points out (Ghosh 2006: 2431). It is because they are a relatively simple, robust, and
tamper-proof administrative modality that quotas have been the mainstay of Indian programmes
for social redress. By rendering explicit the specific identities of the beneficiaries, quotas dis-
courage dissimulation via the use of more anonymous categories based on the presumptions of
formal equality.13 Their political visibility generates useful debate and activity, and engenders a
form of accountability whose long-term value outweighs its short-term drawbacks.
Perhaps the most valuable function of quotas is that, by their invocation of the idea of ‘shares’
and proportions, they serve as a much-needed reminder of the social contract on which our
republic is founded. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that dominant common sense conspires to
suppress this crucial aspect, and presents quotas as special favours bestowed on electorally impor-
tant groups by venal politicians. In fact, an interesting symptomatic feature of mainstream dis-
course on quotas is that it had, until recently, successfully repressed the implications of ‘electoral
importance’. In curious contrast to the ‘fear of small numbers’, the upper-caste mindset had so
firmly internalised its own normative stature that it ‘forgot’ that the groups entitled to reserva-
tions accounted for at least two-thirds of the national population.14 It is only in the post-Mandal
era, effectively since the latter half of the 1990s, that the upper caste national elite have had to

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explicitly confront the fact that they are a tiny minority, and that even with their lower-class
caste-fellows they will at best be between one-fifth and one-fourth of the population. Of course,
number alone does not, and should not, always guarantee moral or political precedence. But
reminders in this regard are surely welcome, if only because the dominant ideology is long-
accustomed to conflating the national or ‘general’ interest with the interests of vocal minorities.
This is revealed, for example, in terms like ‘general category’, which is the preferred antonym
for ‘reserved category’ in everyday language, even though it is arguably the latter which serves
the wider cause while the former is more of a sectional or particularistic interest.
Consequential or practical objections attack the performance of quotas rather than the prin-
ciples behind them. They argue that quotas just don’t work, i.e. they fail to produce the results
that they are supposed to. In the context of higher education, for example, this could take the
form of the argument that quotas set up beneficiaries for failure by forcibly placing them in
classes or courses that they are not really prepared for. This leads to high dropout rates, low self-
esteem, and the reinforcement of the prejudices of opponents. Once again, there is some truth
to these complaints, but they may as well be taken as proof of the fact that quotas alone are
insufficient to achieve the ends they are supposed to serve. In a sense, therefore, the manner of
their implementation – without the additional supportive components that they require –
dooms them to eventual failure. So, rather than doing away with quotas, these shortcomings
demonstrate the need to do more with and for quotas.
This brings us back to the initial characterisation of the ‘passive revolution’. Laws and the
programmes that they mandate are by themselves never enough if the apparatus for their imple-
mentation has no stake in their success. In the Indian context, it is fair to say that, outside the
affected groups themselves, the well-wishers of social justice programmes tend to be themselves
part of the elite or at least the upper echelons of society. Thus, it is only at the highest levels of
the bureaucracy and the leadership of political parties where one may reasonably expect to find
some ‘disinterested’ supporters, while opponents are to be found at all levels. In such a context,
the active sabotage or passive neglect of social justice programmes is an unsurprising outcome.

Justificatory frameworks
Given that social justice initiatives in higher education have received sustained scholarly atten-
tion, it is not surprising that the justificatory frameworks involved are only just beginning to be
re-examined. The law is the most convenient site where the shaping of these frameworks can
be observed. It is the space where the legislative intentions of the polity are challenged by the
interests that they affect. To understand the part that the courts have played in mediating the
impact of social justice legislation it is necessary to begin with the pre-Independence roots of
these policies.
As is well known, the basic principle of special protection for the political, social, and eco-
nomic interests of the ‘depressed classes’ emerged from the so-called ‘Poona Pact’ of 1932.
Gandhi won the standoff with Ambedkar on the issue of separate electorates for the depressed
classes by going on his first ever fast unto death, which brought unbearable pressure to bear on
the latter. In return for giving up the demand for separate electorates and agreeing to let the
Congress represent them, the depressed classes were assured of protection. This assurance took
shape in the Government of India Act of 1935 which drew up the Schedules listing the castes
and tribes that were to be given special protection. These schedules were incorporated into the
Constitution with hardly any changes (other than the addition of four Dalit castes among the
Sikhs) in 1950. While there was some discussion in the Constituent Assembly about protections
for the ‘backward classes’ as well, this was inconclusive. What emerged at the time of the

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adoption of the Constitution was thus the legislative and job reservations, along with the general
commitment to the amelioration of the social and educational backwardness of all groups con-
sidered to be part of the ‘weaker sections’.
As Rochana Bajpai’s recent work on the conceptual basis of the political language used in the
Constituent Assembly debates shows, the initial framework adopted for special treatment of
lower castes, tribes, and weaker sections was that of the ‘minority’. However, given the hege-
monic dominance of ideas of national unity and the consequent reluctance to create group
rights, an exception had to be made for the SCs and STs, and at a different and vaguer level for
the OBCs.15 Following from this, the eventual consensus on reservations was worked out in
consequentialist terms – ‘as a means of moving collectively towards desired national goals, rather
than as a matter of rights of individuals or groups’ (Bajpai 2011: 133). These national goals
included social justice, or the effort to move towards a more just social order in the future. But
the most common argument was in terms of national unity and development – ameliorating the
‘backwardness’ of various social groups would help the developmental effort by ‘uplifting’ the
sections of society that were a drag on the nation.
Translated into the terms of the three main justificatory ‘themes’ identified by Marc Galanter
in his monumental work Competing Equalities (1984), this implies the dominance of the ‘general
welfare’ over the ‘non-discrimination’ and ‘reparations’ themes.16 The general welfare justifica-
tion is a group-based argument; it does not take individual deserts into account, but rather
argues consequentially in terms of the beneficial effects to society that preferential treatment
brings about. Thus preferential treatment could be intended to ‘reduce group disparities, afford
representation, encourage the development of talent and so on’ (1984: 553). The main point is
that the modes of selection chosen here ‘might diverge from that which would be dictated
merely by … individual performance on the job, because it defines the job to include the sym-
bolic, representational, and educational aspects’ (1984: 554).
The text of the Constitution in its pristine incarnation therefore saw reservations and other
such group-based measures as a limited exception to what was otherwise taken to be the legiti-
mate default norm, namely individual merit. The larger justificatory framework for social justice
initiatives worked out before Independence implicitly advocated the ‘mixing’ of these social
objectives with merit, and this is what the Constitution reflected, if somewhat ambiguously.
However, the courts did not share this view initially, leading to what then appeared as a clash of
wills between the legislature and the judiciary of the new republic.
Barely six months after the Constitution of the Republic of India was formally adopted, the
Madras High Court upheld in July 1950 the plea of two Brahmin petitioners claiming that their
fundamental rights to equality and non-discrimination guaranteed by the Constitution were
being violated by social justice legislation.17 Although the specific order being challenged pre-
dated Constitutional reservations, these petitions also impacted the new legislation. The unani-
mous verdict of the Full Bench of three judges striking down the order known as the Communal
G.O. sent shockwaves through Parliament, which saw its much publicised social justice initiative
nipped in the bud when the Supreme Court concurred with the High Court in April 1951.
The Law Ministry (then headed by B.R. Ambedkar) and the government (headed by Pt
Jawaharlal Nehru) responded swiftly with the First Amendment to the Constitution protecting
reservations in higher education with the same special provision already included for job reser-
vations. The First Amendment was passed in June 1951, less than two months after the Supreme
Court verdict, but it was not able to prevent a defensive cast to subsequent efforts to pursue the
social justice agenda.18
The Dorairajan case that provoked the First Amendment involved three articles of the new
Constitution, 15(1), 29(2), and 46.19 The state’s case was that Article 46 enjoined it to take special

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measures on behalf of the ‘weaker sections’, and that this meant that the equality guaranteed in
Articles 15 and 29 would have to be limited somewhat in contexts such as that of preferential
admissions. This limitation on equality was not due ‘only’ to caste, but involved other consider-
ations; moreover, the state was not prohibiting all members of a particular caste, but only wished
to take into account its responsibilities towards the weaker sections. The courts disagreed vehe-
mently, asserting that the fundamental rights were supreme since the Directive Principles (of
which Article 46 is a part) were non-justiciable; and because merit ought to be the sole criterion
for admissions, especially since no enabling clause had been added to Articles 15 or 29 as it had
been for Article 16 on job reservations.
With the addition of this clause to Article 15 by the First Amendment,20 the state’s powers
appeared to be restored, but it took about a decade for the courts to come around to the point
of view of the framers of the Constitution. Ruling in favour of the petitioners in Dorairajan,
Justice Vishwanatha Sastri of the Madras High Court explicitly noted that ‘fortuitous’ advantages
accruing to any group ‘by reason of their caste discipline, habits and mode of life’ are not taken
away by Article 15(1), and went on to declare that

It would be strange if, in this land of equality and liberty, a class of citizens should be con-
strained to wear the badge of inferiority because, forsooth, they have a greater aptitude for
certain types of education than other classes.
(Madras High Court 1950)

Using this rationale to argue that the Brahmin petitioners had been denied admission solely
due to their caste (because they were not admitted to seats reserved for other castes), the Madras
High Court struck down the Communal G.O. A decade later, however, the courts had come
round to accepting the state’s view. Ruling against petitioners21 whose case was quite similar to
Dorairajan, Justices Pai and Hussain of the Karnataka (then Mysore) High Court offered what
could well be seen as an admirably clear rebuttal of Justice Sastri’s arguments 11 years earlier:

If … a group of persons clearly identifiable by their caste is really backward socially and
educationally, and is on that basis given the benefit of certain reservations, the ineligibility
of a person belonging to another caste to secure those reservations is clearly not based on
the ground of caste but is a consequence of the reservation properly made in favour of a
backward class.
(Karnataka High Court 1961)

Having ceded ground on the legitimacy of quotas, the court shifted its scrutiny to the rea-
sonableness of the criteria used to determine ‘backwardness’, and the scope of the preferential
advantage given to the designated beneficiaries. These principles were established by the
Supreme Court judgment in Balaji v. State of Mysore:

Reservations under Arts. 15 (4) and 16 (4) must be within reasonable limits. The interests
of weaker sections of society, which are a first charge on the States and the Centre, have to
be adjusted with the interests of the community as a whole. Speaking generally and in a
broad way, a special provision should be less than 50 per cent.
(Supreme Court 1962)

Balaji and its precursor cases were the first instance where the courts evinced an interest in
the details of the criteria used to determine ‘social and educational backwardness’. This was

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followed up in the next major event to impact reservations, the Government of India’s belated
decision (in 1990) to implement the Mandal Commission Report of 1980.22
Although not directly concerned with higher education, the series of cases beginning with
the ‘Mandal Case’ of 1992 (Indira Sawhney & Others v. Union of India), and what are referred to
as ‘Indira Sawhney-1’ (1996) and ‘Indira Sawhney-2’ (1999), are important because they contain
the Supreme Court’s insistence that in order to be valid, reservations for the OBCs must exclude
the ‘creamy layer’, or the relatively advanced section to be determined by tests of ‘income, prop-
erty or status’. The court also reiterated the Balaji suggestion, but this time as an order, that
reservations should not exceed 50 per cent of the available seats.23
Reservations in higher education were responsible for the First Amendment in 1951, and for
the 93rd Amendment of 2006, which extends OBC reservations to elite state-funded institu-
tions that were previously exempt, and opens the door to reservation in private and unaided
institutions. This is effectively the end of the road for reservations in public higher education as
all institutions are now covered. The only step that remains to be taken is the extension of res-
ervations to private unaided educational institutions, but it is likely that this move will either
follow or accompany the extension of job reservations. As for the legal challenges to reservations
in higher education, the last major case is Ashok Kumar Thakur v. Union of India and its derivatives,
which were settled in August 2011. Despite being one of the less coherent judgments of the
court, Thakur established that the 93rd Amendment was lawful, although it left open the ques-
tion of whether the state was entitled to extend reservations to the private sector (Krishnaswamy
and Khosla 2008).
Against this background, it is difficult to dispute Marc Galanter’s overall assessment that the
courts have acted more ‘as a brake and a baffle, rather than as stimulant and energiser of the
compensatory discrimination policy’ (1984: 537–538). Despite some ups and downs, the basic
doctrine has been stable – preferential policies can be permitted as a limited and closely moni-
tored abridgement of the fundamental right to non-discrimination; the Directive Principles are
relevant and they do place a responsibility on the state, but they cannot override the Fundamental
Rights. It is noteworthy that throughout this eventful history, it is the ‘backward classes’ and the
determination of their backwardness that has been the chief source of anxiety for the courts.
The case for special treatment of SCs and STs is, after the initial hiccup of Dorairajan, quickly
conceded. But the question of OBC reservations is constantly challenged by litigants and kept
on a tight leash by the courts. This is understandable, given their numerical weight, and also
given the fact that the relatively better-off sections of this group are much closer rivals for the
upper castes than the scheduled groups. However, despite the insistence on the exclusion of the
‘creamy layer’, it is significant that the courts have endorsed the use of caste as one of the criteria
for determining backwardness as long as it is one among many, and not the sole criterion.
One of the more disappointing features of the case law in this area is the relative lack of inter-
est in details of implementation, or an inexplicably uneven distribution of such interest.24 As
Galanter points out,

The courts have not equipped themselves with any doctrine by which they might reach the
‘affirmative’ problems of compensatory discrimination policy that is, by which they might
assure that the deserving are included among the beneficiaries, that preferences are of suf-
ficient scope and amount, that they are implemented in a timely and effective fashion, etc.
(Galanter 1984: 537)

This raises, yet again, the question of what is possible or likely – and impossible or unlikely – in
the context of a limited, largely ‘top-down’ process of social change.

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Higher education and the future of equal access: critical contexts

Indian higher education has been changing so much and so fast lately that it makes the past an
unreliable guide to the future. Since this is also, and perhaps especially, true for questions of equal
access, there is no option but to review the recent changes even if we are unable, as yet, to esti-
mate the nature or size of their impact.

Recent changes and possible impact

It is best to begin by noting that, though it may be both necessary and inevitable, the shorthand
term ‘Indian higher education’ needs to be used with care because it aggregates a vast and vastly
differentiated field.25 There are two main axles of differentiation: (1) fields and disciplines, espe-
cially the division between the technical-professional and other streams; and (2) institutional
types, beginning with the private-public distinction and overlapping with the hierarchies of
reputation and perceived worth that rank the entire spectrum from elite ‘institutions of national
importance’ to the most subaltern sub-regional institutions. Elite Indian institutions in the fields
of engineering, medicine, and management have long enjoyed a reputation for excellence
amplified by the global visibility of high-profile alumni in technology, business, and science.
However, these institutions are exceptional in the strict sense, as are the high stakes in this seg-
ment. The vast majority of institutions in Indian higher education are playing for stakes of a
rather different order, though these may be just as important for the players involved.
Decisive changes in the first decade of the twenty-first century have transformed the field
and cemented its integration into global circuits. The most visible change is in size. Between
2001 and 2010, higher education more than doubled its institutions (from 254 to 544) and raised
enrolment by 62 per cent (from 9 million to 14.6 million), which works out to an astonishing
growth rate of more than one new university per fortnight, and a more modest but still impressive
increase of about 1,500 students every day.26 This growth is fuelled from the demand side by the
‘demographic bulge’ in the age structure; by expanded access to schooling; and by larger num-
bers being able to afford higher education.27 On the supply side, higher education has grown
mainly through the expansion of the private sector.What used to be a virtual state monopoly by
default has changed during the last two decades with the swift growth of technical-professional
education as a lucrative site for private investment. Overall, the private sector now accounts for
a majority of both institutions (63.2 per cent) and total enrolment (51.5 per cent), but it really
dominates the technical-professional fields where credentials command high to astronomical
premiums.28 At the other end of the spectrum, preliminary estimates suggest that absolute levels
(and not just shares) of enrolment may be falling in some of the basic sciences.29
Ongoing processes of ‘globalisation’ have been consolidated during this period in three main
ways: (1) the explicit recognition (visible in vigorous marketing efforts) now granted to India as
one of the top ‘customers’ of global-Western higher education; (2) recognition as a site for
investment in the form of franchises or local branches of foreign higher education providers
(though not much has happened on this front so far); and (3) through the intensification and
expansion of academic networks linking Indian institutions and individuals to foreign ones.
These changes are yet to be analysed in detail. Moreover, they have already outpaced the
statistical database, which has to evolve procedures to catch up. Nevertheless, what can be said
by way of a preliminary assessment of their impact on questions of access and equity?
As discussed above, it is largely undisputed that most of the recent expansion in higher edu-
cation has been within the private unaided sector, which in turn is heavily concentrated in
vocational and technical-professional fields. There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of partially

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conflicting equity effects at work in response to the privatised expansion of higher education.
There is first the easing of the supply bottleneck as more capacity is created in the sector to help
meet the pent up demand for higher education. The more affluent and privileged sections of all
groups – including the lower castes and discriminated communities – benefit from this expan-
sion. Because they already had the social and economic capital required to convert credentials
into mobility, these sections were being hurt by the stagnation of the state sector and its inability
to expand the supply of higher education. This might be termed the ‘crowding-in’ effect of the
easing of supply constraints in a situation of considerable excess demand. In other words, the top
echelons of the underprivileged communities are ‘crowded-into’ higher education along with
the much larger upper caste and privileged communities. But there is also a countervailing
‘crowding-out’ effect at work: the less affluent sections of underprivileged communities that are
dependent on the subsidised state sector are now crowded out of higher education because only
private sector sources are available. The exclusion of the underprivileged occurs both through
the straightforward pricing-out of the poor (of all communities, but among whom the lower
castes and Muslims are over-represented), and through the absence or non-implementation of
reservation and related policies.
The net effect on equity is hard to assess. One could argue that since the affluent sections of
underprivileged groups are much thinner than the much thicker layer of affluence in privileged
communities, any outcome that benefits only the affluent will, overall, harm the interests of the
underprivileged. But it is important not to be imprisoned within the logic of shares and
­proportions – absolute numbers also matter, particularly in a gigantic country like India. It is
arguable that significant synergies may be released when a critical mass of educated members is
created within the underprivileged communities. Moreover, the state has also embarked on an
ambitious programme of expansion in higher education, with an outlay in the 11th Five-Year
Plan that is nine times higher than in the past. While the concrete results of this expansion are
too close for analysis, there is no doubt that it will substantially increase the supply of reservation
seats.
It has also been suggested that globalisation and the expanded possibilities for seeking foreign
education and employment may have acted as a kind of ‘safety valve’ in the Indian context.30
The departure of those who can afford, and are able to access, foreign higher educational options
may seem to create more space in local educational markets. But whether this will help lower
castes and other underprivileged groups is still an open question that can only be settled empiri-
cally. This needs to be done independently of other considerations like the reinforcement or
expansion of hierarchies that rank various kinds of credentials (including foreign and domestic
ones) by their perceived worth.
Finally, past patterns in the inter-generational trajectories of mobility among classes and
communities suggest that the most safe and lucrative options in higher education are accessed
first by upwardly mobile communities. While this needs to be contextualised in terms of the
inevitably localised tradeoffs among the probability of securing employment, the probable size
of earnings, and the investment required, one could hazard a guess that the current preponder-
ance of professional-technical courses favours this pattern. Indeed, it is itself a consequence of
such patterned preferences. Depending on the resources they can command, underprivileged
groups will tend to access the best technical-professional training first and liberal arts-based
credentials last. As they gain in relative prosperity and acquire greater generational depth in
higher education, along with the confidence that these bring, these groups will move across the
educational spectrum more or less like their predecessors have done. But for the present, the
relevant fact is that the supply of higher educational opportunities seems to be increasing in the
very areas that are likely to be the first choices of the underprivileged communities.

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The possible futures of quotas in higher education

What do these trends portend for the future of quotas in particular? At a general level, it is clear
that, regardless of the transformations that higher education has gone through, the modality of
the quota is not in any immediate danger. It is also safe to assume that the size of the quota (i.e.
the sum total of all seats available under various schemes for reservation) will increase along with
higher education as a whole, though probably not in the same proportion. But while its exis-
tence may not be in danger, the quota will certainly have to adapt and change according to the
particular pressures and problems it is already facing or is likely to encounter. Some of the more
important of these issues are outlined below.

Intra-group disparities and the ‘creamy layer’

Among the more intriguing and consequential anomalies in the interpretation of social justice
legislation is the simultaneous insistence of the courts on the decisive importance of internal
disparities within the ‘backward classes’ and their irrelevance among the SCs and STs. In the
form of the ‘creamy layer’ argument put into play by the Mandal judgment of the Supreme
Court in 1992, internal disparities have acquired a critical legal status for the OBCs since they
are grounds for excluding the economically better-off sections from the benefits available to this
category.
But in the very different context of internal disparities among the SCs, the courts have held
that the Constitution does not permit the state to make distinctions within the overall category,
which must be treated as a single homogeneous collectivity. So they have struck down attempts
by state governments to create sub-quotas reserved for sub-groups that have remained severely
underrepresented in government employment. The most advanced case of this sort emerges
from Andhra Pradesh, where the state tried to create a sub-quota within the larger SC quota for
the left-behind segments of SC communities such as the Madigas and Rellis, etc. Since the sub-
quotas would exclude relatively privileged SC sub-groups like Malas in exactly the same man-
ner as the reservation quotas themselves exclude all non-SCs, the Malas went to court with
merit-based arguments identical to those commonly used by the upper castes against reserva-
tions.31 There are several other states where internal disparities within the SC or ST categories
have crossed the point of no return in terms of political visibility. Given that this is happening
in big and electorally important states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan (where
Mahars, Jatavs or Chamars, and Meenas among the STs are the respective dominant groups), it
is unlikely that the problem will simply go away. In one form or another, sub-quotas are bound
to appear on the political horizon very soon.
When it comes to the ‘creamy layer’ (where the courts are enforcers rather than impedi-
ments), the main issue of concern is the context-blindness of the injunction to exclude. In
higher education, for example, it is mostly the ‘creamy layer’ of every social group that domi-
nates, and for reasons that are quite transparent. In such a context, on what grounds would it be
justified to prohibit the creamy layer of one group and permit that of another just because the
former is availing of reservations? Put differently, what precise aspect or principle of the general
legal argument for reservations would support the position that availing them requires the sac-
rifice of the (relative) economic advantages that a person or group may possess? If reservation
policy is intended to address social, educational, and other kinds of ‘backwardness’ – including
but not limited to poverty or economic backwardness – then the absence of (severe) economic
disadvantage cannot be turned into a disqualification in an axiomatic, context-independent
manner.

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For example, it would be understandable if creamy layer exclusion occurred in the context
of, say, a fee waiver or a textbook grant or some other clearly economic component of a broader
reservation programme in higher education. But to deny admission to the programme itself sug-
gests that OBC reservation is only about economic disadvantage and not about social disadvan-
tage or discrimination. Otherwise we are left to defend the claim that social discrimination or
disadvantage only operates below a certain economic threshold, a claim that would seem to
empty the term ‘social’ of almost all its content.32 This is quite apart from the possible pragmatic
objections to the principle of creamy layer exclusion, such as the argument that, in contexts like
higher education, this eliminates precisely the best prepared and most likely to succeed segment
of the entitled group.33
Though they represent very different problems and contexts, the creamy layer OBCs and the
relatively advanced sub-castes or tribes within the SCs and STs point to the difficulties of work-
ing exclusively with caste as a criterion when designing social policy. It is reasonable to expect
some innovation in this direction in the near future, even if there are difficult conceptual and
practical puzzles to be solved.34

The mismeasurement and misrecognition of merit

As the first line of offence and defence adopted by opponents since the time that reservations
were first introduced, notions of ‘merit’ have always been central to the working of compensa-
tory discrimination policies. There is also a growing literature on this link, so the basic argu-
ments can be quickly summarised. In most higher education contexts, and especially in India,
ideas of merit are plagued by two related problems. The first is the conflation of rationing and
selection, and the second is the slide from eligibility into excellence. Rationing refers to the entirely
non-academic imperative for restricting entry that is created by the shortage of higher education
places relative to demand, while selection refers to the academic process of choosing from a
candidate pool according to standards and indices of merit. Eligibility represents the minimum
levels of academic competence or skill required for undertaking a course of study, whereas
excellence refers to the highest levels of skill or competence associated with a field or
discipline.
Whether it is unconscious or deliberate, shifting from one of these paired concepts to the
other generally aids the anti-reservation cause and adds to avoidable confusion. Because of the
ideological need to present rationing as selection, extravagant claims are made on behalf of
devices like the competitive examination and the rank ordering it can be forced to yield. The
way forward here would be to recognise the rationing component and introduce transparent
methods of dealing with it, such as a lottery. However, this can only be done within a group that
is recognised to be of broadly equal ‘merit’, measured in whatever way. To identify such a
group – that is, to carry out genuine selection – requires two things: first, the definition of an
honest and academically defensible standard of eligibility; and second, strenuous efforts to pre-
vent this discrete threshold of eligibility from being converted into a continuous scale that
claims to measure excellence.
The key step in the procedure outlined above is the definition of an honest eligibility thresh-
old. This should be such that candidates below it will not profit from the given course of study
because they are simply not prepared for it. That is why it is crucial that this be an honest stan-
dard, because the typical tendency in elite Indian institutions is to cheat by setting much higher
standards than are reasonable simply because the huge demand for the course will ensure that
enough candidates will meet them.35 This allows the institution to ‘free ride’ on its highly selec-
tive entrance exam because the candidates selected will require little or no support from the

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institution to pass the exit examinations. As the reverse of the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ principle,
this kind of free-riding can be addictive because there is hardly any auditing of the actual value
added by elite institutions in India (Mehta 2006; Mohanty 2006).
However, even if an epidemic of honest eligibility standards were to somehow infect all our
institutions overnight, it is still possible that we would be left with a sizeable problem of unequal
access to higher education across social groups. But this would be a real problem, shorn of the
artificial complications added by active sabotage or passive apathy. And our attempts to tackle a
real problem would always take us forward, even if progress were slow and painful. A concrete
example might help, and here is one thrown up by the litigation around the 93rd Amendment
mandating 27 per cent OBC reservations in centrally funded educational institutions. The
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) decided to interpret the somewhat ambiguous term ‘cut-off
mark’ (for OBC candidates admitted under the new quota) in the Ashok Kumar Thakur judg-
ment to mean 10 per cent less than the marks scored (in the JNU entrance examination, for
which the pass mark was 40 per cent) by the last general category candidate to be admitted.
Although the students’ union and other student groups contested this interpretation, the JNU
administration stuck to it, resulting in 54, 88, and 277 OBC quota seats remaining unfilled in
2008–09, 2009–10, and 2010–11 respectively.36 Since alternative (equally or more plausible)
interpretations were being used in other institutions, and since the JNU administration had
made no secret of its antipathy to this quota, it is fair to say that the choice was probably influ-
enced by the fact that this interpretation would be more restrictive than others.
The main issue here is the nature of the ‘cut-off mark’ which controls access to this elite
institution. This cut-off has no intellectual or academic content whatsoever because it is determined
solely by the number of seats available, which in turn is determined by administrative, financial,
and logistical considerations.37 In other words, a cut-off determined in this manner belongs to
the realm of rationing rather than academic selection. On the other hand, the pass mark in the
entrance exam does have academic and intellectual content, because the exam will presumably
be designed in a way that makes the score of 40 per cent a meaningful threshold. This threshold
will not change in response to extraneous factors like the number of seats available, and it has
the added virtue of being a pre-declared benchmark known to all candidates before the exami-
nation.38 But the decisive reason for the academic validity of the pass mark is still the first one
relating to exam design. By comparison, it is impossible, even absurd, to think of designing an
exam in such a way that the ‘last qualifying candidate’ will have a particular score.
The Supreme Court eventually did what it had to do and clarified that the cut-off mark
means a pre-announced eligibility threshold, but it also fixed the cut-off mark for OBC candi-
dates as 10 per cent less than the level for the general category (Supreme Court 2011). This last
move illustrates once again the lack of clarity about eligibility thresholds. An honestly deter-
mined eligibility threshold should be at or near the minimum level of ‘teachability’ for a course
of study. It does not make sense to move this goalpost for any group no matter how disadvan-
taged it may be. Problems of access at this level must be dealt with by raising capabilities, not by
lowering thresholds. But in a situation where bad faith abounds, stakes are high and key concepts
muddled, outcomes depend on the contingent balance of power rather than institutional logic.

The challenges of agency

By far the most difficult of the many challenges facing quotas is that of cultivating agency among
the entitled. For it is true, as critics have long insisted, that the quota often takes away more than
it gives. All the more so in a hostile environment, which is what quotas and their incumbents
invariably face. But what makes agency the most challenging of challenges is that it is not a

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matter of ‘policy’. This is despite the fact that policy matters (such as the quotas themselves, and
their design and manner of implementation) are quite relevant to the development of agency.
Though they might be close to each other on other planes, an immeasurable distance separates
a policy-object – a ‘target group’ – from a political subject on the plane of agency. Even the law,
which is supposed to bridge this gap, is only able to do so rarely because it is itself the product
of a specific political compromise negotiated in a specific historical context.
As some insightful scholars with long involvement in social justice issues have suggested, the
emergence of agency can be best facilitated by a ‘return to politics’ in the discourse on reserva-
tions (Tharu et al. 2007). But this is precisely the most difficult direction to take today when
reservations discourse is dominated by perspectives that presuppose their own ‘ownership’ of the
nation, and see quotas as generous concessions that they, the ‘general category’, are gifting to the
‘reserved categories’ representing narrow particularistic interests. This discourse is unable to
conceive of the ‘reserved categories’ as possessing an equal or stronger claim to being the ‘own-
ers’ of the nation. But the real difficulty is not of replacing the policy or legal perspective with a
‘political’ perspective, but of enabling a minimal collegiality between the two. The momentum
necessary to leap from object to subject – some gaps cannot be bridged, they can only be
jumped – can be generated only if both policy and the law make room for a new and unfamiliar
political sensibility.
The irony is that, in the final analysis, despite its many layers of complexity, the case for quotas
in higher education is simple and strong. Jayati Ghosh puts it well:

[W]e still need reservations for different groups in higher education – not because they are
the perfect instruments to rectify long-standing discrimination, but because they are still the
most workable method to move in this direction. And most of all, because the nature of
Indian society ensures that without such measures, social discrimination and exclusion will
only persist and be strengthened.
(Ghosh 2006: 2432)

Notes
1 An earlier version of the chapter entitled ‘Social Justice and Higher Education in India Today: Markets,
Ideologies, and Inequalities in a Fluid Context’ appeared in Zoya Hasan and Martha Nussbaum (eds),
Equalising Access: Affirmative Action in Higher Education in India, United States, and South Africa (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 212–238. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for sug-
gestions and comments that have helped to clarify and strengthen the argument of this chapter. The
responsibility for the errors and weaknesses that remain is mine.
2 This was Ambedkar’s last speech to the Constituent Assembly before the final version of the Constitution
prepared by the Drafting Committee (of which he was the Chairman) was passed the next day, on 26
November 1949. The Constitution was formally adopted by Parliament on 26 January 1950.
3 For example, if the state encourages the privatisation of higher education, then the equity impact of this
policy shift will depend on the relative efficiency of the state as a regulator of private enterprise com-
pared to its earlier role as direct provider of ‘merit goods’ like education. Arguments for privatisation are
often predicated on the assumption that the state is a better regulator than provider. Such assumptions
need to be explicitly investigated rather than taken for granted.
4 A longer earlier version of the following argument is found in Deshpande (2009a, pp. 127–147 ff.).
5 Subsequent page references are to this work unless indicated otherwise.
6 It should also be noted that Sundaram’s category of ‘Others’ includes Muslims, whose enrolment ratios
are very different from the other groups (Hindu upper castes as a residual, and other minority religious
groups like Christians, Sikhs, etc., in so far as these groups are not part of the SC or ST categories).

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This would tend to understate the difference between the ‘forward’ groups like the latter and the rest
of society.
7 Desai and Kulkarni treat this as evidence against the popular prejudice among the upper castes that
relatively well-off lower castes are gaining places in higher education at their expense.
8 A more detailed discussion of the social functions of ‘exit’ and ‘entrance’ examinations is available in
Deshpande (2010); see specially the respective subsections on these types of examination, pp. 26ff.
9 In other words, pass percentages in ‘exit’ exams have been rising steadily, whereas they have been falling
in ‘entrance’ examinations (where ‘pass’ actually means ‘selection’ or being above the ‘cut-off ’).
10 Or those who can afford the effective but extremely expensive ‘coaching’ targeted at precisely these
entrance examinations. These issues will be discussed further in the last section.
11 Other forms of preferential policies could include scholarships, remission of fees, relaxation of age
limits, or other eligibility conditions, special hostels or institutions, and in some cases state-subsidised
orientation or coaching programmes.
12 This is particularly true in the context of the fact that reservations in India have to cater to the majority
of the population, whereas in the USA affirmative action is a minority issue. For a balanced and pains
takingly researched perspective on this particular comparison, see Thomas Weisskopf (2004); for an
overview on quotas in the Indian context, see K.S. Chalam (2007).
13 One of the curious aspects of popular opinion (as reflected in the media) is that the occasional instance
of quota fraud (when persons who do not belong to the entitled groups falsely claim that they do) are
seen as proving the axiom that ‘quotas are bad’ rather than the more logical conclusion that ‘fraud is
bad’.
14 Arjun Appadurai’s (2006) argument is about the anxieties of majorities that feel irrationally threatened
by small (often very small) minorities. See also Deshpande (2009b) for more on this theme.
15
In nationalist arguments, the case for special treatment of Untouchables was constantly distin-
guished from that of religious minorities through an emphasis on their poverty and ‘backward-
ness’.What separated these groups from the majority was not so much religio-cultural difference,
but socio-economic inequality, it was argued. Group representation aimed not at the recogni-
tion of group difference, but the rectification of ‘backwardness’.
(Bajpai 2011: 125).
16 According to the non-discrimination argument, the main intent of compensatory preferences is to
‘counter the residues of discrimination and to overcome structural arrangements which perpetuate the
effects of past selections in which invidious discrimination was a major determinant’. This argument
is linked to the notion of deserts and the unit of analysis here is the individual, even though group
membership is used to identify those individuals who may be suffering from the resilient forms of dis-
crimination mentioned above. The reparations argument is like the non-discrimination one in basing
itself on fairness; but unlike the latter, it sees the group rather than the individual as the appropriate unit;
and the timeframe it employs is different from both of the other principles in that it seeks to redress a
past wrong in the present (Galanter 1984: 553).
17 Though it was named for its first petitioner, the Champakam Dorairajan v. State of Madras case actu-
ally rested on the second petitioner, C.R. Srinivasan, who (unlike Dorairajan) had actually applied
for admission to the government engineering college in Guindy and been turned down because the
Brahmin quota was already filled by candidates with higher marks. Srinivasan’s case was that he had
scored higher marks than many of those who had been admitted under the quotas for other communi-
ties (such as the non-Brahmins, backward Hindus, Muslims, Indian Christians, etc.), and that therefore
he had been discriminated against solely because of his caste, since he would have been admitted on
merit criteria. See Supreme Court of India 1951.
18 As Marc Galanter has noted, in spite of the government’s swift response through the First Amendment,
‘the status quo ante was not restored; the post-amendment State policies were more constricted than
those that prevailed earlier.’ (1984: 527).
19 Article 15.(1) – The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race,
caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. Article 29.(2) – No citizen shall be denied admission into any
educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of
religion, race, caste, language or any of them. Article 46. – The State shall promote with special care
the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the

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Satish Deshpande

Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms
of exploitation.
20 Article 15, Clause (4): ‘Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of article 29 shall-prevent the State from
making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of
citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.’
21 In S.A. Partha v. State of Mysore, one of the cases responsible for the more famous M.R. Balaji & Others
v. State of Mysore judgment of the Supreme Court in 1962.
22 To go directly to Mandal is to ignore a major intervening case, N.M. Thomas v. State of Kerala, decided
by the Supreme Court in September 1975. Thomas is important because its seven-judge bench pro-
posed a major change in doctrine through a five–two majority. It argued that Articles 15(4) and 16(4)
were of equal status to Articles 15(1) and 16(1). In other words, the court saw preferential treatment for
SCs and STs as a sort of fundamental right in itself. However, I am skipping this case because (1) it had
little to do with education; and (2) the doctrinal change it proposed, though extremely significant, may
have been an aberration provoked by the Emergency and seems to have been shortlived. See Galanter
(1984: 382–395).
23 This is how the government arrived at the 27 per cent figure for OBC reservations – added to the
existing 22.5 per cent for the SCs and STs, it makes for a total of 49.5 per cent, which is in compliance
with the court’s rule of ‘below 50 per cent’.
24 This is especially noticeable, for example, in the contrast between the blind acceptance of ‘merit’
arguments that take examination marks and ranks at face value, and the insistent scrutiny of measures
of backwardness. It is not that the latter is unnecessary, but that the former also deserves comparable
application of mind.
25 The following paragraphs are borrowed from Deshpande (2011).
26 Figures for 2010 are from MHRD (2011: 86), and for 2001 from MHRD (2008: Statement 1, C-1).
Remarkable though they are, these growth rates are still insufficient, at least in aggregate terms. At 12.4
per cent, India’s gross enrolment ratio (GER) for higher education in 2006 was well below the aver-
age for the world (23.2 per cent) or for Asia (22 per cent), and far behind the average for developed
countries (54.6 per cent). Sources: figures in brackets: Planning Commission (2008: 22); figure for India:
MHRD (2010: 27).
27 Both in the narrow sense of being able to pay fees as well as the broader sense of being able to defer
entry into paid employment.
28 Figures in brackets are for 2006 and taken from Planning Commission (2008: 23). Powar and Bhalla
(2004) estimate the share of private institutions in engineering, medicine, management, and teacher
training as 78, 76, 64, and 67 per cent respectively.
29 This is suggested by the time series data in the Selected Educational Statistics of the MHRD, but some
definitional issues need clarification before firm claims can be made.
30 See the study by Devesh Kapur (2010).
31 The Supreme Court found in favour of the Malas on the grounds that schemes addressing intra-SC
inequalities (even though they did not change the schedules in any way) amounted to ‘disturbing’ the
constitutionally decreed list of SCs, something which only the President was authorised to do on the
advice of Parliament. For a lucid critique of this particular decision and an insightful discussion of the
larger issues involved, see Balagopal (2005).
32 This argument may be misunderstood because we intuitively expect that (taking caste as an instance
of social status) very poor people of a higher caste will find it difficult to discriminate against very rich
people of a lower caste. This may or may not be true empirically, but even if it is, this does not rule out
the equally intuitive probability that higher caste people of similar or higher economic standing would
have no trouble at all in discriminating against our hypothetical very-rich-but-low-caste person.
33 This is argued in detail in Deshpande (2015). See also Mohanty (2006) and Ghosh (2006).
34 It may be relevant here to mention one such attempt to suggest more composite modes of addressing
disadvantage and discrimination with which I am associated, and the criticisms that it has attracted
(Deshpande and Yadav 2006). Speaking only for myself and without implicating my co-author, I am
convinced that the modalities we proposed then need more careful specification, including empirical
simulations, before they can hope to serve as models for concrete programmes. However, I am not
able to share Mrityunjay Mohanty’s conviction that social and economic disabilities should and more
importantly can always be kept separate (2006: 3788). Even policies that do not ‘conflate’ the two will
surely have to respond to the fact that each impacts the other in its own domain, i.e. for real people in
real-life situations, poverty exacerbates the disabilities of low caste status and vice versa. Both creamy

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layer and intra-Dalit disparities are cases in point. The data deficits that Ghosh (2006: 2431) mentions
are problems of a different order and their impact may perhaps be clarified through realistic simulations.
35 There is anecdotal evidence that political pressure forces many (non-elite) institutions to do the oppo-
site, i.e. set standards that are unreasonably low. In my view this is just as dishonest as a too-high
standard.
36 I thank Tapas Saha of the All India Students’ Association (AISA) for this information.
37 One could argue that the mark obtained by the last admitted non-reservation candidate is an aca-
demically relevant number in the sense that, along with other numbers showing the performance of the
reserved categories, it would offer one measure of the ‘academic range’ of the admitted cohort. But
note that this relevance comes after reservation candidates have been admitted by some other criteria.
It is very difficult to defend it in a gate-keeping role with academic or intellectual pretensions.
38 This is the argument that seems to have swayed the court: ‘A factor which is neither known nor ascer-
tained at the time of declaring the admission programme cannot be used to disentitle a candidate to
admission, who is otherwise entitled for admission.’ (Supreme Court 2011).

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 17
Tribes and higher education
in India
Virginius Xaxa

On the eve of Independence, what marked the situation of tribals in India were poor economic
conditions, social backwardness, and geographical and physical isolation. Such a state of being
was attributed to their overall isolation from the larger Indian society. However, even in instances
where this geographical and physical isolation was broken through roads, railways, and other
means of communications, the economic and social condition of tribes hadn’t changed for the
better. Rather, it had become worse. With the improvement in means of communication, the
general scenario was the movement of people from the plains, especially traders and moneylend-
ers to begin with, and later land-hungry peasants, to tribal areas. With this began the process of
dispossession of tribes from their lands through force, fraud, forgery but more importantly, usury.
This alienation of land from tribes to non-tribes, widespread in the early phase of colonial rule,
continued all through the colonial period. Alongside, there was another kind of dispossession.
This had to do with the denial of rights over access to forest and forest resources that the tribes
had traditionally exercised and enjoyed for generations. The forest, along with its land, was the
life support system of the tribal population. These new developments had far-reaching
implications – economic, social, and cultural – for tribal societies. Tribes, on the eve of
­
Independence, were thus marked by physical and social isolation, on the one hand, and massive
exploitation on the other due to their contact with the outside population.
The scenario noted above led to heated debates on the policy to be adopted towards tribes
preceding India’s Independence in 1947. The debate was led by Verrier Elwin and G.S. Ghurye.
The former made a plea for their isolation, citing things that had happened to tribes following
their contact with the outside world. The latter, on the other hand, attributed the overall social
and economic backwardness of tribes to their geographical and social isolation which, he argued,
needed to be overcome by their assimilation into the larger Indian society (Elwin 1943; Ghurye
1943). These two lines of thought found an echo among others. While the former had the sup-
port of the colonial administrators, the latter found resonance among nationalist leaders and
social workers.
In fact, at the time of the Constituent Assembly’s deliberation on the policy for tribes, the
nationalist leadership was fully aware of its dual lines of debate as well as the situation prevailing
in tribal India. Strangely still, neither of the two lines seemed to have fully convinced the leaders,
who nowhere made any clear statements as to what the policy was. In fact, if one were to take

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-22 265

Virginius Xaxa

the Constitution and the provisions laid down therein for tribes, it would be clear that post-
Independence India has adopted neither a policy of isolation nor of assimilation towards them.
The provisions for tribes in the Constitution take what may be termed as the middle path. And
these are broadly of three types. The first are the provisions for protection, especially against
their dispossession from land, which is evident in the fifth and sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
The second are the provisions for safeguarding of their language and culture. This is what the
policy of isolation envisaged by Elwin aimed at protecting, among many others. The third set of
provisions guarantee reservation for them in state employment and higher educational institu-
tions and development aimed at improving their economic and social conditions. These provi-
sions in the Constitution were oriented to ensure access to employment as well as improvement
of their socio-economic status as espoused by the policy of assimilation articulated by Ghurye.

Underlying policy and higher education

The policy of reservation has been identified as one of the most important institutional mecha-
nisms for addressing the aspects of social isolation or exclusion, thereby initiating the integration
of tribes with the larger Indian society. State employment and politics are the two sites where
reservation has been identified as key to the process of integration. But reservation in state
employment, unlike reservation in the sphere of politics, is conditional, as it is contingent on a
level of educational attainment. For employment of certain kinds, mere school education of a
certain level is necessary. However, there are employments that require qualification above high/
higher secondary education. But even the movement to higher education is not automatic,
dependent as it is on attainment of prerequisites – namely, the minimum qualification without
which admission to a higher educational institution is not possible. Within school education,
mobility to higher classes until the introduction of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) was contingent on attainment of educational achievement in
the form of passing the preceding classes. Hence, education of a certain level and kind is much
more important today than education per se. Much of the employment available today either in
the public or private sector requires qualification that goes beyond school level, underscoring
the importance of higher education. In addition to qualification, a certain level of competence
too is almost mandatory.
Modern education in India was introduced under the British, and so was higher education.
Since then, both school and higher education have witnessed manifold expansion, especially in
the post-Independence phase of the national reconstruction process. And yet the position of
higher education in India is still far from adequate, not only in terms of number, but, more
importantly, in quality. The existing higher educational institutions have scarce resources and
hence entry to higher education is competitive. The greater the reputation of the institution,
the fiercer the competition. For those who compete for entry into higher educational institu-
tions, though in principle they are treated as equals in terms of the opportunities for entry, the
ground reality is far different. The level of the playing field for the competitors varies greatly on
account of disadvantages such as colour, ethnicity, status, class, sex, etc. The Indian Constitution
has taken cognisance of this and has tried to address the problem with special provisions in the
form of what is generally termed as ‘protective discrimination’. Thus in higher educational
institutions there is reservation of seats for the most deprived and disadvantaged – the Scheduled
Tribes (STs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs). There is also relaxation in qualification for their entry
to higher educational institutions. In addition, financial support in the form of scholarship, book
grants, and others facilities is extended to students from this section of society.

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Modern education and tribes

The tribal society did not have the tradition of reading and writing. Knowledge and values were
passed from one generation to another orally. It was the Christian missionaries who introduced
reading and writing skills among them. The educational institutions introduced by the Christian
missionaries cannot be understood independent of their agenda and objectives. They were his-
torically tied to the larger objective of evangelisation, which has now almost become autono-
mous. Thus, with the coming of the Christian missionaries a distinct and specialised institution
emerged in tribal society, which took upon itself the role of imparting knowledge, values, and
skills that were alien to them. It was directed primarily towards change and transformation in
society. Its emergence to a certain degree undermined the place of the traditional institution but
did not replace it. Thus both the traditional institution as well as the one introduced by the
Christian missionaries existed side by side. One was oriented to change and the other to main-
taining traditional social order, giving rise to much stress and strain in society.
This being the case, the missions did not generally go for education beyond primary- or at
best middle-school level. The missionary agenda was just to equip tribes enough to read and
write so that they could read and understand religious texts. If there was ever any student who
was keen to move beyond this, such a case was rare; he had no alternative but to go to far-away
towns/cities/hill stations where such institutions were available. Often the converts that the mis-
sionaries found bright were sent to higher schools elsewhere so that on their return they could
be used to aid the work of the missions. Tribal students going for higher education was rare but
not altogether absent.
Paradoxically enough, though the colonial government extracted enormous revenue by
exploiting resources in the tribal region and exacting taxes of various kinds, it did little to
improve their lives through extension of modern education and health services. It was left to the
Christian missionaries to do this work. The educational institutions introduced by the Christian
missions initially touched upon only some tribal pockets and tribes. Gradually, their work spread
to other parts and tribes, and that is how more and more tribes and regions came under the
influence of the missionary activity. A sizeable section of tribes today are Christians. While
Christian presence in some tribes and regions is substantial and visible, a large chunk notably
remain outside this religious fold. In Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, and Manipur, for example,
Christians form the dominant segment of the tribal population, elsewhere in the region, they
are present though are not as visible. This has also been the case in other parts of tribal India.
However, even with respect to these regions, it is in some tribes and pockets that they are rela-
tively more visible than the others.
Hence, on the eve of Independence, tribes and tribal regions outside the sphere of missionary
activity still had no exposure to reading and writing. This began only after India’s Independence.
And in post-Independence India, the situation has changed significantly due to the role of the
state – not discounting the significant role of the Christian missions and other non-­governmental
organisations that have joined the venture. If one were to look at the status of the tribal popula-
tion today, one would find the tribes and regions under the Christian mission influence better
placed on social development indicators, literacy being the most notable among them.

Higher education and tribes

As noted earlier, entry into higher education is contingent on a level of educational attainment.
And although literacy is linked to higher education, mere literacy is not sufficient for entry into
higher education. There are people who are literate but may not have even completed primary

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education – a large chunk fall within this definition. Others have either completed primary,
middle, high, or higher-secondary education. The last is the minimum requirement for entry
into higher education. As one moves from one level of education to another, the total number
keeps falling. This is a trend for all categories of social groups, but the fall in size is the largest in
the case of tribes. The lower the literacy late, the lower the chance for entry into higher educa-
tion and vice versa. This has been true in the case of tribes as well. In 1961, tribal literacy was a
mere 8.54 per cent. It saw a steady rise through the decades and stood at 47.10 per cent in 2001.
With a rise in literacy, the number of students obtaining higher education has also seen a steady
increase. However, in comparison with other social categories, enrolment is still low – not so
much due to literacy as to the level of educational attainment. Tribal literacy share keeps declin-
ing as they move from one level of education to another, and tends to become miniscule by the
time they reach secondary-level education. This has to do with dropouts, the most serious
problem confronting school education among tribes today. Dropout happens to be a common
problem facing all categories of school students. However, it is extremely severe among tribes,
who have very high dropout rates – 57.36 per cent in Classes I–V, 72.80 per cent in Classes I–
VIII, and 82.96 per cent in Classes I–X during 1998–99. Also, the gap between the general
population and tribes was found to be widening from 13.67 per cent in 1990–91 to 15.52 per
cent in 1998–99 at the secondary level (Government of India 2007). Hence, though eligible
candidates for higher education have increased in recent years, the enrolment of tribes into it is
still low and the gap vis-à-vis other social groups is still large. According to the higher education
statistics for 2010–11, ST enrolment in higher education stood at 1.209 million out of a total of
27.5 million, of which 0.689 million were male and 0.52 million were female.
This constituted a mere 4.39 per cent of the total tribal population in the country. However,
at 11.21 per cent the tribal gross enrolment ratio (GER) was relatively better in comparison to
the 19.41 per cent GER of all social categories (Government of India 2013).1 This was a marked
improvement on the 1.43 per cent GER of 1991 for the tribes as compared to 2.4 per cent for
the SCs and 4.72 per cent for other social categories. The corresponding figure was 3.13 per
cent for STs, 4.78 per cent for SCs, and 7.81 per cent for others in 2000, and 7.33, 9.18, and
12.24 per cent in 2006 (Rout 2014: 110).
Reference was made earlier of high dropout rates among tribes as they move from one level
of education to another. This is more evident in girls than boys, indicating a male gender prefer-
ence. However, girls who have moved to a higher level of school education have been perform-
ing better than boys and moving to higher educational institutions. In fact, in terms of eligibility
they fare better than boys in higher educational institutions more so at the postgraduate level.
The percentage of girls passing out from Class XII is relatively higher compared to their male
counterparts for all social groups, including tribes. However, their transition to Class XIII falls
abysmally both in proportion to their pass percentage as well in comparison to their male coun-
terparts except in the case of ST girls, where it is beyond 100 per cent (Rout 2014: 106). But
even this exceptional pattern of the tribes has now taken a turn similar to the other social cat-
egories (Rout 2014: 107). At state levels, it is similar to the all-India pattern. For example, in the
high-school pass results the percentage of girls was 38.1 per cent as compared to 40.1 per cent
for boys in Chhattisgarh, 84.2 per cent as compared to 85.4 per cent for boys in Jharkhand, and
43.4 per cent as compared to 54.6 per cent for boys in West Bengal. At the higher secondary-
school level, it was 70.27 per cent against 67.50 per cent for boys in Chhattisgarh, 68.82 per cent
against 60.08 per cent for boys in Jharkhand, and 66.89 per cent against 62.30 per cent for boys
in West Bengal. It was 85.66 per cent against 79.34 per cent for boys in Madhya Pradesh and
48.69 per cent against 48.79 per cent for boys in Orissa (Birua 2012: 10). Thus, though girls
have a higher pass percentage than boys, their enrolment in higher education is lower in

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comparison, showing prejudices against them even in the tribal society. As per higher education
statistics 2010–11, the share of tribal girls in higher education was 4.32 per cent as compared to
4.45 per cent for boys. This was most evident in the GER. Tribal GER in higher education was
11.21 per cent, but the share of males and females were 12.95 per cent and 9.52 per cent respec-
tively. However, once this initial bias has been overcome, the share of women going for higher
education was better than that of men. This is evident if one takes looks at postgraduate
education.
The studies on enrolment in higher education point out that once the threshold of higher
education has been crossed, the entry of tribes to higher education in respect of enrolment is
not very different from other social categories. The question is whether this equal chance of
going to college is due to equality of opportunity or the policy of reservation of seats in higher
education, which earlier remained unfilled either due to absence of eligible candidates or other
constraints. Is the bridging in the gap in enrolment between SC/ST and non-SC/ST and others
due to the openness of the system and the ability of tribal students to compete, or due to provi-
sion of reservation? Of course, there is much difference across social groups in terms of their
share in the total senior secondary pass. The percentage of SCs and STs is relatively low.Yet their
transition to higher education is much higher compared to other social categories. In 1996, for
example, the pass figures for STs, SCs, and others stood at 36.3, 40.3, and 48.6 per cent respec-
tively, but their enrolment share in the first year of higher education was as high as 117.4, 79.1
and 66.8 per cent respectively (Rout 2014: 106).

Higher education and unevenness in access

There is considerable regional variation among tribes and their access to higher education due
to factors, such as the absence/presence of high/higher secondary schools, which in turn boost
enrolment and literacy level – this being the most important. Tribes and regions with higher
literacy rate have greater participation in higher education. The north-east participation in
higher education in comparison to peninsular India’s indicates this fairly well. In north-east
India, those who aspire to higher education have no option but to go to schools run by the
Christian missions in Shillong. In the tribal regions of what was once popularly known as
Chhota Nagpur, aspirants either move to Ranchi or Jabalpur for higher education.
The point is that tribal regions even today suffer from lack of access to higher education. In
this respect, north-east India stands as an exception, for given its size of tribal population, it has
a higher density of higher educational institutions in comparison to other parts of tribal India.
Almost every state in north-east India has a central university, other than those in Assam,Tripura,
and Manipur, which primarily caters to the tribal population. In addition, many other higher
educational institutions have arisen, offering aspirants space for different kinds of higher educa-
tion. While stating so, it is important to note that there is also a relatively fair presence of candi-
dates eligible for entry into higher education. This is linked to the relatively higher level of
literacy in the region. The presence of higher educational institutions in the region in turn
induces secondary school passing students to go for higher education.
The setting-up of the North-Eastern Hill University at Shillong in Meghalaya in the 1970s,
with campuses in Nagaland and Mizoram, acted as a catalyst for higher education among tribes
in north-east India. As it is, Shillong had been and still is the centre of educational institutions,
including some of the best colleges that attract students from different parts of the region. Since
the inception of North-Eastern Hill University, many new institutions have arisen in different
states. For example, in Mizoram, with a population of over one million, there were as many as
22 colleges and one university in 2009–10 administered either by governments (central and state)

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or private individuals. The same is true for other states of the region. This has resulted in mani-
fold increase in the number of tribal students in higher educational institutions. In fact, unlike
elsewhere in the country, they dominate the higher educational institutions in the region except
in Assam, Tripura, and Manipur.
In the rest of the tribal regions, higher education is marked by an absence of infrastructure
facilities and poor literacy rates and it is only since the mid-2000s that there seems to be some
change taking place. The setting-up of the Indira Gandhi Tribal University at Amarkantak in
Madhya Pradesh with a vision of campuses in other tribal regions has been an important initia-
tive. Situated on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Amarkantak is inhabited by a
tribal population. However, it is too short a time to ascertain the university’s influence and impact.
I have visited the university a couple of times and I must say that though it has lent the tribals an
opportunity to gain higher education, their presence on the campus is far from visible. The uni-
versity, largely, remains confined to students hailing from the vicinity and has not moved beyond
this. In recent years, some more central universities have come up in some other tribal regions of
peninsular India, such as the Central University of Koraput and the Central University of Gujarat.
The latter, though located in Gandhinagar, has become a hub for tribal students from different
parts of Gujarat. And unlike other universities in the state, they are quite visible in this one.

State universities and central universities

Tribes moving to higher education may thus be located at two levels: in the state they are born
in and inhabit; and in other states that they move to. Students moving to other states either enrol
in central government-run institutions or private institutions, particularly run by Christian
organisations. Their entry into state-run institutions in states other than their own has an inher-
ent constraint. They are not eligible for reservation, which is meant only for tribes belonging to
that state, and can enter those institutions only as general candidates. At the same time, the state-
run institutions are inadequately equipped in terms of infrastructure and faculty. This is not to
say there are no exceptions.
Hence a large chunk of students who have been going for higher education are concentrated
in their own states.Yet their share of enrolments within higher educational institutions in those
states fall far short of the size of their population, excepting some states in the north-east. This
has been so mainly due to high dropout rates as students reach higher level of school education.
Hence, though in principle seats are available for them in higher educational institutions because
of a quota in proportion to the size of the tribal population, the intake falls short due to the
unavailability of students. Further, even those who are eligible often do not go for higher educa-
tion either due to poor economic conditions or the distance of higher educational institutions
or a combination of both. Often this is also due to a lack of people in the community or around
them who could guide, encourage, and mentor them for higher education. The state govern-
ments are hardly proactive in addressing the issue of higher education of tribes. Neither are they
proactive in dissemination of information nor in disbursement of facilities such as scholarship,
book grants, uniform, hostel facilities, etc. Even when these are in place, it is next to impossible
to make use of them, as the process tends to be too cumbersome.
Despite the spread of higher educational institutions in regions especially the north-east,
there is a wave of migration of students for higher education to other parts of India, particularly
to metropolises such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Again this is most
glaring in the case of north-east India. In the 1980s, the number of tribal students at a college or
university in Delhi or elsewhere was small and could be counted. This is no longer the case.
Since the early 1990s, there has been an exodus of students for admission to institutions of

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higher learning, especially central universities and colleges run by the central ministries, which
are cosmopolitan in character (like the Delhi University and its colleges, the Jawaharlal Nehru
University and the University of Hyderabad). There is also movement to state universities but
enrolments there are relatively low. The private colleges and institutions are the other attractions,
especially among those who can afford these, and this segment of the population among tribes
has grown too. West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and their adjoining areas have also
seen heavy migration of tribal students to metropolises, especially Delhi, for higher education.
The rush to central institutions is for varied reasons. One that seems to stand out is the diver-
sity they offer. They are open to students and faculties from across the country and more sensi-
tive in complying with the reservation policy. Besides, they are also better than state institutions
in terms of infrastructure facilities, reputation, and the standard of higher education. The cleav-
age between tribes and non-tribes (tacit and open) in various forms has been a part of the tribal
situation throughout colonial India and continues to this day. The general tendency among
tribes is to avoid institutions where groups/communities dominate. Most state institutions typify
this, making tribal students feel uncomfortable as they are generally discriminated against, looked
down upon, and treated as unwanted. It is also a fact that in state-level institutions of higher
learning there is least interest in implementing reservations and other provisions of affirmative
action. But then, if there are no options for the students due to a variety of constraints, which is
the case with most, they do continue with these institutions. And this remains true even for
central universities or institutions that disregard affirmative provisions, the Central University of
Manipur being an example. The participation of tribal students here is hardly noticable even
when they form nearly 30 per cent of the total state population. At the same time, there has long
been an exodus of tribal students from Manipur to other parts of India. In fact, the scale of the
movement of tribal students from the north-east to metropolises is much greater compared to
other tribal regions.
However, there is great regional variation in their enrolments. Tribal students from the
north-east far outnumber students from other parts of India, and their movement is far beyond
Delhi. Students from Jharkhand, on the other hand, are mainly confined to Delhi. This pattern
is visible in university departments. However, tribal student enrolment in these universities is
predominantly in social sciences. Their numbers in basic science departments and related cen-
tres are abysmally low. Hence, while tribes have been competing for space in higher educational
institutions in some institutions and some disciplines, from others they are conspicuously absent
perhaps due to their inability to fulfil the minimum cut-off requirement for entry into these
institutions and disciplines.

Inter- and intra-tribe differences

Other than region, religion is the other aspect of variation in access to higher education among
tribes. Tribes today belong to different religious groupings that have a bearing on their educa-
tion. That tribal Christians are far ahead in education is too obvious not only in the north-east
but elsewhere too. As for other religious groups such as those who adhere to their traditional
religion or to Hinduism, the picture is not very clear.What is evident, though, is that they lag far
behind tribal Christians. In the case of peninsular India, the advantages that tribal Christians
have gained in the course of time have brought about a divide and tension between them and
tribal non-Christians, which keep surfacing in different forms.
Though tribe is treated as a category distinct from other social categories such as caste and
dominant linguistic groups such as Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, etc., tribes form a very heteroge-
neous group in terms of their languages, population size, habitats of ecological settings,

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livelihood making, and so on. Those inhabiting distant and difficult ecological settings make
their living mainly by hunting, food gathering, or shifting agriculture, or a combination of one
or more of them. They are generally referred to as priority tribal communities, earlier known
as primitive tribal communities. These communities have poor access even to primary educa-
tion and hence secondary education/higher education is beyond their reach. Most tribes having
access to higher education hail from either regions close to towns or distant places with com-
munication facilities. There are also variations in access to higher education among tribes irre-
spective of the region they come from. Even in the north-east, where literacy is high and more
eligible candidates are available for higher education in comparison to other regions, there is
much ethnic variation in the region or state itself. In the state of Meghalaya, for instance, of the
three dominant tribal communities, the Khasis and Jaintias have a much stronger presence in
higher education vis-à-vis the Garos. The other groups, which are numerically small, are hardly
visible in higher education. This is also the case in Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal
Pradesh, and Assam. The Angamis, Aos, and Lothas in Nagaland have better representation than
other tribal groups. In Assam, Boros and Deoris are better placed vis-à-vis Lalungs, Rabhas,
Tiwas, etc. Similar patterns can be seen in Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and
Rajasthan. In Jharkhand there are about 29 tribal groups, but the Oraons, Mundas, Santhals,
Kharias, Hos, the dominant groups of the state, have fared better than the others. In Andhra
Pradesh, the Lambadas; in Rajasthan, the Meenas; and in Himachal Pradesh, the Negis – these
groups dominate higher education. Of course, among the major groups too there is variation.
Santhals are numerically the largest group in Jharkhand, but their literacy is lower than that of
the Kharias, Mundas, and the Oraons.
The answer to why north-east India has done better than other tribal regions in higher edu-
cation is rooted in its history. The region had an early exposure to modern education due to a
widespread presence of Christian missionaries. One of the key concerns of these missionaries
was/is education, which could aid their evangelisation. Those tribes or parts that had an early
exposure to Christianity had better literacy, which resulted in a relatively large number of people
going for higher level school education, and some among them even for higher education out-
side of the region.
Those who converted to Christianity and got educated also adopted a lifestyle which was
seen as different and sometimes better than that of the rest. Their entry into new occupations
either within the institutions of the Christian mission as teachers, catechists, health workers, etc.,
or in the government as office workers, peons, attendants, and clerks gave them an added status.
Thus, there came about a process of social differentiation in the tribal society, not only of beliefs
but also of occupations, which began to pose a challenge to the traditional system that was based
either on birth in a lineage or age. Ascription, which was earlier the source of honour and
esteem, was gradually replaced by lifestyle, occupation, and status. The values and status associ-
ated with the emerging positions gained momentum as the missionary work spread to different
parts of the region. Apart from the north-east, the role of the missionaries is most visible in the
tribal belt of what was earlier known as Chhota Nagpur. This part of mainland India has a vis-
ible Christian population, though meagre in comparison to the tribes practising their traditional
religion. These tribal Christians are also visible in schools as well as higher education, and they
are conspicuous by their presence in government and other employment. This pattern is the
same in other tribal regions, but in a less visible form.
The changes that followed the work of Christian missions took the form of a new aspiration
in the tribal society. Tribes that embraced Christianity and became educated were driven ini-
tially by the urge to work for the spread of Christianity and aspired to join the work of Christian
missionaries as clergies and pastors. They went for higher education to theological colleges

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located in different parts of India and were trained in philosophy (Indian and Western) and
Christian theology. After completion of their training and education, they worked and still work
as pastors, teachers, administrators, etc., and in more recent years as social workers, development
practitioners, and human rights activists. Such works were and are still considered as noble, and
many young tribal students with good minds and talent go for education of this nature.
Gradually, other avenues of work and employment became accessible and available to edu-
cated tribals. They joined the government in various capacities, but their presence in the colo-
nial government was tiny. Post-Independence India’s policies of rapid economic and social
development and affirmative action, despite various limitations, boosted higher education, as
jobs of varying kinds and ranks became available to tribes. The earlier educated tribal youth,
more so with higher education and employment in government or as clergies/pastors, acted as
role models for others who later followed into their footsteps. It is important to note that the
Christian missions place a great deal of stress on education and health. Encouragement, guid-
ance, and at times even financial support form an integral part of their pastoral work. Such sup-
port has aided the movement of tribes to higher education.
The early exposure to reading and writing made it possible for tribes to enter new occupa-
tions in government and missionary organisations. These new opportunities attracted others,
leading to the spread of Christianity and literacy, which eventually had a bearing on higher
education. The difference among tribes with respect to modern education and higher educa-
tion is related to this historical advantage. Tribes and tribal areas that had an early exposure to
modern education have higher literacy rates, larger numbers of people with higher levels of
educational attainment, and hence a higher pool of students for higher education.
Although, there is a strong association between tribal Christians and higher education, there
are also cases of tribal non-Christians doing fairly well. Groups such as the Meenas in Rajasthan,
Negis in Himachal Pradesh, and Lambadas in Andhra Pradesh have done fairly well without any
Christian help. And even among tribes in which Christians are more visible, non-Christians
have done well. This may be due to their good economic standing, but more importantly it was
due to their exposure and interaction with the wider world. The drive for education may have
come from the reference groups with whom they interacted on a regular basis. The presence of
a community or group treated as superior often turns out to be a reference point of emulation.
Tribes with such locations have somewhat better educational attainment and hence better rep-
resentation in higher educational institutions, provided their economic condition is not
precarious.

Tribes and academic programmes

The enrolment of tribes in higher educational institutions, as has been noted earlier, has increased
substantially in recent years, but it has not been uniform across disciplines. A large bulk of stu-
dents enrolled in higher educational institutions are generally found in humanities and social
sciences. This is followed by medicine, engineering, commerce, etc. The lowest participation has
been in sciences. In the late 1970s, for example, tribes constituted 2.48 per cent of the total
undergraduate students in humanities and social sciences. This was 1.82 and 1.20 per cent
respectively in medicine and engineering. In sciences, it was as low as 0.83 per cent. Participation
saw a further decline at the postgraduate level. While it was 1.93 per cent for humanities and
social sciences, it was as low as 0.50 and 0.18 per cent respectively for medicine and engineering.
Science remained at 0.79 per cent, which was almost the same as the graduate level (Xaxa 2014:
124). This pattern of participation continues to this day, except that there has been a steady
increase at each level. For example, in 2000–01, the percentage share of tribes at the

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undergraduate level was 5.09 per cent in BA/BA (Hons), 2.01 per cent in BSc/BSc (Hons), 1.7
per cent in BCom/BCom (Hons), and 3.54 per cent in BE/BSc (Eng)/BArch. In all these, their
participation was less than the SCs and the range varied from two to eight times. The pattern
remained similar at the postgraduate level. The only programme in which the tribes had a slight
edge over the SCs was medicine. Their participation stood at 11.49 per cent against the 10.84
per cent of the SCs (Rout 2014: 115).
Within each of these broad disciplines, there have been variations. In the humanities, for
instance, one would find them mainly in languages and rarely in subjects such as philosophy or
linguistics. In the social sciences, disciplines such as economics find fewer takers. Professional
streams such as medicine and engineering are employment-oriented and hence have higher
participation than sciences. Of sciences, botany, agriculture, and zoology have better representa-
tion than sciences such as physics, chemistry, and mathematics. This may be so due to their
interest and aptitude for those disciplines in view of their lived world in which plants and ani-
mals assume an important place.
However, in this respect one finds somewhat interesting and conflicting patterns between
premier institutions or central institutions and state-run institutions or institutions in the state
of their domicile. Even today, very few tribal students opt for basic sciences. And while they are
visible to a small extent in institutions located in their respective regions, their absence is stark
in premier/central institutions. In institutions such as JNU, Delhi University, the Central
University of Hyderabad, and so on, it is almost rare to find tribal students in basic science dis-
ciplines. In contrast, they are conspicuous by their presence in social science disciplines. While
there is poor participation of tribal students in basic sciences even in state institutions, the pat-
tern is not the same with respect to professional and social science programmes. Indeed, one
finds professional education having an edge over social science education in state-level institu-
tions. There is a sort of obsession for professional courses such as engineering, medicine, and so
on, at least in mainland India. This is in contrast to the north-east, where the social sciences are
still popular and a large number of students still pursue them. The contrast may be illustrated
better with reference to Jharkhand, where STs formed 5.0, 2.00, and 0.56 per cent respectively
of the total student enrolment in BA/BA (Hons), BSc/BSc (Hons), and BCom programmes as
per the educational statistics 2006–07. Against this in the BE/BSc (Eng)/BArch programmes,
the share of STs was as high as 24 per cent. In medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy, the
share was 22 per cent and in polytechnic 23 per cent. However, in postgraduate programmes the
share of social sciences went up to 37 per cent of the total in MA, followed by 10.61 per cent
in commerce and 4 per cent in science. For the other disciplines, students going for postgradu-
ation are hardly visible (Birua 2012: 22). There are, of course, strong biases against social science
education in mainland states, which has afflicted the tribes as well. There is a general feeling
among the educated, including tribes, that social sciences have no scope for employment and are
only for students who are poorly endowed. Hence, with poor performance there is a strong
tendency for professional education. As noted above, this is not the case in north-east India.

Academic performance
Once they have entered higher educational institutions, the lives of tribal students are far from
smooth, both in academic and non-academic terms. Although institutions provide hostels pre-
scribed under government policy, these facilities fall far short of the requirement, and a large
chunk of students are forced to stay in rented accommodation or as paying guests. Those who
find the costs of these unaffordable decide to withdraw from the institutions and go back to
their homes to look for other opportunities.

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The academic performance of students belonging to tribal communities has been on the
whole inadequate, though there are exceptions. Over the years, I have observed and interacted
with many tribal students in higher educational institutions and have invariably been made
aware of their difficulties and inadequacy in coping with the demands of higher educational
institutions. This stress is more evident in institutions and departments of repute. The inadequa-
cies of the tribal students stem from varied sources – one being English language proficiency.
Though this does not pose a serious problem to students from the north-east and those from
English-medium schools as a majority of them aspiring to higher education are fairly proficient
in the language, the same is not true for students coming from other parts of India. But more
serious than the problem of English language is tribals’ inadequacy in learning – conceptualisa-
tion, comprehension, articulation, and more important their writing inability. Thus, they enter
premier institutions with disadvantages that, while some are gradually able to overcome, others
find difficult to cope with. The baggage of disadvantages is invariably linked to the nature and
type of institutions that they come from. During my 23 years at the Delhi School of Economics,
I rarely found a tribal student in the Department of Economics. Those who did make it dropped
out in the course of time. In other departments of the school, especially sociology, they were
present in substantial numbers, but their overall performance was comparatively dissatisfactory.
This was evident in their rates of failure, repetition of courses, and relative marks/grades. This
dimension of higher education has received wide attention in the context of technological
institutions such as the IITs in view of the large-scale failure of SC/ST students.
To conclude, the participation of tribes in higher education has increased manifold.Yet enrol-
ments remain the lowest and the gap between tribes and other social categories continues.
Academic performance remains an issue of serious concern, whatever the discipline. At the root
of it lies the disadvantages with which tribal students join the higher education programme.
This has largely to do with the schools they come from, which suffer from lack of quality educa-
tion on various counts. The disparities among tribes that exist across regions, ethnicities, sizes of
population, levels of development, and geographical/ecological settings with regard to their
participation in higher education therefore are in need of urgent attention.

Note
1 Gross enrolment ratio (GER) provides a viable estimate of participation in higher education of various
social groups by taking their enrolment in proportion to their population for higher education.

References
Birua, Balbhadra. 2012. Assessment of Educational Policies for Tribals: A Case Study of Central India. Paper
presented at the Centre for Tribal and Regional Languages, Ranchi University, 25 January.
Elwin,V. 1943. The Aboriginals. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
Ghurye, G.S. 1943. The Aboriginals So Called. Poona: Gokhle Institute of Economics and Political Science.
Government of India (Ministry of Tribal Affairs). 2007. Report of the Working Group on Empowerment of
Scheduled Tribes for the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007–2012). New Delhi: Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
Government of India (Ministry of Human Development Resources). 2013. All India Survey on Higher
Education 2010–2011. New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Rout, Bharat Chandra. 2014. Affirmative Action for Weaker Sections of Society in Institutions of Higher
Education in India. PhD thesis submitted to the National University of Educational Planning and
Administration, New Delhi.
Xaxa, V. 2014. Report of the High Level Committee on Socio-economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal
Communities of India. Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India.

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 18
Private participation in higher
education in India
Issues and implications on access, equity
and quality

Furqan Qamar

Introduction
India has made remarkable progress in higher education since its Independence in 1947. With
993 universities, around 39,931 colleges and 10,725 standalone higher educational institutions,
the higher education system in India has become the single largest system of higher education
found anywhere in the world. This counts for huge progress since Independence as the country
then had no more than 500 colleges and 25 universities. With 37.4 million students, it is the
second largest system of higher education in the world recording, next only to China (Ravi,
Gupta, and Nagaraj, 2019). This is simply a huge progress since Independence as at that time
enrolment in higher education was no more than 100,000. Speaking in relative terms, the Gross
Enrolment Ratio (GER), i.e. the participation rate in higher education, has also gone up from
less than 1 per cent in 1950 to over 26.3 per cent currently (GOI, 2019a). Even in terms of
equity and inclusivity, the second most critical aspect, the performance has been generally good.
The Gender Parity Index, the ratio of men to women students in higher education, is now close
to 1 as women’s enrolment accounts for 48.6 per cent of the total enrolment in higher educa-
tion. The Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Other Backward Castes
(OBCs) and the Muslim Minorities, the most deprived social groups, respectively account for
14.9, 5.5, 36.3, and 5.2 per cent of the total enrolment in higher education. The participation
rate of the SCs and STs now equates to 23.1 and 17.2 per cent respectively against the national
average of 26.3 per cent (Qamar, 2018a).
The above accomplishments notwithstanding, the challenges continue. Higher educational
institutions are not uniformly dispersed across different regions, states, and geographies implying
thereby that the sector has to expand further to mitigate regional and geographic imbalances.
Further, a large number of small-sized higher educational institutions being academically and
financially non-viable, have been invariably impacting on the delivery of quality higher educa-
tion. The participation of women may have substantially increased; there are still institutions and
disciplines where their participation rate is significantly lower than the national average.
Engineering and technology is one such example where women are just about a fifth of the

276 DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-23

 Private participation in higher education in India

total enrolment. Critically, there are still certain marginalised sections of the society, the poor, the
Muslims, rural inhabitants, etc. whose participation rate in higher education is way below their
share in the population or even the national average. In addition, the accomplishments in the
areas of expansion and equity are shadowed by the perceived lack of quality and excellence in
higher education. A small number of high-quality higher educational institutions and pro-
grammes are like islands of excellence in the sea of mediocrity. Even the very best higher edu-
cational institutions of the country compare poorly with the best of the world. While it may be
a good idea to support the best higher educational institutions of the country to become one of
the best in the world, the real challenge before the nation is to mitigate the quality gaps between
the best and the rest so as to ensure a reasonably decent-quality higher education for all.
The challenges of Expansion, Equity, and Excellence (3Es) are so integral to one another that
they define the gene of higher education and focus on one at the cost of others is neither pos-
sible nor desirable. Experience also suggests that Funds, Faculty, and Freedom (3Fs) are the three
necessary conditions for overcoming the challenges with certainty and speed. There is a general
consensus that equitable access to quality higher education is critical for nation-building and
economic development and that India must not miss reaping the demographic dividend. At the
least, it must do everything possible to avert the demographic disaster that would be imminent
if education and health is ignored or even compromised. The approaches to achieving the triple
goal, however, differ across different dispensations – the most prominent being the debate around
‘public funding’, ‘private participation’, and ‘privatisation’. Globally, the balance seems to be set-
tling in favour of the privatisation of higher education, which has also been the case in India,
albeit with a two steps forward and one step backward kind of an approach. The policy frame-
work with regard to privatisation of higher education has, thus, been more tacit than direct.
That has, however, been sufficient for the private sector to enter, operate, and gain traction. As
per the latest available information, nearly 39 per cent of the university level institutions fall in
the private unaided categories. Amongst the deemed universities, colleges and standalone higher
educational institutions the share of private unaided institutions has already exceeded 60 per
cent (Table 18.1).
Private sector enrolment in higher education at the university level institution account for
24.8 per cent, at an aggregate level, the enrolment in the private higher educational institutions
works out 42.2 per cent. In the case of the deemed universities and the standalone higher edu-
cational institutions the private sector enrolment could be as high as 87.8 and 66.2 per cent,
respectively (Table 18.2).
It appears that the self-financed unaided private higher educational institutions have been
playing a major role as far as the professional higher education is concerned (Table 18.3).
Private players in higher education at university level or at an aggregate level may yet not be
dominant in terms of number and enrolment. However, in certain types of higher educational
institutions and programmes they already dominate the higher education spectrum. Most
importantly, they exert major influence on higher education policy, planning and action; NEP
2020 with repeated emphasis on treating the private players at par with public higher educa-
tional institutions is a testimony to this fact. Given their role and importance, the private partici-
pation in higher education can neither be ignored nor undermined. Critically, it would be naïve
to imagine a scenario even in a distant future that would revert back to the idea of treating
higher education as a public good with the state assuming the total responsibility of financing
and providing higher education.With this in mind, this chapter seeks to study the phenomenon
of private participation in higher education in India so as to understand its impact and implica-
tions for the nation.

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Table 18.1 
Number and distribution of different types of higher education institutions in India in
2018–2019

Category and Number Percentage distribution

type of higher
educational govt. Govt. Private Not Total govt. Govt. Private
institutions aided unaided knownb aided unaided

Universities & 598 10 385 993 60.2% 1.0% 38.8%

university
level
institutionsa
Deemed 34 10 80 124 27.4% 8.1% 64.5%
universities
Colleges of 8,490 5,148 24,541 1,752 39,931 21.3% 12.9% 61.5%
higher
education
Standalone 2,254 855 6,084 1,535 10,728 24.53% 9.30% 66.20%
HEIs
All higher 11,342 6,013 31,010 3,287 51,652 21.96% 11.64% 60.04%
educational
institutions

a Including deemed universities.

b These institutions did not submit their details on the AISHE portal; hence their types are unknown.

Table 18.2 Enrolment in different types of higher education institution in India in 2018–2019

Category and type Enrolment (000) Percentage distribution

of higher
govt. Govt. Private Total Govt. Govt. Private
educational
aided unaided aided unaided
institutions

University level 5,572 60 1,854 7,486 74.4% 0.8% 24.8%

Institutionsa
Deemed 37 60 697 794 4.7% 7.6% 87.8%
universities
Colleges of higher 8,889 5,615 11,962 26,466 33.6% 21.2% 45.2%
education
Standalone HEIs 527 200 1,421 2,147 24.5% 9.3% 66.2%
All higher 14,988 5,875 15,237 36,099 41.5% 16.3% 42.2%
educational
institutionsb

a Includes the deemed universities.

b Based on actual response; hence the total enrolment shown in this Table as 32.7 million is lower than the actual
estimated total enrolment of 37.4 Million.
Source: Compiled and Computed by the author from data as reported in GOI (2019a), All India Survey of Higher
Education (AISHE)-2018-19, Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi.

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Table 18.3 Enrolment in academic and professional higher education across different types of HEIs (in
millions)

Enrolment in Government Government Unaided Total

aided private

Academic higher education 11.85 4.97 6.84 23.66

Professional higher education 1.96 0.64 6.31 8.91
Enrolment in all higher educationa 13.81 5.61 13.15 32.57
Professionals as a percentage of total 14.19% 11.41% 47.98% 27.36%
enrolment

a Based on actual response; hence the total enrolment shown in this Table as 32.7 million is lower than the actual
estimated total enrolment of 37.4 million.
Source: Compiled and computed by the author from data as reported in GOI (2019a), All India Survey of Higher
Education (AISHE)-2018-19, Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi.

Private participation in higher education

Higher education, in India, can be interpreted as a public good, a charity, an occupation or an
industry. Depending on the position you take, you could use higher education to your benefit
either as a philanthropist, as a means of livelihood, or for investment to maximise return. The
choice you make is guided by your own disposition which in turn could be influenced by the
larger environmental factors and broader ecosystem. The long-held belief that education was a
public good with fairly high social return warranting public funding has waned over time as far
as higher education is concerned. Despite a long-standing commitment to adequate public
investment in education, with a third share for higher education, and its repeated assertion, most
recently in the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), the public expenditure on educa-
tion has been declining in real terms. This has not only caused underinvestment in the existing
higher educational institution but has also led to a slower rate of growth in the public higher
education system. Simultaneously, the voluntary and philanthropic contribution for the expan-
sion and development of higher education has recorded a rapid decline since Independence. At
the same time, the demand for higher education has been on the rise due to demographics and
developments in the school sector. As the demand–supply situation worsened, the rationale for
the larger role of the private sector in higher education grew stronger. With the passage of time,
the private participation in higher education has grown in number and size and changed its
nature and character from principally philanthropic to primarily pecuniary.
The massive growth in enrolment and the number of higher educational institutions in India
has been seen by some as ‘unplanned an uncontrolled’ causing a ‘fall in teaching standards, over-
crowding and inability to provide necessary facilities and satisfactory working condition’ (Naik,
1974). Others have conceptualised the phenomenon as the massification of higher education
(Varghese, 2015) impelled by the social demand for higher education (UGC, 2009) and pro-
pelled by the private sector’s propensity to propagate. With much of the expansion in higher
education coming through a ‘quantum leap’ in the private higher educational institutions (UGC,
2006), the concerns for access, equity, and quality have been major concerns.
With the targeted GER of 50 per cent by 2035 (GOI, 2019a, p. 36), the higher education
sector is poised to grow further in terms of number and intake capacity and it is no more in the
realm of speculation that much of this growth shall come through the participation of the pri-
vate sector – Indian as well as foreign (GOI, 2020). Given the focus of NEP 2020 on enhancing
the intake capacity of existing higher educational institutions to make them large-sized and

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multi-disciplinary, there might be a reduction in the number of higher educational institutions

due to closure, consolidation, absorption, and mergers of small-sized higher educational institu-
tions. Though this will mostly impact the self-financed private unaided colleges and standalone
higher educational institutions, this is least likely to lessen the extent of private participation in
higher education.

Genesis and growth

Private participation in higher education is often attributed to the advent of structural adjustment,
liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation policies that took the country into their grip from
the beginning of the early nineties. The change in the economic policy may have provided the
governments a legitimate ground and argument for vacating the higher education space, but it
appears that neither the idea nor the phenomenon of private participation in higher education are
new innovations. The oldest examples of private participation in higher education are found in
the form of colleges, established by the missionaries, local communities, reformists guided by
philanthropy, and zeal of nationalism. Private participation in higher education in India is as old as
the history of modern higher education itself as the road for the entry of the private participation
in higher education was paved as early as 1854 when the Wood’s Despatch (Halifax, 1880) called
for systematic but gradual withdrawal of government from direct management of colleges.
However, it is a different matter that the idea was found impracticable and new government col-
leges continued to be established (GOI, 1950, p. 16). In 1882, the Indian Education Commission
once again emphasised the gradual but cautious withdrawal of the state from direct ‘support’ and
‘management’ of institutions of higher education (GOI, 1950). Consequently, the rapid expansion
of higher education during 1882–1902 was propelled by a large number of new institutions fos-
tered by the ‘private enterprise’ so much so that by 1902, the colleges dependent mainly or wholly
on fees (in today’s terminology, the self-financed-unaided private) had already become wide-
spread (GOI, 1950). By 1885, ‘the Universities of Calcutta and Madras had become entirely inde-
pendent of the Government aid, though Bombay University received a small grant and Punjab
University a large one’ (GOI, 1950). In fact, Independent India inherited a higher education sys-
tem beset with private colleges of many hues and colours and of varying sizes ranging from the
‘mammoth colleges of Calcutta to the tiny colleges in small mufassil towns’ (GOI, 1950, p. 367).
Admittedly, the private higher education that began with the process of economic liberalisa-
tion is markedly different from the private initiatives during the colonial past. They were then
guided by the charitable motives to pursue the nationalistic agenda and their growth and pen-
etration were constrained. Post liberalisation, the phenomenon pervaded higher education like
an avalanche – so much of it in such a wide variety in a relatively short period of time. Even
though the stated intent continues to remain charitable and not-for-profit, the rapidity with
which the private higher education mushroomed has alarmed the higher education community
and the government alike. There is, however, something in the nature of the private sector that
make people wary. Interestingly, the philanthropic motive with which the colleges of the colo-
nial past and contemporary time were established did not deter commercialisation. The private
higher educational institution of the past as set up by private benefactors with motives ranging
from ‘a real educational altruism’ to ‘the most sordid seeking of private profit’, were found reap-
ing handsome revenue, generally by admitting much more students than their capacity would
permit with even institutions founded by ‘distinguished men with the best motives’ ‘deterio-
rated into mass-production establishments where fee income is the main consideration’ (GOI,
1950, p. 367). Admittedly, however, the new generation of private higher education providers
with their ‘founders’ becoming ‘promoters’ and ‘edupreneurs’ are a different ball game altogether.

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Most critically, the process of privatisation has also perpetuated in the public higher educa-
tion system in a wide variety of ways. A decline in public investment in higher education
deprived the public-funded higher educational institutions of the much-needed resources for
expansion, upgrading, and quality improvement. This not only provided a reason for the private
sector to fill in the demand-supply gap in higher education but also exerted pressure on the
public higher educational institutions to become less dependent on public funds, if not to
become totally self-sustaining (Rani, 2011). With the passage of time, what was earlier tacit has
now become loudly stated. The General Financial Rules 2017 now makes it mandatory for
‘each Ministry/Department to undertake an exercise to identify activities on which “user
charges” could be levied’. It further mandates that ‘while fixing the rates of user charges, it must
be ensured that the “user charges” recover the current cost of providing services with reasonable
return on capital investment’. Additionally, ‘the rates of user charges should be linked with
appropriate price indices and reviewed at least every three years’ (GOI, 2017 Rule 47). These
rules make no exception and cover education as well, and further mandate that the governing
bodies of the autonomous bodies to review user charges/sources of internal revenue general at
least once a year and inform the administrative Ministry (GOI, 2017 Rule 229vi). This is just
one example to illustrate the onslaught of ‘private trends in public higher education’. These are
manifested by increasing emphasis on ‘cost recovery’, ‘resource mobilisation’, ‘resource-use efficiency’
‘cost-reduction’, ‘value-for-money’ and ‘reduced dependence on public exchequer’. These are but a few
signs obvious signs that higher education now seeks to shift ‘the burden of cost from the public
to the private’ (Varghese, 2000) and ‘profit replacing philanthropy’ (Tilak, 2006).
The new generation of private higher educational institutions may have begun with the
high-demand, job-oriented, market-based professional, technical, and medical higher education
(Agarwal, 2007) and may have remained confined mostly to the southern and western states of
the country (Tilak, 1991). They soon spread across the length and breadth of the country cap-
turing most states ruled by varied political dispensations. The exceptions have been few and far
in between (Tilak, 2018). Initially, most were in the form of the self-financed private colleges,
often referred to as ‘capitation fee colleges’, established often with ‘profit motives’ (Tilak, 2009).
Mono-disciplinary affiliating universities and domain-based regulatory authorities have cata-
lysed the process further expansion. The bulk of the expansion in the self-financed colleges,
often also referred to their initial years, as ‘capitation fee colleges came about beginning from
1990’. ‘Most of them being for-profit motive institutions’ (Tilak, 1994) and they were mostly in
high-demand disciplines like engineering, management, and medicine (Agarwal, 2007).1

A complex web of institutions and practices

Higher education in India, today, is characterised by a mixed-mode, multi-modal higher educa-
tional delivery system. It permits the private sector to exist and operate alongside the public
sector, conceptually to complement the governmental. Involvement of the private sector in
higher education is, thus, justified as a means of mobilising additional investment. Even the
University Education Commission reached the conclusion that the private colleges were neces-
sary to meet the increasing demands (GOI, 1950, p. 446). At the same time, governments recog-
nise and emphasise the criticality of public higher education in the social, economic, and
technological advancement of the nation. The public posturing, most of the time, is centred on
promising enhanced public investment (NIEPA, 2005). In practical terms, private investment in
higher education is proactively sought. Besides mitigating investment gaps, such arguments like
quality improvement and efficiency enhancement are also advanced to encourage private par-
ticipation. In reality, thus, the private sector competitively jostles with the public sector for the

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higher education space. Generally, the public sector invariably loses when it comes into compe-
tition with the private sector because it lacks resources, operational flexibilities, and the clout
that the private sector may present. Most critically, ‘increasing private participation in education
leads to the governments losing influence and, often, getting replaced by the private agencies’
(GOI, 1950).
Private participation in higher education had its origin in colleges. The prevailing belief, at
that time, was that private college shall inflict no harm because they would be subject to the
affiliation control of public universities. Post-Independence, the need, demand, and clamour for
degree awarding powers to the private higher education providers grew. The need first arose
immediate after independence when nationalist higher educational institutions (e.g. Gujarat
Vidyapeeth, Kashi Vidyapeeth, Jamia Millia Islamia, etc.) established during the colonial time,
declined to become universities under Act of Parliament or State Legislature so as to preserve
and protect their autonomy. The need was finally met by inserting Section 3 in the UGC Act
1956 to recognise these institutions as deemed to be universities. This marked the beginning of
‘government-aided private’ degree-awarding higher educational institutions in the country. It
was a while before the regional engineering colleges across the country were declared as
‘deemed universities’ thereby conferring upon them power to award degree. Sporadically, a few
research institutions established by governments or philanthropic individuals were also accorded
the status of deemed universities to empower them to confer degree.
Once Section 3 of the UGC Act 1956 was reinterpreted in 1998–1999 to accord degree
granting power to the newly established Indian Institutes of Information technology (IIITs),
first at Gwalior and Allahabad, the private sector used this analogy to set up ‘self-financed
deemed universities’, which led to a ‘mad rush’ for ‘self-financed deemed universities’, particu-
larly from the southern and western states, which already had the clout and experience of ‘suc-
cessfully’ running self-financed private ‘capitation fee’ colleges. Thus, began the rise of the
‘self-financed deemed universities’ with the dubious distinction of some being institutions of
excellence and others more known for malpractices (UGC, 2009). The judicial reviews and
adjudication that ensued also swung between helping the penetration of the private deemed
universities and imposing restrictive barriers (Gupta, 2008). However, soon the going got
tougher and the process of obtaining deemed university status became cumbersome and ‘expen-
sive’ in a wide variety of ways; the clamour began for an enabling legislation detailing the condi-
tions and procedures for the entry and operation of the private universities. Sensing the
opportunity, the union government introduced in Rajya Sabha the Private Universities (Entry,
Operation, and Regulation) Bill in 1995. The Bill was referred to as a department-related stand-
ing committee and was discussed at various levels, but no consensus could be found for its enact-
ment. In the meantime, the potential private sector also developed cold feet because it saw the
Bill as heavier on regulation rather than enabling and facilitating. Finally, the Bill was withdrawn
in 2005, on the grounds that UGC has come up with regulations to coordinate and maintain
standards in the self-financed private universities established by the State (UGC, 2003).
As the union government struggled to enact the enabling and regulatory legislation for the
private universities, many state governments realised that higher education being in the concur-
rent list, the Constitution empowers them to legislate on matters relating to higher education
and if they can establish public-funded state universities nothing stopped them from establishing
self-financed private state universities. Beginning in 2002, there was a kind of mad rush for self-
financed private universities established by many state governments. This time, however, the lead
was taken by the central (Chhattisgarh, Orissa) northern (Haryana, Himachal, Punjab, Rajasthan,
UP, Uttarakhand), eastern (Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal), and Western (Gujarat) states (Varghese,
2012). A few states could establish such universities under the State Universities Acts while

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others initially promulgated an umbrella legislation for the approval of self-financed private
universities, but once the same was struck down (as in case of Chhattisgarh),2 separate legislation
for each self-financed private university. The number of states resorting to this recourse has been
rising such that by the last count as many as 23 states had already established such universities.3
The latest to enter the lexicon of private involvement in higher education has been the
Public Private Partnership (PPP). Encouraged by the accomplishments of the PPP model in the
infrastructure sector, the 11th Plan (2007–2012) provided for the establishment of 20 Indian
Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) out of which 10 were to be in PPP mode. The idea
of PPP was severely criticised in the academic circles for being ‘an ideology’ to further privatisa-
tion in school education (Kumar, 2008) and as a ‘euphemism for further withdrawal of state from
higher education’ (Tilak, 2016). PPP could not be implemented in higher education during the
11th Plan period because neither the government was ready with an acceptable blueprint nor
was the private sector forthcoming with investments that the government had envisaged.4 Finally,
the idea gained ground during the 12th Plan (2012–2017) and the ambit and scope of PPP in
higher education was further broadened (GOI, 2011; Prakash et al., 2012). As of now as many as
15 IIITs in PPP modes are at different stages of development in different parts of the country.

Deepening of the private sector in higher education

Importantly, the public higher educational institutions – colleges, deemed universities, state uni-
versities, central universities, and institutions of national importance – have continued to exist
and operate. In fact, the number of the centrally funded higher and technical institutions during
the past two decades has gone up.5 There has been no move, except for occasional discussions
demanding gradual phasing-out or even complete withdrawal of state from higher education
(Ambani and Birla, 2000). There has hardly been any sale, takeover, or transfer of public higher
educational institutions to private ownership and management. To this extent, there has been
no ‘privatisation of higher education’ in the country. However, going by the extent and intensity
as measured by the number of students and institutions in the private higher educational institu-
tions, the country gets labelled as ‘predominantly private’ on a three-point scale of being ‘insig-
nificantly private’, ‘moderately private’, and ‘predominantly private’ (Tilak, 2014). One can,
therefore, ask if this is not privatisation of higher education then what is (Varghese, 2013)?
It would be safer to conclude that thus far India has resisted the privatisation of higher educa-
tion but allowed, and created conditions for, the private sector to enter and operate in the higher
education sector. Hence the author has avoided using the term ‘privatisation’. However, looked
from a slightly different perspective, one could argue that the tendency towards privatisation of
higher education as caused by the decline, withdrawal or stoppage of grants-in-aid, and pressure
for internal resource generation, has been quite strong in India. Public higher educational institu-
tions, including universities, when provided ‘Deficit-based Maintenance Grants’ (grants being
equal to the difference between approved expenditure and estimated internally generated revenue)
were forced to raise internally generated revenue and cut down on expenditure to significantly
reduce the amount of the maintenance grants. The states that shifted to the formula-based block
grant for the maintenance and operating expenditure, refused to revise the quantum of the grant
over an extended time with consequence that such grants cover no more than 40 per cent of their
budgetary requirements.6 In fact, there are universities, particularly the affiliating ones, which rather
than receiving any maintenance grants from the government have, in fact, been giving loans to the
government out of the surplus that they generate out of internally generated revenue.7 Privatisation
being a multi-faced process, is also about market-oriented trends and tendencies. Demand for a
‘business-like approach’, ‘market orientation’, ‘cost recovery’, ‘deferred cost recovery’, ‘pricing, user

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Furqan Qamar

charges’ resource-use efficiency, revenue diversification, and cross-­subsidisation, are just a few
examples of ‘private trends and tendencies’ in public higher education.
Such a varied and complex system of higher education8 poses difficulties in assessing the true
extent of private participation in higher education. Consequently, the extent of private partici-
pation in higher education has been assessed differently by different researchers and even policy
planners by choosing an approach that serves their purpose. Pawan Agarwal (2009), for example,
clubs the ‘self-financed private’ and the ‘private but government aided’ higher educational insti-
tutions together to show that the private higher education does not only dominate the profes-
sional and technical higher education but even the general higher education. Others have
preferred to classify government-aided private higher educational institution with the govern-
ment higher educational institution because such institution bear characteristics quite similar to
the government institutions. With public higher educational institutions increasingly resorting
to the tendencies of pursuing privatisation policies and trends, the distinction between the pub-
lic and private is getting increasingly blurred (ADB, 2012), globally and more so in India. The
usual classification based on the ownership of an institution falls too deficient to assess the inge-
nuity of private participation in higher education.
Faced with similar challenge across Asia, Bray (1998, 2002) worked out a framework that
classified the institutions into four groups. This framework, in fact, helps us understand what
Kapur and Mehta (2007) mean when they distinguish between ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ privatisa-
tion. Benefitting from this framework, all higher educational institutions in India could be cat-
egories into four groups:

(a) Public delivery–public funding: These comprise fully funded institutions of national impor-
tance, central universities, public-funded state universities, government deemed universities,
government colleges and the government standalone HEIs;
(b) Public delivery–private funding: These comprise public HEIs with notional public funding
like some institutions of national importance which have already become self-sufficient;
central open universities (IGNOU), state universities which meet the bulk of their
expenditure requirements from their own sources, and state open universities. This cat-
egory would also include institutions generating a significant proportion of their revenue
through self-financed programmes, self-financed seats (NRI/PIO/foreign/sponsored
candidates), accelerated cost recovery/user charges, and open and distancing learning
programmes;
(c) Private delivery–private funding: These comprise fully/substantially funded higher educa-
tional institutions including government-aided private colleges, government-aided
deemed universities, HEIs in PPP Mode like the IITs and government aided standalone
HEIs. This category shall also include private HEIs supported through fee-­reimbursement
scheme, interest subsidy scheme on HE loans, scholarships/fellowship, research supports
and occasional development grants;
(d) Private delivery–private funding: These comprise the self-financed private higher educational
institutions like colleges, standalone HEIs, deemed universities, private universities, and
private open universities.

It is obvious that the privatisation of higher education in the country has not remained confined
to the entry and operation of the colleges, universities, and other higher educational institutions
established and managed by the private individuals and societies. The privatisation is in fact
much deeper and has been increasingly inflicting the public higher educational institution in a
wide variety of ways.

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Limitations and drawbacks

But for the involvement of the private sector, India would not have become the single largest
system of higher education in the world. It has helped mitigate the demand-supply gap in higher
education, at least in the high-demand professional higher education – a segment where people
were willing to pay the price and where the demand-supply gap has been the widest and contin-
ues to persist as yet (Davey et al., 2014). These positives notwithstanding, it is also a fact that
mushroom growth in private higher education has been associated with the deterioration in
quality and commercialisation of higher education. Even though educational activities, including
higher education, in India, have to be organised by the charitable and not-for profit undertakings,
the accusation of profiteering and tendencies of making hidden profit by the private sector has
been quite prevalent. The private sector has also come under scanner for under-paying the
teacher, overcharging the students, running degree mills and producing unemployable graduates.
Barring a few exceptions, most private higher educational institutions are run by societies
and trust that are controlled by the close family members of the promoters with the conse-
quence that their decision-making, governance, and administration is largely vested in the
immediate kith and kin of the owners-promoters. Unelated persons appointed as principals or
vice chancellors to comply with the regulatory requirements are invariably notional and subject
to the tighter control of the owners and promoters. This makes the Indian private higher educa-
tion markedly different from those in the United States – a country which is often cited to
promote private higher education in the country. Additionally, unlike the US, the Indian private
higher education has been unable to diversify the sources of revenue and remains exclusively
dependent upon students’ fees. This is

in contrast to some major private universities in western countries like the US, where,
according to statistics, students’ fees account for only a small fraction of the total costs of
higher education – less than 40% and the rest 60% met by non-state and non-student
sources.
(Tilak, 2014)

Private higher education in India is exorbitantly expensive and generally of poor quality causing
an affordability barrier in access and thereby adversely impacting equity and inclusiveness. The
espoused claim that the private sector provides quality higher education at affordable cost due
to cost-savings and resource-use efficiency is rarely seen in the reality. As a consequence, even in
the professional and technical higher education where the private sector has been operating for
a fairly long period of time, a predominant proportion of their sanctioned intake capacity remain
unfilled. This is either because they are too expensive for the students to afford or they offer
such a poor quality of higher education that students do not find value for money. Barring a few
notable exceptions, the private sector has neither been able to attract quality faculty nor been
able to retain them for a longer period of time. This is amply indicated by a high to very high
iteration rate amongst their faculty. These reflect badly on the performance of the private higher
educational institutions in terms of their research, publications, patents, and ranking – national
as well as global (Qamar, 2018b, 2020). At the same time, many an apprehension about the pri-
vate sector may also be exaggerated. The UGC subgroup on privatisation and entry to foreign
universities (UGC, 2006) had, for example, predicted that ‘unless this phenomenon is effectively
regulated, it is expected that the public system of higher education may disappear within less
than 10 years with serious social implications, besides serious distortions of the national knowl-
edge system’ has proven wrong, as public higher education continues to play a major role.

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Future trends in privatisation of higher education

Private participation in higher education is based on a wide variety of reasons. Economic liber-
alisation and structural adjustment policies, with stress on containing budgetary deficit by reduc-
ing public expenditure and market-oriented reforms, may be in the forefront (Tilak, 2018). The
trend is likely aggravated further with increasing encouragement and incentivisation, though the
private sector shall be expected to continue as charitable activity delivered on ‘not-for-profit’
basis (GOI, 2020). It should, therefore, be no surprise that the national education policy as
announced recently places so much emphasis on treating the public and private higher educa-
tional institutional on equal footing (GOI, 2020). Promises and assurances of enhanced public
funding for higher education, notwithstanding, the budgetary allocation for higher education is
more likely to remain static, if not declining. Even if the allocation for higher education increases,
a good proportion of the same may go for incentivising the private players. As grants are being
linked to accreditation, ranking, and eminence, it appears that in future a major proportion of
the public funding shall be allocated to a smaller number of better ranked elite higher educa-
tional institutions in the name of promoting excellence in higher education. The bulk of the
higher educational institutions catering to a very large section of the student population are
likely to suffer the most. Funding for access and equity shall remain confined to scholarship,
mostly through cross-subsidisation and deferred cost recovery (GOI, 2019b). Thus, both the
‘push’ as well as the ‘pull’ factors favouring private participation in higher education (Rani,
2011) are like to become more dire.
Public expenditure on education, hitherto seen as ‘investment in human resource develop-
ment’ would increasingly be regarded as ‘subsidy’ and subsidy being wasteful and inefficient,
attempts would be made to phase it out as sooner than later (Srivastava et al., 1997).With higher
education classified as ‘non-merit’, ‘non-public good’ is likely to be the foremost casualty.
Increasing ‘cost recovery’, imposition of ‘user pay principle’, and resorting to the ‘credit market’
as promoted by the Ambani-Birla Taskforce over two decades ago (Ambani and Birla, 2000) are
more likely to guide the higher education development in the country. However, the govern-
ments are least likely to exit the higher education completely and leave the turf to the private
sector. Instead, public higher educational institutions, deprived of funding and subjected to
excessive regulation, may become marginalised to the extent that the private higher education
providers become the first-choice destination for those who can afford. This has already hap-
pened in the case of school education and there is no reason that higher education would not
follow a different trajectory (Zahid and Qamar, 2000).
Recommendations of a wide variety of committees, taskforces, groups, and subgroups con-
stituted over the past two decades would come in handy for vigorously implementing student-
loan programmes for the ‘economically needy and educationally deserving candidates’ with a
‘careful monitoring mechanism’ (NIEPA, 2005). The rising cost of higher education due to
‘user charges’ and ‘accelerated cost recovery’ even in the public-funded higher educational insti-
tutions has already created an affordability barrier for a significant section of the society. Further
liberalisation of fee-regimes across higher educational institutions (public and private; profes-
sional and general) by empowering them to determine their fees will make equitable access to
quality higher education a formidable challenge. Will the policy deprive a large section of the
society from accessing higher education? Will a scheme of scholarship and freeship as envisaged
by the draft national educational policy (GOI, 2019b, p. 300; 333) enable the economically
needy and the deprived sections of the society?
An earlier suggestion of setting up a Higher Education Finance Corporation (HEFC) with
contributions from the government, corporate sector, and non-governmental sources for

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financing a higher education institution and students has already been mentioned in the draft
national education policy (GOI, 2019b). Critically, the idea of a ‘soft loan’ promoted earlier has
already been implemented in the form of Student Loan Guarantee and Interest Subsidy schemes,
though we do not know as yet how this scheme has impacted access and equity for the section
of the people for whom it was originally intended (Rani, 2016). This is also the case with the
Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA), which has replaced the development grants earlier
given by the University Grants Commission to colleges and universities by the loan. Though
presently the HEFA funding is confined to only centrally funded higher educational institutions,
it might soon be extended to the state sector. Recommendations of the Punnayya Committee
(UGC, 1993) and by the Swaminathan Committee (AICTE, 1994) for exploring alternative
sources of finance to augment funds for higher and technical education through voluntary con-
tribution, cost-recovery, user charges, consultancy, outsourcing of facilities and services for com-
mercial uses, self-financing programmes, and deferred cost-recovery, etc. are already founded
reflected in NEP 2020. These and similar recommendations had earlier been echoed in the
Narayana Murthy Committee Report (Murthy, 2012) and the National Knowledge Commission
Report on Higher Education (GOI, 2009).
The rise of the private sector has coincided with the decline of the public higher education
system, caused by underinvestment leading to deterioration in their physical facilities, infrastruc-
ture and faculty resources, besides, political interference, archaic processes, and lack of autonomy
that have impacted on their working and performance. The failure of the public higher educa-
tion system to change with time to respond to the changes in the economic structure exerting
pressure on the higher education sector to restructure and reorganise their programmes has
further helped the cause of the private sector. This has to be set right by ensuring that the public
higher educational institutions become a role model by conforming to all the standards in
higher education by removing all the barriers in this regard.

In order to set good models for higher educational institutions, the educational institutions
under the responsibility of governments should conform to all norms for quality education.
Otherwise they lose their legitimate authority to insist on quality norms in private
institutions.
(UGC, 2006)9

Private higher educational institutions have also been known for their uncanny ability to
remain immune to the regulatory restrictions. Historically, they were hardly affected by strict
conditions laid down by the affiliating universities for granting affiliation (GOI, 1950, p. 401).
Despite the insistence of the University Education Commission that colleges should not be
accorded affiliation unless they satisfy the affiliating universities that they were eligible to receive
grants-in-aid and that they were capable of undertaking internal assessment of its own students,
poor-quality colleges continue to thrive (GOI, 1950, p. 370), compelling the NPE 1968 (GOI,
1998) to prescribe that the intake capacity of universities and colleges must be determined with
due regard to their physical facilities, faculty, and staff. Despite the caution and urging to curb
proliferation of poor-quality colleges and universities in the country, the higher education sys-
tem continued to grow to become, by 1986, 150 universities and 5,000 colleges strong compel-
ling the NPE 1986 (GOI, 1998) to reiterate that ‘in the near future the main emphasis (would)
be on consolidation of and expansion of facilities in the existing institutions’ and that ‘consider-
able care was needed in establishing new universities … and new higher educational institutions
should be started only after an adequate provision of funds has been made for the purpose and
due care has been taken to ensure proper standards’. Since then, the number of universities,

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colleges, and standalone higher educational institutions have gone up to 993, 39,110 and 1,075
respectively – a good chunk of them being of poor to very poor quality. There is a need for an
effective regulatory framework to force private higher education providers to ‘meet public stan-
dards and adhere to public goals has and shall continue to remain elusive’. Efforts to legislate on
these matters have failed. Bills seeking prevention of malpractices in higher education, setting up
of tribunals, and accreditation authorities could not be passed in Parliament (Tilak, 2009).

Concluding observation
The drawbacks of the private higher educational institutions notwithstanding, they are still
being encouraged and incentivised, though not as a substitute to the public higher education
system but to play a complementary role. The system of higher education, thus, seems to be
‘inclining’ towards a ‘hybrid model’ (Da, 2007) compelling public and the private to coexist with
all their contradictions and uniqueness. It is also realised that higher education is too important
to be left to the vagaries of the market forces. Unlike consumer goods, which are bought for a
monetary payment and can be returned if found faulty, educational products and services are
earned over a period of time by paying not only a financial cost but also by investing a precious
part of life. They are thus irreversible in nature. Investment in education is also unique in
another sense; there is no secondary market for the degrees with no scope for an exit route if
the market conditions turn unfavourable. The state is, thus, under obligation to ensure that
educational services are intrinsically of high value. With this in mind, but much to the chagrin
of the private sector, the regulatory regime in higher education is least likely to be relaxed any
time soon. The regulatory framework is most likely to intensify in time to come, even though
it is proven beyond doubt that the ‘quality of higher education is inversely proportional to the
intensity of regulation’ (Qamar, 2017).
NEP 2020 has suggested a ‘light but tight’ regulatory regime (whatever that means) and
prescribes accountability through stricter disclosure norms and related compliances and their
wide dissemination using the available technology. This sounds good but far from the reality as
private higher educational institutions have been quite reluctant in exposing themselves to pub-
lic scrutiny. The All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) makes it mandatory for all
higher educational institutions to submit the required data and for the purpose it has developed
an elaborate protocol and network of nodal agencies and offices for ensuring strict compliance,
but a substantial number of higher educational institutions still do not furnish all the required
data, particularly the financial data. So much so that the AISHE has given up on the idea and has
stopped reporting such statistics because they are either ‘unavailable’ or ‘unreliable’. This has
been the fate of the Know Your College (KYC) portal; it is hardly updated and rarely reports
financial data.
Policy prescriptions and regulatory dictates have hardly been known for their efficacy to pre-
dict outcome and the future course of development in higher education. In fact, the higher edu-
cation sector has evinced remarkable resilience in defying developmental direction and in
thwarting regulatory reins. Quite often, the higher education sector follows a trajectory that was
least expected and often diametrically opposite to what policies envisaged, proposed, and sought
to promote. And this is all the more true in the case of private participation in higher education.

Notes
1 In terms of legal position, all educational activities – higher and technical education being no exception –
have to be organised and delivered by not-for-profit organisations in the form of societies registered

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under Societies Registration Act 1875 or by a charitable trust or, more recently, as a not-for-profit
company registered under Section 8 (earlier Section 35) of the Companies Act. The Supreme Court
has also ruled that the educational institutions cannot make profit, though they can generate a reason-
able surplus for the future expansion and development of the institution itself. It is on these grounds
that the educational institutions are exempt from Income Tax provided that they spent 85 per cent of
their revenue on their core educational activities, and in case they cannot in any particular year, they
shall have to undertake to spend such savings for their core activities within the next five years. Thus,
when people talk about ‘profit motive’ in the Indian context, they invariably mean the possibility of
making hidden profit out of educational activities.
2 Chhattisgarh, a newly created state in 2000, enacted the Chhattisgarh Niji Kshetra (Sthapna aur Viniyaman)
Adhiniyam in 2002 to establish self-financed private universities – an umbrella legislation that empow-
ered the government to notify private universities. The Act was such a roaring success that by 2004 as
many as 112 private universities were established under this Act. Concerned with massive mushroom-
ing of universities of poor quality with least regard to human resources, infrastructure, and physical
facilities, Prof. Yashpal approached the Supreme Court which in its judgement in 2005 declared two
sections of the Adhiniyam as ultra vires with the effect that all the universities established under the
Adhiniyam ceased to exist.
3 The spread of self-financed private universities across different states is evident from the AISHE data
(GOI, 2018). By 2017–2018 as many as 23 states already had as many 261 self-financed private universi-
ties accounting for 36.6 per cent of the total number of universities in these states. In absolute numbers,
Rajasthan (with 43 private universities), Gujarat (31), Uttar Pradesh (27) and Madhya Pradesh (22)
lead the group. In relative terms, Meghalaya (with private universities accounting for 75% of the total
universities in the state) leads the pack followed closely by Sikkim (71.4%), Himachal Pradesh (68%),
Nagaland (60%), Rajasthan (54.4%), and Arunachal Pradesh (55.6%).
4 Even though the 11th Plan document provided for experimenting with the PPP model in higher
education, there were no guidelines to guide the process except for a Sub-Group Report on PPP in
Social Sector (GOI, 2004). With this is mind, the author, in his capacity as Advisor (Education) in the
Planning Commission took upon himself to develop a draft consultation paper on PPP in higher and
technical education (Commission, 2008). The draft paper was discussed in a series of meetings with
various stakeholders and was profusely appreciated for being comprehensive with several models and
many possibilities. At the same time, it was severely criticised by the opponents of the idea (Tilak, 2016)
for pushing the agenda of the whole-hog privatisation of higher education; and also by the proponents
of the PPP model for severely lacking in prescribing the user-charges and cost recovery. Consequently,
the paper could not be accepted as an official document on PPP. This was the fate of the UGC docu-
ment on PPP in higher education.
5 Higher education received a major push during the 11th Five Year Plan, which provided for establishing
16 new central universities, 14 new world-class universities, 20 new IIITs, 7 new IISERs and an NIT
in all such states that so far had none, a scheme for strengthening and upgrading the state universities
and their colleges, and also the establishment of 370 model degree colleges to cover the underserved
district. These schemes continued during the 12th Plan.
6 As Vice Chancellor, University of Rajasthan in 2009, I discovered to my dismay that the university was
receiving no more than Rs. 40 Crores as block grants whereas its budgetary requirements at that time
exceeded Rs. 214 Crores. Obviously, the university was mobilising the rest of the required resources
through internally generated revenue.
7 Most of the affiliating type technical/technological universities, even with on campus teaching, generate
enough resources through affiliation and examination related fees that they are not only self-­sufficient
but also rendering surpluses. Many universities in the country are presently receiving a demand for
income tax on the surpluses generated by them, the rules permit tax exemptions only to such public
universities that are substantially funded out of the public exchequer. In fact, most of the older Indian
Institutes of Management (IIMs) no longer depend on the government for financial support.
8 The diversity may be quite complex in India but is certainly not unique (Bjarnason et al., 2009).
9 As Vice Chancellor of the University of Rajasthan in 2009, the author had to deal with a large number
of private teacher training colleges affiliated to the university. Most of them would be found lacking in
meeting the minimum prescribed facilities, resources, and faculty. All persuasion to address the noted and
informed deficits usually fell on deaf ears and the university was unable, at least morally, to compel them
to comply with the norms and standards because the faculty of education of the university itself was run-
ning in a poorer infrastructure with only two faculty members as against the minimum prescribed ten.

289
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 Part V
Underbelly

This part addresses an area that lies outside the received knowledge and discourse of education
in India. It exists, and not just in pockets or as an aberration, but rather as a major and vast venue
of educational activity, but the activity itself is such that it resists acknowledgement. The three
chapters included in this section hardly exhaust this vast area, nor do they provide an adequate
mapping. Far from it, they merely provide an indication of the nature of the activities that char-
acterise the underbelly of the legitimate system of education. The three activities covered by the
chapters included in this part are: waiting, cheating, and coaching. These are not the kind of
topics normally covered in reference books like this one. And technically, the geography they
represent lies outside the borders of the system of education. It is important to view this geog-
raphy for the same reasons that economists recognise the black market in order to study the
market better. All three activities, namely waiting (for work), coaching (for success), and cheating
(for ensuring success) form the ethos in which the system of education works. All three activities
are widespread, though we lack sufficient information about how they are carried out in differ-
ent parts of a vast country like India. Each of the three chapters included in this part concerns a
specific region or state.
The first refers to unemployed youth. In their study of jobless youth of Western Uttar Pradesh,
Craig Jeffrey and Jane Dyson came across a phenomenon they call the ‘politics of waiting’.
These authors see it as a global phenomenon of this period of history, but their chapter portrays
it in the specific contours of Meerut, a town in the prosperous belt of an otherwise economi-
cally backward state. Unemployment among educated youth is as old as the modern system of
education itself. It is often seen in relation to the impact that education has on the aspiration,
attitude, and preferences of young people who have gone through the schooling process.
Historically, it seems that the experience of going to school and college, and the certification of
their success in examination, shape their views of acceptable employment. Education was once
associated with salaried jobs of the kind that only the government could give. The unemployed
youth whose lives and thoughts are analysed by Jeffrey and Dyson have received higher educa-
tion. They carry the burden of their own and their parents’ aspirations, in an era when the state
has changed its character and no longer wishes to be perceived as an avenue of permanent sala-
ried employment. How these young men endure long years of unemployment, and how they

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-24 293

Underbelly

develop, through engagement and interaction, a critique of the political world that surrounds
them is the focus of Jeffrey and Jane Dyson.
Aspiration and stress are also the main ingredients of the ethos in which ‘Vyapam’ became a
synonym for scam in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.Vyapam is otherwise the Hindi
acronym for the Professional Examination Board. Krishna Kumar’s chapter examines a recent
scam involving entrance tests for higher professional education in Madhya Pradesh. It argues that
the intensely competitive circumstances form one aspect of professional education in areas like
medicine and engineering; emergence of assisted cheating as a service industry forms the other
aspect of contemporary higher education in a state that has demonstrated rather extraordinary
warmth towards neoliberal policies in education. The chapter highlights the involvement of
professionally educated youth in the scam that remained manageable for several years before it
lost its hold on the secret operations necessary for its continuation. The chapter also attempts to
address the question one might ask about this scam, whether this could have occurred anywhere
in India. The cautiously negative answer offered in this chapter is based on the analysis of the
specific historical and political conditions of Madhya Pradesh. The analysis draws our attention
to the complexity of education as a field of study in a country whose regional diversity is not
merely cultural. Political and administrative legacies and circumstances shape the systemic char-
acteristics of education in remarkably specific ways.
This message is further corroborated by the last chapter in this section, which concerns pri-
vate tuition and coaching from an early age as a pervasive social phenomenon in Bengal. Manabi
Majumdar has studied this elusive subject in order to find out what impact it makes on the social
goals of the educational policy. Parents invest in private tuition obviously because it improves
their children’s performance in examinations. As Disha Nawani’s chapter explained, examina-
tions have been at the heart of the culture of schooling in India since colonial times. Bengal is
where this culture took root before it did so in other parts of India. It has resisted the various
attempts made to reform it through new policies and the promotion of new practices. Many of
these reform-­oriented policies did not make much of a dent in Bengal; but that is hardly a suf-
ficient explanation for the scale and social fervour associated with home tuition. Indeed, private
tuition is recognised as a major aspect of child-­rearing in many other Asian countries, particu-
larly in the East Asian region. How it intersects with political commitment with social justice
and equity through modern governance that Bengal is believed to practise is what Manabi
Majumdar attempts to explain.

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 19
Active partners
Rethinking the educated unemployed in India

Craig Jeffrey and Jane Dyson

In January 2005, at Meerut College, about 40 miles north-east of Delhi, I met Lekhpal Singh.
Singh had more the appearance of a professor than a student – his hair was flecked with grey
and laugh lines spread out from the corners of his eyes. He had been living at the college for 13
years, during which time he had acquired a BA, a BEd, three MAs, and a PhD. He had applied
unsuccessfully for many government jobs, but was still ‘berozgaar’ (unemployed). ‘There’s been
nothing suspect about my achievement’, Lekhpal said. ‘My results have all been first class. But
the college is very poor. And unemployment is everywhere. Recently 12,000 people applied for
three government jobs’.
So what do you do all day? I asked.
‘We do nothing. Just kill time.’
There are millions of Lekhpals across the world. The World Bank (2011) reported that 202
million people were unemployed around the world, of which over one-third are youth aged
15–24. The rate of unemployment is particularly high in North Africa and the Middle East, but
is also very significant in Southern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. While the
economic fortunes of many countries in these regions have recovered to some extent since the
global recession of 2008–11, the recovery has not resulted in the creation of high-skilled jobs for
graduates. Even before the recession, rapid economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s did not see
the creation of a large number of well-paid formal-sector jobs in China and India (see Kaplinsky
2005). For example, the IT sector employed six million people in 2009 in India, a country with
a working-age population of 500 million (Joshi 2009). At the same time, national governments
have been under pressure to reduce the overall size of state bureaucracies.1
A meagre supply of graduate jobs has coincided with a huge increase globally in demand for
high-skilled, well-paid formal-sector employment. Rapid population growth rates, especially in
sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and parts of South Asia, are increasing demand for work,
and this ‘youth bulge’ is increasingly likely to be educated. Enrolment in tertiary education has
increased markedly, from roughly 17 per cent of the global youth population in university in
1991 to 29 per cent in 2011. Paul Willis (1977) famously argued that schools in the UK per-
suaded students to align their ambitions with available jobs – working-class children learned
to aspire to working-class jobs, and scholars in the USA have argued that junior colleges per-
form the same ‘cooling out function’ among youth from marginalised backgrounds (young

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-25 295

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people enter with high ambitions and then scale back). But the majority of colleges and univer-
sities in the global South do not work in this manner. Education encourages young people to
plot futures in well-paid, non-manual, permanent employment, and media images of middle-
class success feed into this revolution of rising aspirations. At the same time, employers find that
schools and universities are not providing young people with the skills and knowledge required
for the job market. It follows that the apparent advantage to a developing country of having a
large, educated youth population – the so-called ‘demographic dividend’ – can become instead
a restive and demoralised ‘demographic disaster’ (World Bank 2011).
Young people often respond to unemployment by refusing to enter jobs, such as manual
labour or unskilled service work, that they regard as beneath their status – at least in the short
term. But not all young people can afford to remain jobless very long, and even youth from rela-
tively wealthy backgrounds often find it difficult to remain ‘unemployed’ in the face of parental
and other pressures. The most important indicator of graduate distress is therefore not outright
unemployment but ‘underemployment’: ‘part-time or insecure work that does not reflect young
people’s skills and ambitions’ (Prause and Dooley 1997). In 2010, 536 million young people
were underemployed according to figures released by the World Bank (2011). The state does not
regulate the terms of this employment, there are few opportunities for collective bargaining, and
such jobs typically offer training or opportunities for self-development (World Bank 2011). The
prevalence of male breadwinner norms means that in many regions young men often experi-
ence the problem of graduate un/underemployment most acutely, and shifts in the labour mar-
ket have sometimes placed a premium on skills coded as ‘feminine’. But women also face un/
underemployment in many regions, and may face a ‘double subordination’ as they grapple both
with the poor economic environment and entrenched gender norms.
Unemployment and underemployment have social and cultural, as well as economic, conse-
quences.Young people are often unable to acquire the adult status and savings that are prerequi-
sites for marriage (Masquelier 2005), they often cannot afford to buy or rent independent living
space (Hansen 2005), and in many areas of the world they face difficulties in negotiating with
state officials, especially the police (Rogers 2008). A sense of gendered crisis may become appar-
ent, for example, where men feel that they are unable to fulfil locally salient visions of masculin-
ity. More generally, scholars have written of widespread feelings of hopelessness, negative
introspection, and even self-harm, including suicide, among graduate youth (Mains 2007). In
many cases young people feel alienated from their peers, family, and wider society (Jeffrey 2010).
A number of commentators have argued that alienated youth become involved in forms of
action that are violent, reproduce dominant power, and occur within patron–client networks.
The World Bank Development Report (2011) identified educated unemployed youth as one of the
chief causes of political turmoil around the world. Educated un/underemployed youth are
commonly imagined in the media as the dry tinder for the flame of fascist or other extremist
forms of politics. At a more everyday level, scholars have referred to educated un/underemployed
young people, sometimes especially graduates, as engaged in violent forms of consumption,
including compulsive behaviour (Mains 2007). These studies often rest on older ideas of youth
as a period of ‘storm and stress’ (Hall 1904) or ‘protest-prone population’ (Keniston 1971). Marx
and Engels (1978) famously argued that educated un/underemployed are capable only of idio-
syncratic forms of politics and social action; they called these youth ‘alchemists of the revolu-
tion’, with deliberate irony.
Ethnographic studies provide some support for these depictions of educated un/­
underemployed youth. Heuzé (1996) and Hansen (1996), in two different studies of youth and
religious communal violence in India, point to the connections between unemployment and
violent action. Cincotta (2003) links rising educated un/underemployment among young

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people to cross-border terrorism. Moreover, even the everyday level reports show that a rise in
the number of educated un/underemployed youth may increase gender violence. In all these
studies – which tend to focus on men rather than women – educated un/underemployed young
people’s actions appear to sustain practices of class and gender dominance and bolster existing
patron–client networks. But from another perspective, we might imagine youth as well posi-
tioned to promote constructive political and social change within countries in Asia, Africa, and
Latin America. Mannheim (1972 [1936]) argues that within any region, generations experience
the same conditions at the same times during their lives and thus come to constitute social units.
In particular moments, this generation ‘in itself ’ can become a generation ‘for itself ’, and
Mannheim places particular emphasis on the potential transformative power of the youth.
This chapter addresses the issue of unemployed young people’s action by examining the lives
of educated unemployed youth in north India, drawing on 20 years of research mainly in
­western Uttar Pradesh and the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand (see also Dyson 2014; Jeffrey
2010; Jeffrey et al. 2008). It is written as a set of personal reflections, tracking the problem of
educated unemployment through three key social projects that I have conducted in India since
1995.
In the first section of the chapter, we situate the problem of educated unemployment with
reference to Craig Jeffrey’s research on the rise of a rural middle class in rural western Uttar
Pradesh in the 1990s. The second part examines the problem of educated unemployment
among young people in Meerut in the mid-2000s. The final section of the chapter, which
focuses especially on the politics of jobless youth, considers the issue from the perspective of a
community living in a mountainous and remote region of Uttarakhand. Our overall argument
is that educated unemployed youth can be ‘active partners’ in efforts to address the employment
crisis.

A rural middle class: the origins of social congestion

Between 1995 and 1999, Craig Jeffrey carried out 13 months of ethnographic research on the
investment strategies of rich Jat farmers in Meerut district, western Uttar Pradesh. Meerut dis-
trict is known as a centre of wheat, sugarcane, and potato farming. The introduction of tubewell
irrigation and new improved varieties of cane and wheat between the 1960s and 1980s had
transformed the fortunes of the region’s farmers. The Jats were only roughly midway up the
ladder in terms of their caste status, but as landowners and people who had good access to the
state administration, many Jats owning over 12 acres of land had become prosperous – a nascent
rural middle class (see also Jeffrey et al. 2008).
Jeffrey’s fieldwork examined how rich Jats had used the profits they acquired from farming.
Were they investing in local business such that their wealth was trickling down to the poor? Or
were rich Jats investing their money in ways that reproduce inequalities between them and the
relatively poor lower caste, the ex-Untouchables also called Dalits? These questions were
particularly important in the mid-1990s in the context of the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party
(BSP), led by a Dalit woman and former school teacher Mayawati, which sought to improve the
position of Dalits relative to Jats.
There was no typical Jat rich farmer. But the case of Kishanpal is instructive. In 1996, Kishanpal
was in his early fifties and had a son and a daughter. As I arrived at the family’s large metal gate
for the first time in May 1996, I remember Kishanpal springing from his chair, banishing a
German shepherd dog to the corner of the compound and ushering me inside ‘Aaiye, aaiye’,
‘Come, come’, he said, as if he had been expecting a foreign researcher to arrive any moment.
Within five minutes he had changed into a smart pyjama suit and his wife, Leela, had bought tea.

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Kishanpal spoke in rich tones of the problems connected to farming in western Uttar
Pradesh – land degradation, the difficulty of finding labourers, and the diminishing profits from
his crops of cane and wheat. He spoke angrily about how the Dalits were being ‘pampered’ by
the new BSP government. He said that he was adopting a two-pronged strategy for the future
of his family. The first was protecting his land and farm by strengthening his family’s connec-
tions with politicians and government officials. He said: ‘To get on here as a farmer you need to
cultivate people as well as cultivate land.You need a network of help.’ ‘The Jats have a saying’, he
continued, ‘A fist is stronger than five fingers’ (Jeffrey 2001, 2002).
The second prong was to strike out into urban areas and try to get his son a position in
government service. He had invested an enormous amount of money making sure his children
went to an impressive private school on the edge of Meerut. Kishanpal was also saving money
for a bribe to get his son a job as a police inspector. He planned to get his daughter married into
a Meerut police family – that would strengthen his links inside the police and help his son get
a job. I asked what would happen if his daughter did not like her proposed partner. Kishanpal
replied, ‘She will adjust.’
After a few months, I could trace the fine lines of cooperation that linked rich Jat farmers to
the police, land revenue officers, judges, school principals, district development officials,
agricultural marketing offices, and other local bigwigs. Rich Jats went to government offices to
flatter bureaucrats and they organised ‘chicken and whiskey parties’ for their influential friends.
Corruption involving the police was especially common, and a few Jat farmers even hired police
officers as paid mercenaries. The police would carry out hits using homemade pistols. They
could not use their official weapons because every bullet has to be accounted for. The pistols
were crude weapons made out of the taps found in train washrooms. It cost Rs. 100,000 to
arrange a killing through the police in 1999. This was equivalent to what farmers could make
in a year from six acres of sugarcane.
As I learned more about these networks it became clear that rich farmers had been able to
reproduce their agricultural dominance in the sphere of competition for state resources, and had
done so through a set of strategies that had profoundly negative effects on poorer members of
their caste, Jat women, and Dalits. Also, by investing in local state networks, rich farmers had
effectively been able to defend their historical privileges against the threat posed by the political
party, the BSP.
Just how effective Jats had been at reproducing their power became obvious when I spoke to
the Dalits, who felt angry and depressed. They complained constantly of having to work on
starvation wages, of police and Jat brutality, of their daughters and wives facing molestation in
the fields. If the Dalits threatened to revolt, the Jats wouldn’t let them collect cattle fodder from
the fields or defecate on their land. When I asked the Dalits whether there was any hope of
seeking redress from the state, they were downbeat. ‘We still live in a feudal system’, they said.
‘No one listens to the poor.’ I asked if the government could help, and the typical reaction was
to quote a local saying, ‘Even the dogs don’t approach the empty-handed.’

Timepass
The direction of my research was to change radically, however, in 2004, when I began to receive
plaintive letters from the sons of rich Jat farmers. It seemed that rich Jat farmers’ strategy of
attempting to place their sons in off-farm employment, especially government jobs, was misfir-
ing. Many young men were writing about being ‘berozgaar’ (unemployed). The economic
reforms of the 1990s had not created many new private positions. At the same time, under the
reforms the state was not able to create a large number of new government jobs. A type of social

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congestion had emerged.A huge burgeoning rural middle class, including by this stage upwardly-
mobile Dalits, were competing for a tiny pool of jobs. Many rich Jat farmers had seen their sons
come back from university disconsolate. ‘We couldn’t get jobs’, they said, ‘But we don’t want to
work on the farm. It would be too shameful.’These young men felt marooned. They were stuck
between the rural and urban, between youth and adulthood, and between what they understood
to be ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’.
In 2004–05, I carried out a new research project on the political actions of educated
unemployed youth in Meerut and the associated issue of student politics. I spent much of my
research in a tea stall outside the gate of the town’s oldest, but now run down, Meerut College.
There, next to a vast cauldron of boiling fat, I would meet with students to discuss their ambi-
tions, ideas, and experiences. For eight months this research continued, by the end of which I
had interviewed over 200 students and participated in numerous political rallies, hostel parties,
and trips to meet government bureaucrats.
Versions of the following conversation run through my field notes.

CJ: Hey, how’s it going? What are you doing?

STUDENT: Nothing.
CJ: Really, nothing?
STUDENT: Yes.
CJ: It looks like something or other.
STUDENT: Yes, yes, it’s something or other.
CJ: So what is that something or other?
STUDENT: It’s nothing. Timepass.

Timepass was everywhere in Meerut in the 2000s. Oxford Dictionaries Online defines time-
pass as ‘The action or fact of passing the time, typically in an aimless or unproductive way.’ In
contemporary India people commonly use the word ‘timepass’ to refer to a period of down time
between bouts of work, and it is variously rendered as ‘timepass’,‘time pass’,‘time-pass’, and ‘TP’.
While timepass could theoretically refer to any activity that passes the time, it usually denotes
relatively meaningless, light, trivial activity, and it is counter-posed with ‘serious’ action in India.
Timepass involves distraction, faint amusement, and it is productive only in so far as it staves off
boredom, prevents negative introspection, and allows the body, mind, and soul some respite from
ordinary life.
Historians of nineteenth-century Europe have traced the rise of boredom to the spread of
ideas of clock time and growth of industrial labour (Thompson 1967; Zerubavel 1985). In India,
too, linear notions of clock time – physically represented in the spread of calendars and time-
pieces – came to compete during the late colonial period with older, cyclical experiences of
time. The colonial government simultaneously introduced new forms of time-consciousness,
for example through the construction of railways. ‘Time’ itself became an object of social com-
ment, and multiple spaces emerged in which this time needed to be ‘passed’, from traffic jams to
railway waiting rooms, clinics to post office queues. In India, a small industry has emerged
around catering for people’s boredom, including magazines, cheap fiction, snack vendors, street
performers, and more recently mobile phone apps. ‘Timepass, timepass, timepass’ is a common
mantra for those hawking peanuts on train platforms, just as it was the name selected in 2002 by
Britannia Industries for a new line of salty snacks. So ubiquitous has the term ‘Timepass’ become
in modern India that it was chosen as the title of a Bollywood film in 2005.
Passing time and humour are closely linked, as Samuel Beckett recognised in his classic play
Waiting for Godot. ‘That passed the time’, announces Vladimir at one point in the play. ‘It would

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have passed anyway’, Estragon replies. As timepass has proliferated in popular culture in India it
has also become the subject of jokes. In many colleges across India, youth make reference to
their ‘serious’ and ‘timepass’ boyfriends and girlfriends. Their serious partners are marriage
candidates. The timepass ones are simply being entertained for the time being. Parents often use
timepass semi-humorously, ‘What do you mean that you are just doing timepass?’ They ask their
children angrily. ‘Watermelons do timepass in the fields!’
For unemployed young people in many parts of India, ‘timepass’ signals dissatisfaction with
poor schooling, unemployment, blocked mobility, and financial stress. Unemployed young men
have a triply problematic relationship to time: they are not able to accord with general notions
of what it is to be developed; they are unable to effect a life transition from youth to adulthood;
and they also feel that they exist somehow outside the normal run of clock time. Hanging out
at street corners or spending long periods simply ‘doing nothing’ becomes a means of advertis-
ing this sense of social and temporal anomie. Timepass serves three functions simultaneously.
First, it suggests detachment from one’s situation. I’m not really interested in my studies, many
young people said, I’m just doing timepass. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984: 235)
famously wrote that the refusal to work is often the tactic of the unemployed youth and he
called this strategy ‘the one man strike’. Second, timepass suggests an overabundance of time that
needs to be killed. Third, it suggests a sense of being left behind relative to the small number of
those who do ‘make it’.
Timepass is also productive, however (see Jeffrey 2010). The social act of timepass, for exam-
ple standing about at bus stops or playing cards in tea stalls, provides opportunities to hear news,
exchange ideas, and establish friendships. People who would otherwise regard each other with
disdain may, through the shared experience of waiting to realise their aspirations, come to strike
up friendships and develop shared goals.
While doing timepass, young men from Jat, Dalit, and Muslim backgrounds shared cigarettes,
bought each other chai, and stood around on bus stops with their arms draped around each
other’s shoulders. They got into mock battles, played badminton, and exchanged news. Such
cross-caste fraternising would not have happened at that time in rural areas. These cultures were
powerfully gender specific, however. Young women felt doubly excluded – from good
employment (like the men) and from the ability to participate in urban timepass.
Timepass was also leading to some positive forms of politics. There were certain moments in
which the plight of the underemployed, poorly educated youth came strikingly to light, and in
these situations people passing time at street corners or in hostels came out onto the streets. For
example, in October 2004 it emerged that the Registrar of Meerut University was lining his
pockets by sending master’s degree examinations to be marked by school children. This hap-
pened fairly frequently in Uttar Pradesh at that time. But in this case the officials had been send-
ing the exams to be marked by children as young as 12 years old. Students took to the streets to
burn their degrees.
Much more generally, young people across lines of class, caste, religion, and gender campaigned
against corruption in the university administration, lobbied for students to obtain scholarships,
and worked to address problems of police harassment. They tried to increase public understand-
ing of the struggles of unemployed youth, worked to improve standards of tuition in the city, and
even went back to rural areas to advise younger youth. There was a type of positive feedback at
work here: educated underemployed youth were concerned that the generation coming after
them would not have to suffer the same indignities.
Some of the student demonstrations took bizarre forms. On one occasion early in 2005,
students protested about their right to cheat in examinations. Students argued that the educational
system is cheating them by leading them to expect good jobs. Why shouldn’t they also cheat?

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They also argued that influential students are already able to cheat. Students argued that mass
copying in exams is a democratic form of cheating.
Student politics aimed at countering corruption was difficult to sustain, in part because a
section of the student population, mostly the sons of rich Jat farmers, had developed lucrative
careers as student brokers. I spent a lot of time with these brokers, who found niches in which
to operate between the state and local society.
Umesh Singh was typical. A well-built, tall young man who came from a rich farming family
close to Meerut, Umesh began by developing a reputation as an anti-corruption crusader. This
helped him build a support base among students, who voted for him in the student union
election. After winning a student union post, he got involved in corruption himself. He helped
businessmen get the affiliation certificates for their new colleges from the university. He worked
as a middleman between building contractors and the university administration, and even
influenced appointments in university posts.
These students weren’t just copying their seniors. Student brokers were adamant they were a
cut above their fathers. Umesh said, ‘We actually have to go back to the villages to advise our
fathers. We tell them, “You’ve been giving that policeman mangoes for 10 years to keep him
sweet. But you should make the relationship work for you. You should demand a share of the
income he makes from taking bribes.” We teach our fathers how to be brokers.’ This is a telling
comment on how a particularly pernicious type of hyper-entrepreneurial culture has taken hold
in some parts of provincial India.
It was also evident that many educated unemployed young men with some degree of social
support and financial backing entered the educational business. They set up coaching institutes,
tutorial centres, or became board members in private colleges. One set of young men I came to
know well responded to the experience of applying unsuccessfully for army officer positions by
setting up a tutorial institute that specialised in preparing young people for the army officer
examinations and interview. The vast penumbra of institutions and individual forms of tuition
that comprise the unofficial educational sector in areas of western Uttar Pradesh is poorly
understood (although see other contributions to this volume). Yet one point was very clear in
my Meerut research: A section of the youth population were responding to demoralising
employment outcomes by reproducing the system that produced them as underemployed youth.
Many of these brokers and educational ‘fixers’ also continued to protest against corruption.
The morning might see Umesh staging a roadblock to protest about the corrupt university
administration. The afternoon might then see him in the vice-chancellor’s office doing secret
deals behind students’ backs. Umesh justified this by making a distinction between corruption
and fraud. He said that corruption is when you pay a bribe and get something done. He said that
this is how the world works. He said that fraud is when you pay a bribe and something still
doesn’t happen.
I once saw Umesh at the hustings for the student election. He was standing in front of his
audience asking them ‘You name one instance when I’ve been corrupt.’ When the audience
started providing examples, Umesh just stared back at them, smiling. I asked Umesh later, ‘How
did you have the nerve to do that?’ ‘Craig’, he said, ‘I’m total politics.’
In 2009, I became interested in broadening my focus to understand how unemployed youth
are responding to joblessness in different parts of the world. This interest led to a new project
on the social strategies of educated unemployed youth in the Indian Himalayas. Jane Dyson and
I based ourselves in the village of Bemni, located at 12,000 feet in the remote Nandakini valley
in Chamoli district in Uttarakhand. Jane has spent 15 months interviewing children about their
working lives and social relationships in Bemni as part of her doctoral research in 2003 and 2004
(see Dyson 2014). Between 2012 and 2014, Jane and I carried out a total of 12 months of

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follow-up field research in Bemni on the social and political practices of educated unemployed
youth, often working with young people whom Jane interviewed as children in the early 2000s.
The General Caste (GC) population in Bemni was roughly 69 per cent and Scheduled Castes
(SC) constituted the remaining 31 per cent. GCs tended to be somewhat wealthier than SCs, who
also suffered some discrimination in the village. But caste and class inequalities were less marked in
Bemni than in Meerut. GCs lacked the assets and income of their counterparts on the plains, and
even the richest GCs in the village in 2012 had modest landholdings and few consumer goods.
Unemployment is as pressing a problem in this remote rural location as it is in western Uttar
Pradesh. Chamoli district lacks manufacturing industry. Since the mid-2000s, in particular, the
Uttarakhand government has been under pressure to reduce the number of people in government
employment in the state. Moreover, those government jobs that exist are concentrated in the
major cities in the southern (plains area) of the state.
Our research pointed to a widespread demoralisation among young people in Bemni in
2012–14 that echoed the despondency of youth whom I had interviewed in Meerut in 2004–
05.Youth in Bemni did not speak of themselves as engaged in ‘timepass’, reflecting the fact that
this word is most common in urban areas. But they did frequently refer to themselves as ‘khaali’,
a word that means ‘free’ but also ‘empty’. In addition, educated young people who had tried
unsuccessfully to obtain government or private jobs frequently practised forms of self-­
denigration. For example, when we asked about their employment, they would say that they are
‘just breaking stones’ (pathhar thorna).
Our research showed that young people are not passive in the face of this difficulty.
Unemployed youth – men and women – are crucial social actors in contemporary rural
Uttarakhand. My Meerut research pointed to positive youth politics, but it tended to be based
largely around the life of the university. In Uttarakhand, young men and women were active in
a broad range of social and political projects, campaigning for improvements to local schools,
helping to bring electricity to the village, campaigning for the construction of a
telecommunications tower, giving school tutorials free of charge, motivating other youth,
starting new business enterprises, and resolving thorny political disputes.
Young people were also developing a new philosophy of politics. Youth said that politics
should not be imagined as competition for a share of the pie, but rather as about making the pie.
Politics is not about the distribution of resources, in other words, but actually about what you
can do collaboratively and through painstaking negotiation to create resources. It is a vision of
generative politics. Young people’s new imagination of politics also had a strong temporal ele-
ment. They said that people should not be waiting for the government to help them. They
should instead be trying to embody better practices in their own conduct.
We should not underestimate the challenges of linking up these small-scale forms of
community activism to broader state and international development efforts. Many young people
argued that their generative politics will only be effective if it remains wholly outside the ambit
of the state and NGOs. Moreover, many young people regarded the whole political establish-
ment as ‘rotten to the core’.
There are resonances between these conclusions and work on youth movements of the
2010s, such as the Occupy Movement in the USA (Manilov 2013).Young people in north India,
working on an everyday level to improve the lives of their communities, were in the process
trying to ‘be the change they wanted to see in the world’: be polite, be fair, and in the process
slowly transform their communities. Technology played a prominent role in this type of politics.
Increased mobile phone ownership allowed young people to take photos of examples of cor-
ruption and send these to local officials. They also put their phones on speaker mode when
talking to officials so that their friends knew they were not conducting deals in secret.

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In sum, a social revolution is afoot in provincial India. Young people have been drawn into
education in unprecedented numbers. They have come to accept and believe in the norms of
liberal democracy and citizenship. And they have new forms of power and knowledge, in the
form of an understanding of modernity and technology. Parents acknowledge this, and look to
youth as change agents. Youth in their late teens and twenties are often those who understand
the needs of children most carefully and have children’s interests at heart. But youth themselves
in places such as Bemni and Meerut say that their actions are often poorly institutionalised and
understood. There is also a critical lack of basic social research on young people in South Asia
and Asia more broadly.

Conclusions
We have shown that an intended consequence of the mobility strategies of both a rural middle
class and upwardly mobile sections of the rural population in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in
the 1990s/2000s has been the creation of a large and socially heterogeneous educated underem-
ployed youth population. This process is likely to continue into the future, with over 100 ­million
young people set to join the labour market over the next decade (2015–2025).
Negative depictions of educated unemployed youth proliferate both in the media, govern-
ment reports, and scholarly work (e.g. Cincotta et al. 2003). Our anthropological research in two
provincial parts of north India suggest that a portion of the educated unemployed youth popula-
tion in north Indian is indeed involved in nefarious forms of politicking. The figure of the
youth ‘broker’ is prominent in everyday life in places as diverse as Meerut and Bemni.
Yet we also found many young people who were acting as community activists. These youth
were not simply imitating the politics of the previous generation. Building on their education
and new technological opportunities, they were developing novel means of engaging with each
other and the state. Moreover, as people relatively familiar with educational and employment
markets, they were often better positioned to advise younger youth than were older adults in
their forties, fifties, and sixties. In Mannheim’s (1972 [1936]) terms, educated unemployed youth
in their late teens and twenties constituted an ‘active generation’.
A key policy implication is that educated unemployed youth are part of the solution to the
problem of widespread joblessness. That youth often have the interests of younger children at
heart makes them willing and effective potential partners for organisations, including the state,
seeking to address the issue of educated unemployment. A key challenge in this area, however,
will be countering young people’s deep mistrust of government and NGOs in many parts of
provincial India. Another key challenge will be harnessing young people’s energies in such a way
as to encourage educational reform in a context where many underemployed young people,
understandably, see opportunities to cash in on their experience by running low-quality tutorials
or educational institutions of different types.

Note
1 In 2000, the World Bank made an annual 2 per cent cut of the state bureaucracy a condition of its
continuing aid to Uttar Pradesh (Jeffrey et al. 2008).

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 20
Access, success, and excess
Debating shadow education in India

Manabi Majumdar

‘Nothing is your own except the spelling mistakes.’ This was what a legendary teacher in Kolkata
once commented in the answer-script of a student studying in a highly reputable college of the
city. What this remark underlines, above all, is the necessity to envision the purpose of learning
as that of cultivating an ability to think on one’s own, and in that sense to be creative, curious,
and independent in either solving an academic puzzle or thinking critically as a citizen and
tending ‘imaginative empathy’ for others in a democratic society. Our intellectual and individual
development and our social flourishing are contingent upon the promotion of such deeper
learning.
No doubt, education is also a route to a decent career path, a ‘positional good’ likely to
improve one’s social status, and a key to economic accomplishment. The right balance between
these instrumental motivations of education and the more intrinsic values that are stated above
is not easy to strike. This is particularly so at a time when we observe a growing conviction
around us that presumes instrumental purposes to be the only driving engine of education,
thereby engendering a great deal of potential to harm the creative process of learning.
It is well to note that education as an innovative process is also, quintessentially, a collective
and connected human endeavour to produce and promote what Boyle (2002) describes as the
‘commons of the mind’ – a public domain of ideas that should not be fenced off. In an
­inequality-sequestered country like India, however, the social system of education was and to a
considerable extent still is not an open and inclusive space that is accessible to all. That is why
the more recent equity-enhancing education initiatives in the country, such as the Right to
Education Act, have focused on the first-order question of educational access. However with
such steps towards massification of basic educational opportunities, there has also grown, espe-
cially among the privileged social classes, an anxious competition to stay ahead of the masses, to
be the ‘country’s first boy’, and to succeed in tomorrow’s test as well as in those to follow for a
better career, higher status, and more and more social and cultural capital. Even the interest of
international donors has shifted from access to learning outcomes measured mainly in terms of
test scores and success in examinations. This swing from access to success in educational goals
and practices has captured the popular imagination to produce, in turn, a homogeneous thinking
across social classes about the credence of education’s instrumental purposes, to the relative
neglect of its intrinsic values. And all this, we proceed to argue below, has engendered various

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-26 305

Manabi Majumdar

forms of excesses in education, including excessive commercialisation in education, creating in

turn a new ethos of teaching and learning that is individuated and isolated rather than collective
and collaborative. Teachers and students, tutors and tutees are driven to ‘bowl alone’ rather than
work as a team. It is against this backdrop of competing pressures of educational access, success,
and excess that we attempt to analyse in the remainder of the chapter the extent, effectiveness,
and equity implications of supplementary private tutoring in India – a widespread practice that
is described as the ‘shadow’ (Bray 2007, 2009; Marimuthu et al. 1991) of mainstream schooling.
The analysis remains limited as it focuses mainly on the school education sector in the country
to the relative neglect of higher levels of education; its West Bengal-centric empirical focus
constitutes another source of its limitation.

Isn’t private tutoring old news?

Amrita Bazar Patrika – a leading newspaper that used to be published from Calcutta (now
Kolkata), the premier city of British India – regularly carried advertisements in the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries either seeking private tutors or offering tutoring services
for students studying in schools and colleges. A small sample of these notices shown below dis-
plays aspirations, preferences, and prejudices that characterised familial as well as social educa-
tional strategies in those days.

Notice: Required a private tutor to take charge of two boys, one of whom is preparing for
the next Entrance. Hours of attendance 10–30 A.M. to 5–30 P.M. He must be graduate, and
possessed of experience in the art of teaching. Certificate of good moral character required.
Any reasonable pay will be allowed. Apply to undersigned, stating terms. Chunder Narain
Singh, 1, Elysium Row, The 22nd August, 1897.
(Amrita Bazar Patrika 23 August 1897)

Notice: Wanted a private tutor for the grandson of Babu Cally Kissen Tagore. Pay hand-
some according to qualifications. None need apply who has no experience in coaching up
sons of noblemen. Preference will be given to those who served under court of wards as
guardian tutor. For further particulars candidates may apply personally to the Manager.
Applications should be addressed to Babu Hem Chandra Chatterjee, Manager to the Estate
of C.K. Tagore Esqr., No-1, and Darponarayan Tagore Street, Calcutta. Narendranatha
Gupta, Astt. Manager.
(Amrita Bazar Patrika 15 March 1899: 3)

Wanted a graduate qualified in Mathematics as a private tutor. Apply to Kanay Lall

Mukherjee, Hurtokeebagan, Calcutta.
(Amrita Bazar Patrika 29 October 1900: 13)

It is quite evident that the demand for home tutors, attuned understandably to economic
wherewithal, came mainly from the privileged classes of society. Furthermore, the educated elite
were not hesitant in exhibiting their class, caste, and community biases while looking for a pro-
spective home tutor. There were clear-cut statements like the following: ‘An elderly Brahmin or
Baidya graduate strong in English with considerable experience in teaching will be preferred’
(28 March 1905) or ‘A “Shea” Mahomedan will be preferred’ (23 January 1913: 3) and so on.
Alongside class, caste, and community biases, there was a palpable gender bias; of those

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advertisements sifted, not a single one asked for extra coaching for girl students. On the contrary,
perhaps to prevent any unwelcome possibility of romance between the prospective resident
private tutor and the young wife or daughter of the family, some advertisements categorically
mentioned that ‘Only men … of advanced age, good health and morals, and wearing gray beard,
need apply’ (13 July 1906).
These advertisements, at the same time, indicated a clear preference for professionally quali-
fied people, having experience in ‘the art of teaching’. Those who offered themselves as poten-
tial private tutors also stressed their professional background and competence: For example,
‘A gentleman (Indian) educated at an English University is open to engagement as Private tutor
to a wealthy man’s son in Calcutta or neighbouring suburbs on reasonable terms’ (Amrita Bazar
Patrika, 2 May 1905: 2). No doubt, paid private lessons were the preserve of the privileged and
the privileged sought the help of trained practitioners for their children’s educational
development.
Clearly, there is a long history of private tutoring in this country.

What is new about the present paradigm of private tuition?

Over the last several decades the demand for private tutoring has been growing around the
world, and India is no exception in this respect. On the one hand there are large private tutoring
industries that are now known to exist in the country; at the other end of the spectrum there
exist home-based small outfits comparable to cottage industries. What is new about the recent
incarnation of shadow education are its scale, scope, and salience at almost every level of
­education – starting from pre-school education to postgraduate level. Also, it is considered essen-
tial for students of all abilities – from underachievers to class-toppers. Parents from all social strata
consider it ‘essential’ to have private tutors for their children, even to master the basics in educa-
tion (Sen 2002), irrespective of their children’s needs and abilities, of the type of school they
attend, and of the quality of teaching-learning available in these schools. So it is not that the
students who take private tuition are only from ‘poorly’ performing state schools; rather, the
majority of them are from private schools.
What is the reason behind this ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA) mentality? To boost exam
results is the most truthful and straightforward answer. Also, the mainstream and its shadow
increasingly look and function alike (which was not the case earlier), suggesting how education
itself is being ‘recast’ (Macpherson et al. 2014), under the weight of commercial interests.
Moreover, both mainstream and shadow schooling have become excessively test-centric; the
pressure on students to perform well in examinations has become intense. They are drawn into
a fierce battle to stay ahead of other students. These excesses have led in turn to an intensifica-
tion of the coaching culture. Interestingly, though schools and coaching classes seem to mimic
each other, at times the out-of-school supplementary tutoring service appears to create a sub-
stitution effect, that is to say, it works to reduce the formal school to a mere certification centre.
This overshadowing quality of the shadow is a relatively recent change.
Again, while the well-to-do parents in the past had (as they do now) the resources and infor-
mation to judge the professional competence of tutors, less affluent parents internalise the pressure
to hire tutors for their school-going children but are constrained by information asymmetry and
limited means to ascertain the quality of such services. As a result, though parents across the social
spectrum seem to harbour homogenised thinking about the need for paid coaching, since their
choice sets and their actual choices remain highly stratified – parents from disadvantaged back-
grounds often employ high-school graduates or high-school ‘fails’ as tutors – homogenisation of

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family strategies still does not hold promises of equalisation of opportunities, let alone outcomes.
So today’s massification of the culture of tutoring, which was strictly the preserve of the privileged
in the past, cannot be straightforwardly taken to have an equity-enhancing potential. Wealthy
parents still have the advantage to ‘buy’ better results for their children. The fresh inequalities that
such a system is likely to generate and its pervasive nature and many forms thus rationalise the
need to examine this phenomenon afresh.
It would be myopic, of course, to start with the premise that any form of private tutoring is
necessarily and straightforwardly bad. Not all tutoring is about exam preparation and there can
be some academic benefits of private lessons for some students. Still, it would be limiting not to
pay heed to the serious negative implications of this steadily maturing phenomenon for the
education system as a whole.

The scope of private tutoring

Estimates of the number of pupils going for paid supplementary coaching are not easy to come
by, partly because the private domain in which transactions between tutors and tutees take place
is an unregulated zone, lying beyond the ambit of any formal documentation. A handful of avail-
able studies suggest that in many parts of India, particularly in states like West Bengal and Tripura,
private tuition is now considered an ‘essential’. The statistics in the Pratichi Education Report
I and II (2002 and 2009) show the picture of dependence on tuition in Bengal quite clearly.
Between 2002 and 2009, private tutor-dependent students in primary education have increased
from 57 per cent to 64 per cent, and among those going to the Shishu Shiksha Kendras, from
24 per cent to 54 per cent. According to this report, 78 per cent of parents (62 per cent in 2002)
think there is no deliverance except via private tutors. Of the few children who are not obtain-
ing extra help, 54 per cent of parents said it was because they could not afford coaching
centres.
The India Human Development survey data show that in 2004–05, 20 per cent of chil-
dren in the age group 6–14 years reported that they had received private tutoring in the
previous year (Desai et al. 2010). The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) surveys are
another source of data on the scope of the so-called shadow education system. As Banerji and
Wadhwa (2012: 54) state, drawing on ASER figures, ‘The phenomenon of additional educa-
tion inputs through tuition classes and coaching centres is very widespread and visible in
India especially in secondary and post-secondary education’. ASER Centre (2007) figures
indicate that at the level of elementary education, 20 per cent of government school children
and 24 per cent of private school children in rural India went for additional coaching (Banerji
and Wadhwa 2012).
The more recent National Sample Survey on household expenditure on education
(Government of India 2015) provides figures on proportions of pupils, attending mainstream
school, that also receive extra coaching, at various levels of school education (see Table 20.1). For
the country as a whole, in urban India in particular, a little less than 40 per cent of students
enrolled in formal school go for private lessons. In rural areas of the country the incidence of
this supplementation at different levels of the school sector is comparatively lower, ranging
between roughly 20 and 30 per cent. Strikingly, in states like West Bengal and Tripura, such
dependence on extra coaching is near-universal among the pupils enrolled in formal school.
The extent to which ‘shadow education’ has broken into the school life of a child in Bengal in
our time is rather exceptional.

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Table 20.1 Percentage of students (5–29 years) using private tuition, 2014

Level of education Rural Urban

India Primary 18.2 32.5

Upper primary 23 36.2
Secondary 33.3 46.1
Higher secondary 31.2 44.9
All 23.2 37.4
West Bengal Primary 63.9 78.3
Upper primary 85.3 91.3
Secondary 89.7 93.1
Higher secondary 88.1 95.5
All 76.8 87.3

Source: calculated from Social Consumption in India: Education, NSS 71st Round, January–June 2014.

Private tutoring effect on learning outcomes and school processes

The impact of private tutoring on students’ achievement is not easy to ascertain, since it is par-
ticularly hard to disentangle its effects from those like family and school effects; in particular,
estimating heterogeneous effects of extra coaching from abilities and efforts of tutees who gain
differentially from the same tutor is a challenge. Supposing we are able to take care of these
methodological issues, still the available evidence of its effectiveness is mixed. Some studies indi-
cate positive but short-term effects in improving students’ test scores, but not necessarily better-
ing scores on the university entrance examination (Lee 2013).
In India, among the handful of available studies, scholarly analyses based on recent ASER data
allude to a ‘divide’ between those who go to private school or coaching classes and those who
do not, implicitly suggesting an advantage of privatisation in education. However, only a small
proportion of that advantage, as per the same source of data, is attributable to private schooling
or coaching (Wadhwa 2015).
This admitted, some studies (Banerji and Wadhwa 2012; Desai et al. 2010) suggest that private
inputs into children’s education – private schooling as well as private tutoring – have a positive
influence on children’s learning outcomes. It is claimed that private educational support helps
weaker students to catch up and strong students to achieve more. Our preliminary classroom
observations in a few coaching centres, however, reveal that the pedagogy followed is mostly
instruction- and study material-driven. It is passive listening and cramming rather than stimulat-
ing activities that the tutees do at these coaching classes.
We therefore pause here to ask the first-order question of what we are measuring in the
name of academic achievement. As Kumar (2012) forcefully argues, the crude measures that
usually make up the standard assessments ‘mask the epistemic sterility of the curriculum, the
pedagogic process and examination’. So the anxiety that our children are not learning much,
even after attending school for years together, is a real concern, partly because the measuring rod
itself fails to assess deeper learning. As a result, those who succeed in tests may still remain
‘know-nots’ in a substantive sense, let alone those who do not. And yet, the formal schools as
well as out-of-school tuition classes increasingly look like mere test preparation centres.
Consequently, and unsurprisingly, ‘coaching to the test’ may prove ‘effective’ as far as improving
scores is concerned, but in the process can discourage ‘imaginative learning’.

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What effects does private tuition have on the school system and school processes? One way
in which the impact can be assessed is with respect to students’ attention to lessons in class. Lee’s
(2013) study shows some positive though nominal influence of private tutoring on students’
attentiveness in class, especially in the low-ability group of students. In other words, low-achiev-
ers pay more attention to lessons in class if they go for extra coaching. Supplementary private
lessons may help improve their confidence level and interest to participate in classroom activi-
ties. There are, however, counter-examples of students losing interest in classroom activities
when they feel confident that they have out-of-school support to guarantee their examination
success.
Similarly, teachers’ attention to classroom activities, their pedagogic practices and their ‘learn-
ing by doing’ are likely to be affected by their engagement as private tutors, when they are so
engaged. The practice of growing private tuition by teachers employed in private as well as
public educational institutions is not uncommon. Some teachers maintain that tutoring improves
their classroom teaching. However, a number of concerns have been raised in this respect in the
scholarly literature that is available. Some claim that the parallel informal system disrupts the
school system; it has a negative influence on teacher development and effectiveness when school
teachers double up as private tutors. It is alleged that these teachers do not spend sufficient time
teaching in the school but virtually compel the students to attend tuition classes. The Tripura
High Court recently observed that ‘even in government colonies where the teachers have been
provided accommodation, they are running “teaching shops”’ (The Shillong Times 21 June 2015).
Indeed, private coaching is likely to create a conflict of interest between the official duty of a
school teacher and his/her private practice, when during private lessons she/he offers for a fee
to his/her own pupils for what she/he is supposed to provide anyway.
One relatively understudied concern relates to the extent to which school teachers stand to
lose on ‘peer learning’ owing to their private solitary practices. To be sure, at many coaching
centres there are usually a host of tutors coaching several batches of tutees. But the structure of
these sessions is such that these tutors are like ships that pass in the night, coexisting but hardly
interacting with each other and missing the ‘camaraderie of the staff room’. But, evidence –
national and international – suggests that to improve teaching and learning it is imperative to
give teachers time and encouragement to collaborate to improve their work, and to receive
feedback from their peers about how to teach specific concepts and content to particular stu-
dents (Batra 2015; Darling-Hammond 2014–15; Kumar 1994). Such cooperative practices are
harder to cultivate and sustain in an environment of competitive striving that defines the core
of a privatised solution such as paid coaching in order to address what are quintessentially public
deficiencies (for example, gaps in teacher preparation and teaching, in curricular and examina-
tion reforms, and so on).What a public community of teachers and educators can ideally attempt
to do to improve the quality of education in the country is rendered an isolated strategy.
Teaching and learning activities in mainstream school thus fail to flourish under the spell of
‘shadow education’.
Two related dimensions of the mainstream education system that may be shortchanged as a
result of the predominance of shadow education are the importance of teacher preparation on
the one hand and of lessening of teacher isolation on the other. While a majority of policy-
makers and parents view frequent testing as a means of enhancing quality of learning in schools,
few pay attention to the fact that to reduce the learning gap it is essential to focus on the teach-
ing gap and by extension on teacher preparation (Batra 2015).
If the mainstream debate on the quality of education remains rather indifferent to the critical
need to examine ‘curriculum and pedagogic processes that prepare and support teachers’ (ibid.)
to not only deal with their professional challenges but also become sensitive to their social

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justice mission, it is found utterly mute and unconcerned about the quality of supplementary
tutoring that is available in the market in myriad forms and price ranges. It is as though the
market is the final arbiter of quality. As a result, if school teachers are expected to go through at
least some training, anybody is accepted as a tutor – a professional or a greenhorn or even a
dropout – as long as there is a semblance of a drill that the drill master compels tutees to perform
ostensibly to improve their test scores. The limitation of rote methods as a pedagogical practice
is not much of a concern. Anyone, thus, can set up as a tutor by simply putting up an advertise-
ment on the school walls, in a local shop window, at the railway or bus station, or in the
newspaper.
Again, teaching is a ‘team sport’ (Darling-Hammond 2014–15). In particular, those teachers
who have to teach children in poverty, and children from disadvantaged backgrounds, can ben-
efit from working together, since there is a need for concerted thinking about how to address
both pedagogical and social challenges that are involved in such instances. If the formal educa-
tion system appears lukewarm to this need for professional interactions and exchanges among
teachers, the structure of tutoring is thoroughly frozen to the idea of common effort. The
individual tutors and coaching centres as well as the attending tutees are all engaged in isolated
and fiercely competitive striving, away from opportunities for peer learning. Admittedly, learn-
ing and teaching involve a lot of personal slogging and struggle, but that is quite different from
the form of isolation and cut-throat competition that private tutoring entails. Reducing the
isolation of tutors and tutees does not appear to be the focus of the education bazaar. On the
contrary, the private path to success that it advocates devalues learning from each other.

Choice, constraint, and compulsion

Parental choice as either school choice for their children or choice of tutors and coaching cen-
tres for them is being celebrated these days as a mark of consumer sovereignty that parents
ostensibly enjoy in the education bazaar so much so that our time is defined as the age of ‘paren-
tocracy’ (Nogueira 2010). Two issues deserve special attention here. First, is parental choice
sovereign or manufactured? Second, is the choice set free from class differences? Some scholars
find that the demand for private tutoring is not being manufactured by teachers, but rather by
households (Brehm and Silova 2014). A few studies indicate that sometimes school teachers are
approached by parents to give extra tuition to children they already teach at school, particularly
in rural areas where the tutoring business is still less active.
But on the other hand, there are instances in which school teachers gently and not so gently
nudge parents and suggest that their children would benefit from coaching, or more menacingly
that they would fail to make the passing grade without private lessons. There is a demonstration
effect and peer pressure too. The promise of personal tutoring, especially of training in English
language, is regarded as highly desirable by families of all classes. Many parents feel the pressure,
including marginalised families that are at risk of becoming prey to commercial exploitation.
Admittedly, the middle-class households that can afford the extra lessons have some say in the
matter; hence traces of a model of middle-class control over schooling processes are indeed
evident. But for a large section of parents, private coaching is a kind of compulsion – a choice
under constraint, since ranking in examinations determines educational future of their children
and mobility later on in life.
In a response to a recent order banning private tuition by the High Court in the state of
Tripura – the incidence of private tutoring is found to be among the highest in Tripura and West
Bengal according to recent data – a section of students and parents came out on the street pro-
testing against the move and demanding legitimisation of private tuition. Allegedly, teachers

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involved in private tutoring had urged them to demonstrate (The Shillong Times 21 June 2015).
It is, therefore, hard to unequivocally establish that parents are calling the shots, certainly not the
disadvantaged parents; rather, the demand for paid coaching is to a considerable extent supply-
induced. There exist well-thought-out strategies that are often skilfully deployed to generate
parental demand for supplemental help for their children. That it is mere spontaneity of parental
choice behind the power that the culture of tutoring wields does not, therefore, induce full
confidence.
Furthermore, the set of tuition options available to parents, i.e. the choice set from which
they choose, unsurprisingly differs along lines of class, caste, religion, and location. Simply put,
as inequalities in social capital and social network across different social groups in India suggest,
there exist social class differences in resources in constructing choice sets and hence in choices.
Consequently, the children of socially underprivileged may still remain trapped in inferior
schools and inferior tuition classes, raising doubts about the inevitability of positive outcomes of
choice. Also, there is a risk of overestimating the average parent’s agency in the choice of school
(Jennings 2010) as also of tuition classes, since many private schools as well as ‘star’ coaching
centres (for example, FIITJEE) conduct screening tests for prospective tutees.

Is private tutoring equity-enhancing?

Since there seems to be a massification of supplementary private tutoring at least in states like
West Bengal, it is apt to ask whether this is an ‘egalitarian’ supplement and whether the market
is a means to enhance equity. Lee (2013) contends that private tutoring exacerbates educational
inequality between ‘high’ and ‘low’ achievers in middle school but contributes to narrowing the
achievement gap in high school. That is to say, low achievers benefit more from private tutoring
in high school compared to high achievers. Given the widely yawning quality gap between vari-
ous tutoring services and their instructional resources and study materials (Majumdar 2014), it
is, however, hard not to suggest that the privately paid supplement, determined by the size of the
purse, creates new inequality along class lines and compounds the advantages of the upper
middle classes. The recent data show that the incidence of private tutoring increases with the
ability to pay. Recent estimates also show that the cost of tutoring makes up a huge percentage
of private expenditure of schooling. It imposes a substantial burden on low-income families.Yet,
parents appear ‘willing’ to spend a substantial amount to ‘top up’ their children’s education. Does
it mean that schools – all sorts of schools for that matter – are uniformly deficient and that par-
ents are frustrated with them? Or is it that parents want the ‘best’ for their children and hence
the concerted private efforts? Or perhaps there is a larger process at work that normalises the
hegemonic culture of coaching in the interest of commerce and profit-making such that both
schools and families are swayed to recast and reduce the idea of education into a commodity and
a paper certificate. With such a level and manner of commodification, education loses much of
its equalising potential.
How much parents spend on buying private lessons for their children is difficult to gauge, as
this is often deliberately kept hidden – more by the tutors – for reasons that are far from straight-
forward. Some estimates are, however, available from field-based studies (Banerji and Wadhwa
2012; Desai et al. 2010; Pratichi 2002, 2009) on this phenomenon. The recent NSSO (2015)
statistics on private expenditure on extra coaching in the state of West Bengal is indicative of the
substantial burden that families seem to bear on this account. On average in urban West Bengal
the per capita annual expenditure on private tuition at the primary level is in the order of
Rs. 2,780. Probing deeper, social and economic inequalities in private spending on educational
supplement become palpable; relatedly its unequalising effect becomes easily imaginable.

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For the pupils of government school, this amount is roughly Rs. 1,980, whereas for those study-
ing in private aided and private unaided schools, the corresponding figure is Rs. 3,650 and Rs.
4,790 respectively. It is common knowledge that in West Bengal, and for that matter most parts
of the country, government schools are peopled mainly with children from marginalised back-
ground, whereas fee-charging (with the exception of low-fee private schools) private schools
are the preserve of the privileged. And the latter group of children also spends a much larger sum
on private tutoring. It is, therefore, not a secret that the wealthy parents have an advantage, as far
as the ability to ‘buy’ better results is concerned. The more general argument that can be made
is that if the culpability for educating children is largely laid at the door of the family rather than
in the public domain, then the egalitarian promise of education is that much compromised,
because the actualisation of that promise is contingent upon social commitment to individual
educational freedom.
Equity issues are also germane to the employment generation aspect of private tuition.
Private tutoring has for a long time served as a source of self-employment for the educated but
unemployed youth in the country that, however, are paid a fraction of what professionally
trained and qualified teachers receive. Any reservations about the system of private tutoring are
often countered from this standpoint. Two quick responses may be considered. First, the culpa-
bility for unemployment cannot be laid solely at the door of the education system and its poli-
cies. Macro-economic policies and labour market policies all have their roles to play in creating
job opportunities sufficient to absorb the fresh supply of job seekers. The lacklustre perfor-
mance of the economy and the state sector on that front, particularly in this era of corporate
capitalism – epitomised in the pithy phrase of ‘jobless growth’ – cannot be lost sight of. This is
indeed a concern. But need we translate this concern into an argument for informalisation and
causalisation of the profession of teaching – a drift palpable in the coaching bazaar? Second, and
relatedly, there is both a surfeit of untrained and half-trained self-employed private tutors (some-
times glorified as ‘micro-entrepreneurs’) in the deregulated and informal tutoring market as
well as a shortage of professionally trained teachers in the formal school sector. There is a clear
case, therefore, to be made in favour of teacher preparation and their professional development
and of their absorption in the formal sector such that the country’s children – especially those
who are trapped in poor-quality schools and casual-coaching shops – get proper training. On
the other hand, if we get too swayed by the larger neoliberal politics of the avowal of informality
as a solution to the problem of jobless growth, we may end up suggesting, with a bit of a stretch
of the argument, that uneducated (un)employment is better than educated unemployment, for
certain social classes at least.

Commerce and corruption

Karl Polanyi (1957) wrote in The Great Transformation that the commodity description of labour,
land, and money is ‘fictitious’ and that their commodification will destroy human society. With
the rise of education as a commercially profitable business, it is apt to ask whether knowledge
too has become a ‘fictitious commodity’ today rather than remaining as ‘the intellectual com-
mons’. This change in the value system has certainly affected the ethos of the formal institutions
of learning, perhaps corrupting even more the centres of ‘learning’ that operate in the informal
domain. It is against this backdrop of the growing hold of the logic of the market on education
that we discuss the issues of commercialisation and informalisation of the tutoring market.
Of relevance here is also the emerging global education scenario wherein we find a steady
expansion of for-profit education firms offering various kinds of services including testing and
school improvement services, short-term teacher preparation kits, school chains, software, etc.

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National education markets are more and more open to such trans-local service provision. Even
the state is being used to the aid of the market at times. The formal school system itself seems
to be veering towards the principles of the market, let alone the informal tutoring sector.
The tuition market, however, is graded, offering widely divergent services, at times with
quality no bar. There are home tutors, tutors supplied through micro-entrepreneurial agencies –
who function as a go-between and provide tutors’ details to parents and charge a commission
from the tutor – full-time teachers who offer private lessons outside of school hours, university
students, and the staff attached to full-scale business enterprises – ‘professionals’ for whom tutor-
ing is the main source of income. Several dubious business practices swirl around the operations
of such a highly variegated tuition market. Book publishers are seen to approach popular private
tutors and offer them adequate incentives so that they recommend and endorse their books for
the tutees. The private coaching system in general seems to gain increasing control over the
market for textbooks, study guides, question paper banks, and even over the examination system.
Corrupt business practices sometimes take starker forms such as sheer profiteering, outright
violation of norms and ethics, such as impersonation at examination halls and the leaking of
question papers, etc. In the Vyapam scam that is currently rocking the country, a large number
of ‘solvers’ – candidates who appeared on behalf of real candidates in medical entrance exams
and who have appeared on the radar of the investigative agencies – teach at coaching centres. As
a newspaper report states,

Most solvers were either medical students or doctors. Some were unsuccessful candidates
who could not crack the pre-medical test and later lost on the eligibility criteria because of
the age factor but started teaching in coaching centres and became solvers.… The middle-
men offer ‘solvers’ amounts ranging from Rs 200,000–300,000 for one exam.
(The Hindu 24 August 2015)

All these deeply disturbing practices disproportionately harm the already disadvantaged and
restrict rather than expand their educational opportunities. A few more general concerns are
powerfully articulated by Sandel (2012) and Delbanco (2013) with respect to the triumph of the
market in education. They contend that the increasingly dominant social preference ‘to remake
the public enterprise of education on the model of private corporations’, to infuse the allegedly
over-bureaucratised education system with ‘entrepreneurial energy’ may lead us to valuing edu-
cation in the wrong way, as an individuated consumption activity rather than as a civic, collec-
tive, and social citizenship enterprise. It may change a ‘public activity’ into ‘business’, into a pure
‘market commodity’. The corrupting and degrading effects of commercialisation are surely not
confined to tuitions alone; rather, these tend to eclipse and deform the education system in
general.

Concluding remarks: private solution as a social priority?

No doubt, there are deficiencies in the public system of education; no doubt, there are learning
gaps among students; and no doubt, parents are bound to address these trouble spots according
to their ability and means. This is the right diagnosis. But what is the right treatment? Is seeking
a strictly private solution – inequitable and expensive – to this public deficiency the correct
response? In her recent book, Nussbaum (2010) compellingly argues that education is not for
profit. Hence, distributing education as a market commodity in a profit-driven delivery system
is likely to lead to a number of distortions. Simply put, educating children is an activity that has
to be pursued in a predominantly non-profit system.

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 Access, success, and excess

This is by no means to suggest that private efforts have no place in this scheme of things. The
moot point is one of maintaining a sense of proportion and balance. If societal commitment to
education evaporates in the face of individualised aspirations of families for a ‘good-quality’
education, and of their arduous pursuit to access personal tutoring services for their children’s
educational success, then there is a problem. The excesses that we allude to in the discussion
above relate to this loss of balance between a strictly ‘family strategy approach’ on the one hand
and an idea of common effort to professionalise, de-commercialise, and equalise educational
opportunities on the other.
More concretely, proposals for egalitarian educational reform must aim at improving and
amending both the mainstream and its shadow (Majumdar 2014). What is urgently needed is an
improvement in the quality of what is offered in schools. Reducing the weight of the curricula
is another primary aspect of educational reform as the Indian school education system suffers
from the crippling weight of what Pritchett and Beatty (2012) describe as an ‘over-ambitious
curriculum’. Reducing the pressure of success in examinations could also be a part of essential
reforms. Examinations too need to be modelled differently to discourage passive memorisation
drills for the students and to encourage instead their active and creative engagement with the
learning process. There are indeed many time-tested proposals of innovative examinations
reform that energise rather than enervate the education system. What is critical, of course, is the
actualisation of such ideas.
So far as the long-established tradition of supplementary tutoring is concerned, it would be
hard to eliminate or ban it altogether (Bray 2003, 2009), although the Right to Education Act
of India does ban such practices. One reasonable and feasible action would be to prevent school
teachers from tutoring their own students privately – a measure that has been adopted in many
states in India and in many parts of the globe.
Above all, a balance has to be restored at the level of public discourse and popular imagina-
tion itself. That education has to be a cooperative endeavour seems to be steadily fading away
from public consciousness. The limits imposed by the dominant discourse of individuated
choice for a ‘fictitious commodity’ of education seems to be detracting from bringing people
together around a common project of improving and reforming the public delivery of educa-
tion. Excessive focus on educational success seems to be weakening the common and united
effort to solve the first-order problem, namely, the lack of creativity and critical thinking in
teaching-learning processes that the college teacher in Kolkata, whom we have quoted at the
beginning of this chapter, so succinctly and poignantly articulated several decades ago. To secure
individual and social flourishing through education, the urgent task is to resist the modern-day
enclosure of the commons of the mind.

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 21
Understanding Vyapam
Krishna Kumar

If we had specialists in corruption studies, Vyapam would have given them a new realm to
explore. This is not because of its scale, measured in terms of money or the number of people
involved, or the length of time over which the scam was in the shade of urban gossip. The elec-
tronic media are treating Vyapam as a unique scam because of the serial deaths associated with it.
This dimension should interest and worry the judiciary. However, blocking investigation by
destroying evidence and killing witnesses is a familiar method in cases of corruption. This method
has come into use in Vyapam on a scale that makes Madhya Pradesh (MP) look like Guatemala.
But MP is not Guatemala, nor is Vyapam a story of drug mafia. It is a story of education, and that
is what makes Vyapam so remarkable and worthy of deeper social – not merely police – inquiry.
The public scandal surrounding Vyapam (an acronym for Vyavasayik Pareeksha Mandal or Board
of Professional Examination) concerns the sale of seats in medical colleges and jobs in the lower
order of government service. Though the idea of sale is not new, its strategy in the Vyapam case
is new in the pervasive planning it involved. Instead of outright sale of seats in medical colleges,
Vyapam enabled exam cheating to evolve into a service industry. Cheating became a facility to
be purchased by youth; those who hesitate to buy the facility dread they may be taking a risk.
The logic of Vyapam alters the moral codes that govern competition for scarce opportuni-
ties. The investigation that is now underway will hopefully reveal the networks – of individuals
and institutions – that enabled Vyapam’s fraudulent operations to be sustained year after year. But
how these networks became so robust and why the fraud did not cause public outrage or stir up
politics are questions that demand a wider search for answers. Institutional decay in education
and a political equilibrium that defies ideological categories are two important clues for under-
standing Vyapam. The last quarter-century has seen radical changes in state–market relations
across the country. How these changes unfolded in the specific socio-political landscape of MP
needs to be taken into account. Before we embark on drawing this larger picture, let us first
recognise the change in the meaning of cheating implicit in Vyapam.

Mutation of cheating
The key word used in news about the Vyapam scam is ‘cheating’. A simple summary of the scam
might say that it enabled thousands of students to enrol in medical colleges by cheating in the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362-27 317

Krishna Kumar

pre-medical or entrance exam. This summary is, of course, accurate. It induces us to use an old
and familiar frame of cheating in exams to respond to the complex narrative of the scam. But
this frame will not suffice to understand Vyapam. As a theme, cheating in exams is part of the
annual coverage of exam-related news by the media between March and June. It follows a set
pattern: in the first round, items about stress on students appear, and how parents are coping with
it. A little later, when exams start, we get news about instances of cheating. And finally, when
results are declared, news about suicides by students completes the annual round of exam cover-
age. This year, news about cheating came with visuals from Bihar in which high-school exam-
inees were shown receiving help-material through the windows of a multi-storey exam centre.
A short while later came the news about the Supreme Court’s order to cancel the All India
Pre-Medical Test (PMT) conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for
15 per cent of seats in all government medical colleges across the country. This news had some
exotic items in it, such as the use of hi-tech means of cheating by the organisers to enable their
clients to get high scores. When the national media started to report sudden, mysterious deaths
in different parts of MP, readers and television viewers framed Vyapam as an exam-cheating story
gone a bit too far. To see why such a frame is not appropriate for Vyapam, we need to take a
brief look at the history of exam cheating.
Terms like ‘cheating’ and ‘unfair means’ invoke a record that began with the advent of the
modern exam system in India in the late nineteenth century. ‘Unfair means’ covered a practice
more directly denoted by the Hindi/Urdu term ‘nakal’, which literally means copying. It con-
veys the basic idea that an examinee who copies from material brought into the exam hall
illegally is cheating. The distinction between an honest examinee and the one who cheats in this
conventional usage is that the former has access to no external help. The term ‘nakal’ tells us
what the most familiar form of help was. It meant concealing in one’s dress a book or paper in
order to copy from it. How widely prevalent the practice was can be guessed from a comment
made on it by Rabindranath Tagore in 1919. Tagore saw no distinction between those who
cheat and the rest who do not. ‘If it be cheating to take a book into the examination hall hidden
in one’s clothes, why not when the whole of its contents is smuggled in within the head?’
(Tagore 1919). The culture of cramming that Tagore decried remains the core of education and
the examination system, but competitive entrance exams of the kind that Vyapam conducts
present a new dimension.
Cheating under Vyapam is not an act we can attribute to individual candidates who appear
in a mass test. Both the nature of the test they take and the enabling role played by the test-
conducting authorities need to be comprehended. Organised cheating of the kind we see in
Vyapam (and also in the PMT taken by the CBSE in which the Supreme Court asked for a
re-test) involves the services of question-solvers who have access to the exam questions in
advance and who are financially compensated for the risky service they provide. Their services
are used by examinees in two ways. First, the solvers can act as proxy candidates by actually
taking the exam in the place of a candidate. For this, they require a fake identity card which must
be arranged by those who pay them, and this arrangement needs the tacit approval of designated
authorities of the government who will also get a fee or cut for this risk-taking behaviour. The
second or alternative method by which solvers’ services can be availed is to equip the genuine
candidates with electronic devices that permit the transmission of correct answers without
drawing the attention of invigilators. This second method may require financial compensation
for people performing functions like invigilation, guarding of entry doors, and checking identity
cards, etc. An inclusive plan that ensures all such people do the needful and keep their mouths
shut is necessary.

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Another dimension of the difference between conventional exam cheating and present-day,
organised cheating is the design of test items. Appreciating this dimension helps us to bring into
the orbit of analysis a set of players that the official probe into Vyapam may not cover.
Conventional cheating worked for essay-type questions; the new mode is meant for tests
consisting of multiple choice questions (MCQs). In MCQ-style testing, cheating involves
ticking off the correct choice in hundreds of items at considerable speed. Indeed, speed is a
critical factor of success. Examinees keen on success cannot afford to leave any items unattempted
due to lack of time or choose wrong answers due to hurrying: both incur negative marking.
Unlike the conventional exam which asked a few questions covering a limited number of
patches of the syllabus, an MCQ-based examination calls for mastery of the entire corpus of
knowledge included in a syllabus, for mastery alone can give the honest examinee sufficient
speed to cover the vast number of items that such exams carry. This academic attraction of an
MCQ-based test is precisely what makes it vulnerable to organised cheating. We can appreciate
this vulnerability by revisiting our earlier discussion of the roles involved in organised cheating.

Link industries
The key role played by ‘solvers’ is crucial for organised cheating. This role, in turn, depends on
their access to the question paper in advance. Thus, if we wish to understand how cheating has
mutated into a service industry, we must focus on these two factors: one, availability of solvers
in sufficient numbers; two, solvers’ access to the question paper in advance, i.e. its leakage. The
Vyapam scam has brought out into the public domain, so to say, the full landscape of organised
cheating. The attention this industry is currently receiving is somewhat new; otherwise, its
operative presence in professional, especially medical and engineering, exams has been a part of
post-secondary education in many states. The role of linking organised cheating with the sys-
tem of education has been performed for decades by the coaching industry. How this industry
operates, along with certain ancillary industries, is just beginning to be researched, but its
emergence as a challenge to the state’s system of education has been noted in many countries.
In India, coaching and private tuition are closely associated with the mainstream system. Both
prepare the young to improve their performance in competitive settings. Consumers of the
coaching industry pay in order to buy an advantageous position in open contests organised by
the public education system.
The stake that coaching institutions and their cartels have in competitive exams such as
entrance tests for medical and engineering courses is high. The volume of money that coaching
institutions generate from among their clients is vast enough for investment in building strong
bridges between their personnel and state functionaries involved in entrance tests. One of the
crucial merchandise passing through these bridges is the content of the question paper designed
for school-leaving examinations and entrance tests for further education. Ancillary industries
that facilitate this trafficking include publishing of exam guides, simplified textbooks, compen-
dia of past exam questions along with answers, and provision of online exam-related services.
The coaching industry and these ancillaries operate under the shelter of the public education
system and assist it, often by sharing roles or even spaces. The two systems collaborate in main-
taining the popular belief that children need the services of both – attendance at school for
legitimacy and enrolment in a coaching institution for preparation for entrance exams. Along
with coaching, the ancillary industry of exam-focused guidebooks acquires its credibility because
they closely anticipate the actual exam papers at frequent intervals, thereby conveying their
resourcefulness. The market value of individual companies involved in the ancillary industries

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keeps changing, but the industry as a whole retains its value for its young clients, who notice
sufficient evidence to believe that the industry is linked to the exam process.
The awareness that cheating prevails has a very different psychological meaning for examinees
appearing in today’s mass entrance tests. Conventional cheating offers a very limited advantage
to its beneficiary. In the conventional exam in which such cheating works, the scope for marks
is, in any case, limited. Someone who cheats by copying faces a serious disadvantage arising out
of the time it takes to give an essay-type answer by copying. Cheating by copying can seldom
result in more than a pass score for the examinee. Therefore, the honest examinee does not feel
threatened by those who cheat. This is not so in the case of organised cheating. Success in a
competitive MCQ-based exam demands high scores. Someone who has used the aforementioned
services of the organised cheating industry can obtain the highest scores. Genuine examinees
may be weeded out entirely if the number of beneficiaries of organised cheating is substantial.
For this reason, the genuine examinees feel the threat of being at a disadvantage. Some of them
may well feel sufficiently stressed by their fear of failure and yield to the offers made by the
service providers representing the organised cheating industry.
Their incursion into the routine of exam preparation has to be viewed as a significant cul-
tural inversion. The idea that one must pay to ensure selection replaces the belief that tests for
professional courses and state employment require hard work. This seems to have happened in
MP. Conditions congenial to this change in popular perception have been coming together for
a long time. There are districts where certain exam centres were given out to contractors to
arrange uninterrupted cheating for candidates, many of whom were drawn from other states.
The new set-up of organised exam fraud involves more meticulous arrangements and planning
networks. In the networks so far revealed in the Vyapam case, ground-level help by proxy
candidates and solvers was supplemented and scaffolded by computer experts who had access to
score sheets and lists of selected examinees yet to be finalised. These high-layer functionaries
had bureaucratic and political patrons. Private medical colleges also had a role in this multi-
layered arrangement.

Systemic context
Growth of organised cheating as a service industry in MP has a larger, systemic context. The
public system of education has been hollowed out over the last 25 years. This process covered
all stages of education. From the early 1990s, MP’s system of education followed the path rec-
ommended under the structural adjustment programme. The doctrine of neoliberal governance
on which the structural adjustment policies were based demanded the substitution of welfarism
with a thin social safety net to cover the risk of social unrest. This was a general prescription for
all states, but while other states compromised on many aspects and negotiated the broad doc-
trine with partial compliance, MP adopted the vision with rigour and went further than any
other state in implementing it. MP carried out a thorough dismantling of its welfare apparatus
in education and health. Powers to appoint and monitor teachers were transferred to village
panchayats, using the rhetoric of grassroot democracy to provide political underlining for the
social safety net regime. Legal and administrative scaffolding enabled MP to drastically stream-
line its budget on teachers and schools while negotiating the goal of systemic expansion.
Decentralisation, community participation, and other such discourses facilitated the dismantling
of the old public system at all levels of school education. MP became the darling of global
donors by launching populist programmes such as the Education Guarantee Scheme. They
served to conceal the impoverishment of schools and teachers, and the promotion of low-cost
private schooling.

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The voice of civil society in MP was limited and the state had no difficulty in co-opting it.
Appointments of permanent teaching staff at all levels of education froze and mutated. In
colleges it happened in the late 1980s; in schools it happened through stages over the next
decade. The old pool of school teachers – from primary to senior secondary – was declared a
‘dying cadre’, which meant that when teachers of the existing pool retire, their posts will be
abolished and fresh, downgraded posts will be created in their place. Thus, the entire system got
transformed and hollowed out. At the college level, guest and ad hoc appointments became the
norm. Even as teachers were de-professionalised, infrastructure like libraries and laboratories was
starved of funds. Demand for privately owned institutions of higher – especially professional –
education grew, resulting in the establishment of links between edu-business and politicians.
New networks were forming even as products of impoverished schools were struggling with
entrance tests to claim eligibility for further education in a scarcity market. Ill-prepared for
MCQ-based competitive tests, they turned to service providers promising a seat. The situation
was becoming ripe for a scam.

Political consensus
Over the long period of this overhaul of education, political power oscillated smoothly between
MP’s two main parties. Consensus on the structural adjustment-related policies across party lines
was not unique to MP. However, the vivacity and determination with which MP proceeded to
embrace these policies call attention to MP’s specific social and political history. The Vyapam
scam is not incidental to this heartland region of India. The same can be said about the scam’s
aftermath in which the state has attempted to label a long series of unnatural deaths as incidental.
Familiar terms such as ‘backward’ and ‘underdeveloped’ that are used to describe the social
landscape of the Hindi Belt blind us to the specific histories of the regions this area comprises.
These histories are important in as much as they remind us of the functions of the modern state
that the new economic policies seek to redefine. The discourse of these policies also tends to
establish the correctness of general prescriptions. How they will unfold in different regions
invites little interest or attention.
‘Self-financing’ is one such prescription. It has been offered as the right approach to making
education cost-effective as opposed to being a big burden on the exchequer. The self-financing
model has been offered not merely for schools and colleges, but also for regulatory bodies such as
the ones that control professional education in medicine, engineering, teacher training, and so on.
Indeed, the self-financing model now covers examining bodies like the CBSE and Vyapam as
well. Vyapam generates its resources from the vast number of aspirants who compete for a small
number of seats. Technically, no test can distinguish between those who have potential and others
who lack it when the contest is so keen – involving more than 1,000 for each single seat. But
public testing does generate impressive revenue under the self-financing model. As a public utility,
therefore,Vyapam is trusted to work with competence and technologically monitored transpar-
ency, irrespective of the socio-political terrain it serves. Mass poverty, illiteracy, sharp income
disparities, and caste hierarchies are characteristic of this terrain. Too little time has passed since
modern statehood and citizenship started to replace loyalty to princely structures. In such a ter-
rain, a self-financing institution charged with selection of a few hundred out of millions can easily
become a conduit for the distribution of patronage by networks of power and new businesses.
As an administrative territory, MP was sculpted nine years after Independence by merging
some of the older units and jettisoning some others. Much of the area consisted of princely states
of different sizes. They catapulted into democracy straight from princely rule. The area that
came under Central Provinces in the colonial period consisted of culturally distinct populations.

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Princely loyalties prevailed in this area as well. Administrative unification could hardly mean that
social cohesion and civic identities would soon follow. A social ethos marked by entrenched
poverty and extremely limited opportunities for education enabled local orbits of feudal-style
patronage to survive. Diaspora of the educated unemployed from neighbouring states also got
assimilated into the dominant cultural system. Political expression of social and economic
aspirations remained confused and weak, as the ideological alternatives represented by the two
main political parties – the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; formerly Jan Sangh) –
stayed deceptive. As a renowned MP journalist, the late Rahul Barpute, once told me, it is
unnecessary to look for stable ideological distinctions behind party loyalties in MP.

Political occult
Vyapam presents a modern political occult that failed to contain its secrecy. The moment of
failure came after success sustained over many years, along with the growth of confidence
among collaborators. The fraud pervaded the entire system of selection for distribution of
opportunities for professional education and lower-level state employment. Its immanence and
continued growth is currently passing through the phase in which the participants are doing
whatever is possible to destroy the evidence that might reveal the fraud – its dimensions and the
diverse identities of players. A series of unnatural deaths of young people and several others is
part of this phase of the scam (The Hindustan Times 2015). The social world of MP has taken
these deaths laconically, as yet another episode in the familiar story of power plays. On the
specific identity and life stories of those who were found dead at some point, brevity has guided
the regional Hindi media.
Although this melodrama had set in a while ago, the specific death that made Vyapam a
national media story this summer was that of a TV journalist who had travelled from Delhi to
interview the father of a medical student whose body was reportedly found on a railway track
three years previously. The young journalist died soon after completing the interview. Despite
the high number of unexplained deaths – figures reported exceed 40 – the state government’s
investigating team initially saw no point in treating this phenomenon as a relevant matter. The
political brass of MP repeatedly asserted that the deaths should not be viewed as being necessar-
ily related to the scam. The news of deaths, as indeed all Vyapam-related news, had become
normalised by the time the national media suddenly smelled something unusually meaty in the
scam. In MP itself, neither the fraudulent enrolments and appointments in jobs, nor the series of
mysterious deaths aroused public outcry or political stirrings. The only voice of anxiety was that
of four individuals who were identified in the media as whistle-blowers. They had used their
limited means to collect certain details to bring the fraud to public attention. They have faced
threats and harassment since.
In the context of Vyapam, an apparent tussle has broken out between the two main parties.
The focus of this tussle is corruption, an omnibus term that covers a wide range of behaviours,
from abuse of power to incompetence. As a corruption story, Vyapam also includes a cover-up
attempt. There is plenty of material here for allegations to be exchanged. Only if we see the
scam as a systemic failure can we notice the longer story of state-sponsored institutional decay
and the rise of cheating as a service industry. In that longer story, neither of the two political
parties can hope to remain clean. Indeed, the entire political apparatus – including the office of
the governor – has to be held responsible for the abuse of education, both as a system and as a
social resource. The project of education, both as a means of human resource development – its
official aim since the mid-1980s – and as a means of nurturing civil society, has miserably failed
in MP. Failure of this kind is hardly ever dramatic, so it cannot be dated, but the Vyapam scam

322
 Understanding Vyapam

has revealed it in a dramatic manner.Whether such a revelation will create the desire and energy
needed for embarking on the road to reform is a different matter.

References
The Hindustan Times. 2015. ‘HT Exclusive: In Vyapam Scam, 10 Dead in Mishaps and 4 Suicides’, 30 June.
Tagore, Rabindranath. 1919. ‘The Centre of Indian Culture’. Lecture, Madras, 9 February 1919.

323
 Index

Page numbers in bold indicate tables and page numbers in italics indicate figures.

1st Amendment to Constitution 252–254 Amrita Bazar Patrika 306–307

73rd and 74th Amendments to Constitution 16 Anand Niketan 80, 147–150
86th Amendment to Constitution 13–14, 18, 20 Anil Bordia Committee 16
93rd Amendment to Constitution 250, 254, 259 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 21,
74, 308–309
academic capitalism 231 Anpadh (film) 71
academic performance, tribal students 268–269, anthropology 120–121, 124
274–275 apprenticeships 206, 209–211, 215
academic profession 226–227 Archaeological Survey of India 117
academic programme choice: gendered 172, Arnold, J.H. 132
232–241, 239; tribal students 273–274 ASER see Annual Status of Education Report
Acharya Ramamurti Committee 14 (ASER)
Acreditation Board for Engineering and Ashoka University 222
Technology (ABET), USA 165 Ashok Kumar Thakur v. Union of India 254, 259
advertisements: and language-medium divide assessment see examinations
89–93, 90–92; for private tutoring 306–307 attendance, trainee teachers 186
affirmative action policies 108; see also authenticity 145
reservations policy Azim Premji University 222, 228
agriculture 157, 160, 167, 197, 213; and gender
inequality 239, 240 Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)
AICTE see All India Council for Technical 201–202
Education (AICTE) Bachelor of Education (BEd) training
air pollution 32 programme 101, 175–187; community
AISHE see All India Survey of Higher Education outreach 176–177; ethos of institutions
(AISHE) 184–187; foundation courses 176, 178,
Aligarh Muslim University 122 179–182; lesson-planning 180–184; pedagogy
All India Council for Technical Education courses 177, 178, 179, 180, 180–182; school
(AICTE) 163–164, 166, 194 experience 176, 178; teaching-learning
All India Pre-Medical Test (PMT) 318 material 182–184
All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 90, 297–298
238, 278–279, 288 Bajpai, Rochana 252
all-round development 54–55, 55, 58, 59 Bakhtin, M.M. 87
Amarkantak 270 Balaji v. State of Mysore 253–254
Ambedkar, B.R. 90, 160, 251–252 Banaras Hindu University 86
American Association of University Women Banerjee, M. 35
(AAUW) 234 Banerji, R. 35
American Society of Civil Engineering Basant, R. 248
(ASCE) 158 Batra, P. 178–179
American Society of Mechanical Engineers 158 BBA see Bachelor of Business
AMIE certification 166 Administration (BBA)
Amish, T. 139–141 Becher, T. 232

324
 Index

Beckett, Samuel 299–300 Central Schools 81–82, 122; see also Kendriya
BEd see Bachelor of Education (BEd) training Vidyalayas
programme Central University of Gujarat 270
behaviourism 180–181 Central University of Hyderabad 124, 274
Benaras Engineering College 161–162 Central University of Koraput 270
Benaras Hindu University 122 Central University of Manipur 271
Berliner, D.C. 27 Chamoli district, Uttarakhand 301–303
Bhabha, Homi 114 Chandra, Bipan 123
Bhaskaran, R. 35 Chandra, Satish 123
Bhattacharya, U. 89 Chandy, K.T. 192
Bhojpuri 83 charity schools 48, 50–51, 52, 54
Bhukkal, Geeta 74 cheating: by copying 300–301, 318, 320;
Biddle, B.J. 27 Vyapam scam 294, 314, 317–323
blocked chimney syndrome 32–33, 33–34, 38 Chhattisgarh 9, 67, 82, 268, 271–272, 282–283
board affiliation, and language-medium 88–89 child-centred education 181
Boards of Secondary Education (BSE) 65–71, child labourers 17–19, 22
67–69, 72–73, 122; see also Central Board of children with disabilities 20, 22, 60; special
Secondary Education (CBSE) schools 45, 47, 48, 50–51
Bologna Process 118 child traffic death rate 32
books see textbooks China 5, 15, 107–108, 113, 195, 203, 214, 226,
boredom 299 228–229, 276, 295
Bose, Nirmal 117 Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS), University
Bourdieu, Pierre 85, 237, 244–246, 300 of Delhi 110
Bowles, S. 236 Christian missionaries 267, 272–273
Boyle, J. 305 Christian religious schools 46, 48, 49–51, 53,
brain drain 162, 228 267, 269
Britain see colonial period see United Kingdom Christians, tribal 267, 271–273
Brooks, A. 236 Cincotta, R.P. 296–297
Brown, P. 236 CISCE see Council for the Indian School
Bruner, J. 183 Certificate Examinations (CISCE)
BSE see Boards of Secondary Education (BSE) city master plans 27, 29, 34, 36, 39
BSP see Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) civics education 117, 120–121, 126–127
Buber, M. 181 clientele diversity 50–51, 52, 60–62, 79
business entrepreneurs 48, 49, 58 coaching centres 86, 89, 301, 308–312, 314
coaching schools 43–44, 47, 55
CABE see Central Advisory Board on Education coaching services see private tutoring services
(CABE) cognitive theory 180
Calcutta University 119, 121 colleges see higher education
California, USA 225 colonial period 17–18, 20; city development 28;
Cambridge International Examination (CIE) 30 convent schools 82; see also Christian religious
Carr, D. 179 schools; educational pattern 28–29, 32;
case-based pedagogy 193, 198 education legislation 17–18, 20; engineering
caste: separation from occupation 151; see also 157, 160–161; examinations 64–65, 70–72;
Scheduled Castes higher education 220–221; primary education
caste quotas see reservations policy 28–29; secondary education 28, 64–65; social
CBCs see competency-based curriculums science education 117; time-consciousness
(CBCs) 299; tribes 265; tutoring services 306–307
CBSE see Central Board of Secondary Education Committee to Advise on Renovation and
(CBSE) Rejuvenation of Higher Education see Yashpal
CCE see continuous and comprehensive Committee
evaluation (CCE) community activism 302–303
Census of India (2011) 26, 37, 37–38, 38 community outreach, trainee teachers 176–177
Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) competency-based curriculums (CBCs) 211
22, 74, 119 compulsory education: nature of compulsion
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) 17–19; see also Right of Children to Free and
46, 49, 51, 55, 66–67, 74, 88–90, 99–100, 102, Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009
122, 126, 318, 321 conceptual learning 60, 197

325
Index

Constitution 4, 243–244, 251–252, 257; 1st Dewey, John 182–183

Amendment 252–253; 86th Amendment 13; Dhanbad School of Mines 161–162
fundamental rights of 13–17, 252–254; DIETs see District Institutes of Education and
provisions for tribes in 266 Training (DIETs)
constructivism 180 Directive Principles of State Policy 13–15, 253–254
continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) Directorates of Vocational Education 165
22, 73–75, 128 Director of Public Instruction 70
convent schools see Christian religious schools disciplinary cultures 57–58
cookbook approach to teaching 104 District Information System for Education
corporal punishment 21–22, 57–58 (DISE) 37–38, 49
corporate schools 43, 48, 49, 54–55, 57–58, 59, 60 District Institutes of Education and Training
corporate social responsibility (CSR) 195; funded (DIETs) 123, 127
schools 45, 48, 50–51, 52, 54 District Primary Education Programme (DPEP)
corporatist society 159, 170 14, 16, 37
corruption 298; and private tutoring services Dixon, P. 30
313–314; student protests against 300–302; see doctoral programmes, management education
also cheating,Vyapam scam 196–197
costs of education 19–20, 88–89, 171, 237, 240, domestication 54, 55, 59, 60
274, 285 Donald, A. 235
Couch, Robbie 234 donor assistance for basic education 14
Council for the Indian School Certificate Dorairajan case 252–253
Examinations (CISCE) 66 DPEP see District Primary Education
Council of Scientific & Industrial Research Programme (DPEP)
(CSIR) 97 drill learning 57–58, 59, 60
Councils for Social Science Research craft- drinking water supply 167
centred education 97
craft-centred education 146, 150–151 early childhood care and education 13, 22
‘creamy layer’ argument 254, 257–258 economics 100, 116–117, 119–121, 123, 196,
CSIR see Council of Scientific & Industrial 235, 274
Research (CSIR) economic, social, and cultural rights 15, 17
cultural activities, in teacher education educated unemployment 6, 297–303, 313
programmes 184–186 educational aims of schools 51, 53–55, 55, 61
cultural capital 56, 60, 85, 305 Educational Commission (1964–6) 34
Education Commission 1948 107
Dalal, J. 35 Education for All Initiative 14–15
Dar-ul-Uloom Madrasa, Hyderabad 53 Education Guarantee Scheme 320
Darwin, Charles 158 education legislation
Das, B. 28 Education World 42
De, A. 30 Ekalavya group 125
decentralisation in education 16, 105, 145, 320 eligibility thresholds 258–259
deemed universities 98, 222–223, 277, 278, Elwin,Verrier 265–266
282–284 Engels, Friedrich 296
de-industrialisation 160, 163 engineering 153–173, 196, 200, 209; gender
Delbanco, A. 314 inequality 232, 234, 239, 239–240, 276–277; in
Delhi 29, 31–33, 34, 34, 35–36, 81–82, 87 India 7, 160–170, 170, 172; tribal participation
Delhi College of Engineering 192 273–274; in Western countries 156–160,
Delhi High Court 33 168–169
Delhi School of Economics 119, 122, 275 English-medium education 29–30, 46, 53–54,
Delhi University 106, 108–112, 176, 184, 192, 57–58, 80–93, 112, 219, 221–222; higher
271, 274 education 108
Department of Chemical Technology, Mumbai entrepreneurial schools 48, 49–50, 58, 59, 61;
(UDCT) 162 equality of access 5, 107–109, 111–112; and
Desai, Sonalde 248 private tutoring 312–313; see also higher
Desiraju, G. 107 education access; reservations policy
Desmoulins, Camille 134 Erikson, Erik H. 181
Devanagari script, in advertisements 89–93, evangelisation 267, 272
90, 92 exam-focused guidebooks 319

326
 Index

examinations 63–76; Board Examinations 64–71, gender violence 297

67–69, 72–73, 75; colonial period 64–65, general welfare justification for social justice
70–72; concerns and recommendations 71–73; initiatives 251–254
engineering 55, 60, 164, 172; fear of failure geography 117–119, 121, 123–124
70–71; focus on success in 54–55, 55, 59, 60, GER see gross enrolment ratio (GER)
70, 305; impersonation at 314, 318; Germany 157–158, 214
institutionalisation of 64–71; need for reform Ghosh, Jayati 250, 260
103, 105, 315; and non-detention policy Ghurye, G.S. 117, 265–266
73–75; pedagogic and sociological implications Gintis, H. 236
70–71; and Right to Education Act 73–75; girls-only schools 46, 53, 234–236
science and mathematics 43, 54–55, 55, Gita Bhukkal Committee 22
104–105, 110–111;Vyapam scam 314, globalisation 231, 236–237, 241, 255–256, 280
317–323; see also private tutoring services global science 168–170
executive education 192, 195, 198 goal-driven regulation 21
expenditure on education 98, 112, 279, 286, 308; Golden Social Science 132, 134–139, 136
see also household spending on education government engineering colleges (GECs)
experiential learning 149, 198 162, 164
Government of India Act 1935 251
faculty nurture-and-mentoring programmes 162 government schools 20, 61; clientele diversity 51,
Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), 52, 74, 313; differentiation 31; educational aims
University of Delhi 192 54; Hyderabad 43, 45–46; school management
family trust schools 48–49, 54, 58–59 47–48, 48; secondary 32–33, 34; urban 26, 28,
famines 160 30–31, 33, 38
Faridabad 35 graduate unemployment 6, 222–223, 295–303
Farooqui, A. 29, 31–32 gross enrolment ratio (GER) 99, 100, 108, 238,
fear of failure 70–71, 74, 320 240, 268–269, 276, 279
Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) 196 Guindy Engineering College 160
First Amendment to Constitution 252–254 Gujarat Central University 270
Focus Group on Social Sciences 126–127 Guru Ghasidas University of Bilaspur,
for-profit private schools 30 Chhattisgarh 141
Foucault, Michel 143–144, 158
FPM see Fellow Programme in habitus 186
Management (FPM) handicrafts-centred education 145–151
Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Hansen, T.B. 296
Needs 14 Harappan civilisation 131–132, 139
France 157 Harding, J. 232
Franklin, Ursula 143–144 Hasan, S. Nurul 123
fraud 301;Vyapam scam 317–323 Heidegger, Martin 158
free education 19–20; see also Right of Children Heuzé, G. 296
to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Heymann, J. 15
Act 2009 higher education 4–6, 219–229, 237–238;
Freire, Paulo 182 academic profession 224, 226–227; access 12,
Fundamental Duties 13 107–109, 229, 236–241, 244–249, 255–260,
Fundamental Rights of the Constitution 14–17, 269–270; see also equality of access; colonial
252–254 period 6, 220; enrolment 98–101, 100, 100,
Furlong, J. 181 101, 220, 239, 247, 277, 278–279; gendered
subject choice 231–234, 238–240, 239;
Galanter, Marc 252, 254 globalisation 255–256; and globalisation 231,
Gandhi, Mahatma 144–147, 150–151, 185–186, 236–237; inadequate investment 226; language
221, 251 of instruction 221–222; massification 220,
Gandhi, Rajiv 82 223–225, 227–229, 255; need for improvement
gardening classes, Anand Niketan 147–148 113–114, 222–226, 228–229; numbers of
GATE exam 164 institutions 98, 99, 278; physical infrastructure
Gazette of India 175 106–107; and politics 225; private sector
gender 296; courses in 177; and subject choice 222–223, 227–228, 255, 276–288; quality
172, 231–241, 239; tribal students 268–269 223–224, 228; science and mathematics
Gender Parity Index 276 103–107, 112–113; social sciences 117–129;

327
Index

systemic imbalance 8–9; tribal students Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

267–275; engineering; reservations policy (IIMB) 193
Hindi-medium education 81–93, 221 Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC)
Hind Swaraj (Gandhi) 144–145, 150 192–193
Hindu religious schools 48, 50, 82 Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 223
Hindu,The 314 Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business
Hinglish 83–84 Management (IISWBM) 192
history 117, 119, 121, 123, 131–142, 133, 136 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) 191–194,
Hodgens, P. 84–85 196, 200
home-support, teachers’ expectations 56 Indian Institutes of Science Engineering and
Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education 113 Research (IISERs) 106–107, 167
horizontal application of rights 16 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) 98,
Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme 103 106–107, 161–167, 172, 225, 275, 284
household spending on education 19–20, 88, 171 Indian Institution of Public Administration 124
Huffington Post 234 Indian National Academy of Engineers 166
human rights, international law 15, 17 Indian School Certificate (ISC) 66, 68–69
Hunter Commission 64–65 Indian School Certificate Board (ISCB) 122
Hurd, P.D. 102–103 Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad 191,
Husain, Zakir 145 193–194
Huxley, Thomas 145 Indian Statistical Institute 223
Hyderabad 43–62, 44; clientele diversity 50–51, India Today 42
52; educational aims of schools 53–55, 55; Indira Gandhi National Open University
pedagogy 56–60, 59; quality 51–60; school (IGNOU) 125
management 47–50, 48; school types 44–47, Indira Gandhi Tribal University,
45; size of schools 46–47 Amarkantak 270
Hyderabad Central University 5, 124, 274 Indira Sawhney & Others v. Union of India 254
Indore 30, 36, 37, 38, 38, 193
ICAR see Indian Council for Agricultural industrialisation 144, 160, 203
Research (ICAR) Industrial Revolution 138, 143–144, 151,
ICSE see Indian Certificate of Secondary 157, 159
Education (ICSE) Industrial Revolution 4.0 214
IIMs see Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) 165–166,
IISERs see Indian Institutes of Science 208–209, 211–212
Engineering and Research (IISERs) information technology: in higher education 107;
IITs see Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) IT sector 163–164, 170, 195, 295
illiterate population 14 Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired
IMPACT project, World Bank 163 Research (INSPIRE) programme 113
Imperial College of Science and Technology, Institute for Rural Management Anand
London 158 (IRMA) 197
Imperial Legislative Assembly 17–18 Institute of Civil Engineers, UK 157
impersonation at examinations 314, 318 Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications
inclusion see equality of access see reservations Engineers (IETE) 166
policy Institute of Engineers (IEI) 166
Index of The Routledge Handbook of Education Institute of Physics, UK 235
in India (revised edition) institutional diversity see school diversity
India and the Contemporary World vol. 1 (2006) 132, Institution of Electrical Engineers, UK 158
133, 142 inter-generational social mobility 256
India Human Development survey 308 International Baccalaureate (IB) 29–30
Indian Academy of Sciences 106, 113 International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Cultural Rights 17
(ICSE) 66–67, 91, 100 international human rights law 15, 17
Indian Council for Agricultural Research international monitoring of education 14–15
(ICAR) 97 international schools 29–30
Indian Economic Association 117 Inter-University Board 119
Indian Education Commission 1882 28, 64, 280 ISB see Indian School of Business (ISB),
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Hyderabad
(IIMA) 192–193 ISC see Indian School Certificate (ISC)

328
 Index

Islamic religious schools 48, 50–51 see also liberal arts education 128
Madrasas libraries: higher education 102, 107, 111, 321;
ITIs see Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) schools 106
IT sector 163–164, 170, 195, 295 life expectancy 160, 167
linguistic minority schools 21
Jadhavpur Engineering College 161 literacy, tribal 267–270, 272–273
Jamia project 121 low-fee private schools 29–31, 43, 45, 46–47, 49,
Japan 15, 214 52, 53–54, 58, 313
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) 124–125, lung diseases 31–32
222–223, 259, 274
Jawaja experiment 7 MacArthur Foundation 235
JEE (Advanced) 164, 166, 172 Macaulay’s Minutes 64
Journal of Indian Education 122 Madan, T.N. 71
Juneja, N. 15, 18, 29–33 Madhya Pradesh 67, 125, 268;Vyapam scam 317,
justiciable and non-justiciable rights 13, 15–17, 320–323
23, 253 Madrasas 27, 30, 43, 45, 46, 50–51, 53, 82
justificatory frameworks for social justice Madras High Court 252–253
initiatives 251–254 Maharashtra State Board of Education
(MSBE) 148
Kamdar, S. 33 Mamdani, M. 6
Kanpur 30, 36 management education 7, 154, 189–202
Karnataka High Court 253 management research 198–199
Keller, E.F. 232 Mandal Case 254, 257
Kendriya Vidyalayas 81–82, 122 Mandal Commission 254
K.G. Saidayain Committee 122–123 Manipur Central University 271
Kingdon, G.G. 33 Mannheim, K. 183, 297
Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) 113 Marathi-medium teaching 148–149
Koraput Central University 270 Marx, Karl 158, 296
Kothari Commission 6, 8, 65, 72, 82, 98, 119, 122 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),
Krishnamurthi Foundation Schools 121 USA 158, 162, 192
Krishnamurti, Jiddu 182 massification of higher education 220, 223–225,
Kulkarni,Veena 248 227–229, 255
Kumaravadivelu, B. 180 Mathai, Ravi 7
Kumar, Krishna 146, 151, 182, 184, 248–249, 309 mathematics see science and mathematics
Kundu, A. 26, 28 education
Max Planck Institutes, Germany 158
laboratories, science 7, 97, 102, 106–107, MBA programmes 101, 192, 194, 196, 201
110–111, 113, 159, 161, 321 McDonnell, M.B. 236
Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar Commission 120 MacKinnon, A. 236
La Mettrie, Julien Offray de 143–144 Mechanics Institute, Manchester, UK 157
land grabbing 36 medical colleges see Vyapam scam
land prices, and urban schools 34–36 Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh 297–303
language ideology 83–85 Mehta, P.B. 284
language of instruction 30, 46, 53–54, 57–58, Mellan, I. 182–183
120, 220; higher education 112, 221–222; memory-based learning 57, 59, 64–65, 105, 110, 135
language-medium divide 81–93, 90–92 Millett, K. 232
Law Commission of India 19 Mills, C.W. 184
learning methods 57–60, 59, 180 minimum learning outcomes 21
learning outcomes 21–22, 113, 305; and private minority schools 21
tutoring 309–311 Mirel, J.E. 28
learning, teachers’ expectations 56 Mishra, S. 83–84
Learning Without Burden 72 Mizoram 140–141, 267, 269–270
lecture-based teaching 119, 198 modernity and modernisation 143–146, 150–151
Lee, J.Y. 312 Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka 15
legislation see education legislation moral regulation 56–57
Leslie, L.L. 231 morning assembly, in teacher education
Leslie, S.J. 233–234 programmes 184–185

329
Index

Mudaliar Commission 72, 120–121 NKC see National Knowledge Commission

multi-grade classes 53, 74–75 (NKC)
multiple choice questions (MCQs) 319 non-detention policy (NDP) 22, 73–75
Mumbai 26, 29, 33, 34, 35, 38, 270 non-government organisations (NGOs) 74, 82,
Murthy, N.R. Narayana 196 178, 302–303; special schools 48, 50–51
Noronha, C. 30
Naik, J.P. 43, 107, 125 North Eastern Hill University 124, 269
Nambissan, G.B. 30 NOS see National Occupation Standards (NOS)
National Achievement Survey 21 NPE see National Policy on Education (NPE)
National Assessment and Accreditation Council NSSO see National Sample Survey Organisation
(NAAC) 128 (NSSO)
National Atlas 119 Nussbaum, Martha 314
National Board of Accreditation (NBA) 164–165
National Chemical Laboratory 161 Occupy Movement 302
National Commission for Protection of Child Olin College, USA 159
Rights (NCPCR) 21–22 open universities 98, 238, 284
National Commission of Higher Education and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) 5, 246;
Research 224 enrolment 247–248, 276; intra-group
National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) disparities 254, 257–258; quotas in higher
122–123, 154, 175–177, 184 education 249–250; see also reservations policy
National Council of Educational Research and Oxford University, UK 158
Training (NCERT) 66, 74, 80, 103, 116,
122–123, 125–128, 135 Pachuau, Joy L.K. 140–141
National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 72–73, paired vocabulary 156, 168
79–80, 123, 125–128, 175, 184 Pal, S. 83–84
National Educational Mission 123 Pal,Yash 9; see also Yashpal Committee
National Focus Group on Teacher Parel, A.J. 145
Education 177 parental choice 42, 46, 311–312
National Focus Group on Teaching of Science Parliamentary Standing Committee (1997) 18–19
102–103 Passeron, Jean-Claude 244–246
National Higher Education Mission 224 Patel, S. 28
National Institutes of Technology (NITs) 161, pathshala technique 64–65
163–165 Patna Engineering College 161
National Knowledge Commission (NKC) 98, pedagogy 45, 51, 56–57; diversity of 57–60, 59;
105, 108, 128, 224, 226, 229, 287 language of 81; see also language of instruction;
National Occupation Standards (NOS) 211 management education 192–193, 197–198;
National Open School (NOS) 66 private tutoring 309–311; science and
National Physical Laboratory 161 mathematics 102–103; social sciences 118,
National Policy on Education (NPE) 1–2, 14, 123, 127
72, 287 pedagogy courses, teacher education 177, 178,
National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 179, 180, 180–182
20, 171, 246, 247, 248, 312 Penner, A.M. 234
National University for Educational performance-driven culture 22
Administration and Planning (NUEPA) PGDM see Postgraduate Diploma in
27, 102 Management (PGDM) programmes
NCERT see National Council of Educational philanthropy: corporate social responsibility
Research and Training (NCERT) (CSR) trust school, Hyderabad 48, 50–51, 52,
NCF see National Curriculum Framework 54; private universities 222, 228
(NCF) Phule, J. 65
NCTE see National Council for Teacher physical infrastructure: higher education
Education (NCTE) 106–107, 110–111; schools 102, 106–107
NDP see non-detention policy (NDP) PIL see public interest litigation (PIL)
Nehru, Jawaharlal 97, 150, 161, 221, 252 planned colonies 35–36
neoliberalism 12, 45, 294, 313, 320 Planning Commission 162, 224
New Public Management 21 Polanyi, Karl 313
NITs see National Institutes of Technology political science 116–118, 121, 123–124, 176, 181
(NITs) pollution, air 32

330
 Index

‘Poona Pact’ (1932) 251 railways 167, 191, 299

Postgraduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) Raina, M.K. 182
programmes 99, 194, 196 Raina, T.N. 182
Prasad, Devi 147 Ramachandran,V. 35
Prasad, Madhav 243 Ramanathan,V. 85
preferential policies see reservations policy Ranga Sankara 195–196
pre-Independence period see colonial period Rao,V.K.R.V. 119
Premchand, Munshi 70–71 Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan (RAA) 113
pre-primary classes 47 Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
presidency city education pattern 28–29, 32 (RMSA) 187
Pritchett, L. 315 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh 82
private higher education sector 99, 222–223, Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan 219, 224
227–228, 255, 276–288; engineering colleges rationing versus selection 258–259
161, 163–165; and reservations policy 254–256 RECs see Regional Engineering Colleges
private schools: clientele diversity 50–51, 52; (RECs)
corporate 43, 48, 49, 54–55, 59; diversity of reflective learning 198
29–31, 44–47, 45, 82; educational aims 53–55, Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) 161–163
55; entrepreneurial 48, 49–50, 55, 58, 59, 61; Regional Institutes of Education (RIEs) 123,
family trust 48, 49, 54, 58, 59; fees 14, 88; 127–128
for-profit 30; low-fee 29–31, 43, 45, 46–47, 49, religious minority schools 21
52, 53–54, 58, 313; in planned colonies 35–36; religious mission schools 45, 45, 46, 48, 50–51,
and Right to Education Act 14, 16–17, 20–21, 52, 53–54, 59, 61, 82, 272
36, 127; school management 48, 48–50; religious trust schools 45, 48, 50, 59
secondary 28, 32–33; unrecognised 26, 27, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA 157
29–31, 44–47, 45, 50–51, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61; Renu, Phanishwar Nath 4
urban 26, 27, 29–31 Report on Higher Education 1994 106
private tutoring services 305–315; advertisements research laboratories 97, 161
88–93, 91–92, 306–307; colonial period reservations policy 5, 108, 218, 223, 243–260,
306–307; and corruption 313–314; and 266, 269; challenges of agency 259–260; and
educated unemployed 301, 313; engineering eligibility thresholds 258–259; evidence-based
164; and equity 312–313; Hindi medium 86; policy perspectives 244–249, 245, 247; and
impacts of 309–311; parental choice 311–312; globalisation 255–256; and intra-group
scope of 308, 309 disparities 257–258; justificatory frameworks
Proctor, L.M. 87 251–254; modalities of 249–251
professional education 7, 155–156; management Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) 36
education 154, 189–202; tribal students 274; RIEs see Regional Institutes of Education (RIEs)
see also engineering; teacher education Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
professional knowledge 156 Education (RTE) Act 2009 13–23, 29–31, 33,
professional vocabulary 156 36, 64, 73–75, 82, 127, 266
progressive pedagogies 58 right to life 15
protective discrimination see reservations policy road accidents 32
PSUs see public sector units (PSUs) Robbins Report 192
psychological discipline 58 Roman script, in advertisements 89–93, 91–92
public interest litigation (PIL) 36, 175 rote learning 55, 58, 59, 103, 106, 134, 137, 141
public sector units (PSUs) 190–191 RTE Act see Right of Children to Free and
Pune Engineering College 160–162 Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009
rural education 143–151
quality of education: diversity 51–60; higher Rury, J.L. 28
education 112–114, 223–224, 228–229; Russell, Bertrand 97
management education 200–202; private Russell, J.E. 179
tutoring 315; and Right to Education Act 21;
science and mathematics 102–106, 111 Saikia Committee 19
quasi-government schools 31 Sandel, M.J. 314
quotas see reservations policy Sarabhai,Vikram 114, 192
Sargent Report 98
RAA see Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan (RAA) Sarkar Committee 161–163
Radhakrishnan Commission 65, 72, 120, 224 Sarkar, Jadunath 117

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Index

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) 16, 28, 35, 37, 39, 104–105, 110–111; focus on exam success 47,
46, 82, 93, 125, 127 54, 55, 58, 59, 60; and gender 231–241, 239;
Sarvodaya Schools 82 human resources 105–106, 111, 113; physical
Sastri,Vishwanatha 253 infrastructure 102, 106–107, 110–111; teaching
Scheduled Castes 5–6; enrolment 100, 238, quality 102–106, 111; tribal students 273–274
244–246, 245, 269; graduates 246, 247; Science and Mathematics Olympiads 113
intra-group disparities 257–258; school science and technology (S&T) policy 161
dropout rates 245, 245–246; see also science laboratories 97, 102, 106–107, 110, 161
reservations policy scientific engineering 159, 162
Scheduled Tribes 5–6, 265–275; academic Scion of Ikshvaku (Amish) 139–140
performance 268–269, 274–275; dispossession secondary education 187; colonial period 28,
of 265; enrolment 100, 238, 244–246, 245, 64–65, 70–72; numbers of schools 99; private
268–269; gender and higher education tutoring 308, 309; subsidies 33; transition to
268–269; graduates 246, 247; inter-tribe 32–33, 33–34; see also Bachelor of Education
differences 257–258, 271–273; literacy (Bed) training programme; Boards of
267–269, 272–273; school dropout rates 245, Secondary Education (BSE); Central Board of
245–246, 268; subject choice 273–274; see also Secondary Education (CBSE); examinations
reservations policy Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) 64
Schendel, Willem van 140–141 self-financing model 321
School Boards see Boards of Secondary self-sustaining village vision 145–146
Education (BSE) Sen, G. 248
school business plans 53–55 shadow education see private tutoring services
school catchment areas, lack of 31–32 Shantiniketan Project 121
school diversity 42–62; clientele diversity 50–51, Sharma, R.S. 123
52; educational aims 53–55, 55; pedagogy Shastri, Nilakanta 117
56–60, 59; quality 51–60; school management Shaw, A. 34
47–50, 48; school types 29–32, 44–47, 45, Shibpur Engineering College 160–161
81–82; size of schools 46–47; urban schools Shishu Mandir 46, 50–51
29–32 Shiv Nadar University 222
school experience, trainee teachers 176, 178, 181 Shukla, J.K. 176–177
school fees 14, 88 Shukla, S. 70
school management 47–50, 48 Shukla, Shrilal 4
School Regulation Act 1933 43 Sibal, Kapil 222
School Report Cards data 37–38 single-sex schools 46, 53, 234–236
schools 3–4; Central Schools 81–82, 122; charity Sinha, S. 182
48, 50–51, 52, 54; dropout rates and caste 245, size of schools 46–47
245–246; enrolment 99–101, 100; gendered Slaughter, S. 231
subject choice 234–236; minority-run 21, 50; slums 26, 35
numbers of 99; physical infrastructure 102, Smith, Edwin 186
106; religious minority 21; religious mission Snow, C.P. 232
45, 45, 46, 48, 50–51, 52, 53–54, 59, 61, 82, social inclusion see equality of access see
272; religious trust 45, 48, 50, 59; Right of reservations policy
Children to Free and Compulsory Education socialisation of children 3–4, 146; gendered
(RTE) Act 2009 13–23, 33, 36, 73–75, 82, 127, 232, 236
266; science and mathematics teaching social justice initiatives see reservations policy
101–103, 105–106; single-sex 46, 53, 234–236; social science education 116–129; colonial period
social science education 117–123, 126–128; 117; higher education 117–126, 128; schools
special 46, 48, 50–51; see also private schools; 117–123, 125–127; textbooks 119–123,
school diversity; secondary education; urban 125–127; tribal students 273–274
schools socio-economic classes 50–51, 52
school transport 31–32 sociology 117–119, 121, 123–124, 176, 178, 179,
science 97, 161, 167–169 196, 275
science and mathematics education 97–114; Socratic learning 198
Anand Niketan 148–149; in craft-centred special schools 46, 48, 50–51
education 148–149, 151; curriculum 102–104, spinning classes, Anand Niketan 150
109–110; equality of access 107–108, 111; Sri Lanka 8
examinations 47, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 102, Srinivasan, S. 261

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 Index

SSA see Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) Telugu-medium teaching 46, 53

state employment, reservations policy 266 terrorism 296–297
state-run industrialisation 144 tertiary education see higher education
Stewart, W.A.C. 183 textbook learning 56, 58, 59, 63, 70
street children 35 textbooks: and examinations 63, 70; higher
structural adjustment programmes 280, 286, 320 education 80, 109, 123; and private tutoring
structuralism 180 services 314, 319; social science 119–123; and
student brokers 301 syllabus committees 127; in vernacular
student demonstrations 300–301 languages 108, 112, 121, 221
subject choice: gendered 172, 231–240, 239; Thapar, Romila 123
tribal students 273–274 Thomas, K. 232–233
subsidies 33 Thomason College, Rourkee 157, 160–161
Sundaram, K. 246–247, 247, 248 Tilak, J.B.G. 20, 285
supplementary private tutoring see private timepass 298–300, 302
tutoring services toilets, lack of in schools 106
Supreme Court 9, 13, 15–16, 22, 175, 252–253, Tomasevski, K. 19
257, 259, 318 Tooley, J. 30, 43
Survey of India 117, 119 Touraine, A. 143
SWOTT type pedagogy 59, 60 toxic fumes 32
symbolic capital 85 trainee teachers see teacher education
travel to school 31–32
Tagore, Rabindranath 185, 318 tribes 5–6, 265–275; academic performance
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research 223 268–269, 274–275; dispossession of 265;
Tata Institute of Social Sciences 223 enrolment 100, 238, 244–246, 245, 268–269;
Taylor, Charles 144–145 gender and higher education 268–269;
teacher education 127, 175–187; community graduates 246, 247; inter-tribe differences
outreach 176–177; ethos of institutions 257–258, 271–273; literacy 267–269, 272–273;
184–187; foundation courses 176, 178, school dropout rates 245, 245–246, 268;
179–182; lesson-planning 181–183; pedagogy subject choice 273–274; see also reservations
courses 177, 178, 179, 180, 180–182; school policy
experience 176, 178, 181; science and ‘trick master’ model of school teachers 185
mathematics 103; teaching-learning material Tripura High Court 310
182–183 Tsujita,Y. 35
teacher-educators 179–180, 182 tuition teacher entrepreneurs 48, 49–50
teacher entrepreneurs 48, 49, 54, 58, 59, 60 tutoring see private tutoring services
teachers: expectations 56; and Right to
Education Act 22; science and mathematics UGC see University Grants Commission
105–106, 111, 113; ‘trick master’ model of 185; (UGC)
see also teacher education underemployment 296
Teachers’ Eligibility Tests 21 undergraduate colleges see higher education
teacher social distance 35 unemployment, educated 6, 297–303, 313
Teachers’ Training Colleges (TTCs) 128; see also UNESCO 106, 118, 120–121; World Atlas of
teacher education Gender Equality in Education 232
teaching laboratories 102, 106–107, 110 Unified District Information System on
teaching-learning material (TLM) 183 Education (UDISE) 102
teaching methods: diversity of 56–60, 59; Union Public Service Commission
management education 192–193, 198; private examinations 86
tutoring 310–311; science and mathematics United Kingdom 15, 118–119, 181, 195, 295; see
102–104; social science 119–120, 126–127 also colonial period
teaching quality: diversity 51–60; higher United States: engineering 153, 157–158, 163;
education 111, 208–210; management gendered subject choice 233–234; higher
education 200, 202; private tutoring 303; education 285, 295; social science education
Right to Education Act 21–22; science and 118; teacher education 182–183; urban schools
mathematics 102–106, 111 27–28
Technical Education Quality Improvement Universal Declaration of Human Rights 17
Programme (TEQIP) 164–166, 172 universities see higher education
Technical University, Dresden, Germany 157 Universities Commission 1902 64

333
Index

University Grants Commission (UGC) 9, 98, 113, vocational education, engineering 165–166
119–122, 124, 126, 128, 194, 282, 285, 287 voluntary work, trainee teachers 176–177
University of Calcutta 192 Vyapam scam 294, 314, 317–323
University of Delhi 106, 109–112, 192
University of Manchester Institute of Science Wadhwa, W. 308
and Technology, UK 157, 162 Washington Protocol 164
Unnikrishnan, J.P. v. State of Andhra Pradesh 15 water supply 167
unrecognised schools 26, 27, 29–31, 44–47, 45, weaving classes, Anand Niketan 149–150
50–51, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61 Weber, Max 158
urbanisation 26, 28 Weiner, M. 18
urban schools 26–39, 27; and city master plans whole-class instruction 56–57
29, 34–36; diversity 29–32; primary to Willis, Paul 295–296
secondary transition 32–33, 33–34; researching women: enrolment 238–240, 239; subject choice
36–38, 37, 38; in United States 27–28 172, 231–240, 239
Urdu-medium teaching 46, 54 Woods Despatch 1854 64
Uttarakhand 297, 301–303 World Bank 14, 43, 163–164, 295–296
Uttar Pradesh 83–84, 90, 225, 293, 297–301 World Conference on Education for All
(EFA) 14
Verma, G.D. 36 World Development Report 296
Verma, J.S. 175
vernacular languages: Hindi-medium teaching
81–93, 221; Marathi-medium teaching Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) 192
148–149; Telugu-medium teaching 46, 53;
textbooks in 108, 112, 121, 221; Urdu- Yashpal Committee 72, 224
medium teaching 46, 54 youth movements 302–303
violence, and unemployment 296–297
Visva Bharati University 122
Visvesvaraya, Sir M. 161 Zaidi, K. Sabira 183–184

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