Opinion As students gear up for university, the devil is in the NEP’s details

The NEP notes (para 11.9, p.37) that the undergraduate degree “will be of either three or four-year duration”, but asserts in the next sentence that the FYUP “shall be the preferred option” since it allows for the “full range” of HME. We know that the US and some other countries follow the four-year format, but we also know that in Europe and the UK, the three-year format is preferred for HME. A well-known example is the Philosophy-Politics-Economics (PPE) three-year BA at Oxford University. Given that the three-year format is used in reputed institutions abroad and was already established in India, the change to the FYUP as the universal norm for degrees in general education requires justification. Which specific shortcomings of the three-year format will the FYUP overcome? What will students get in return for investing an extra year and paying one-third more for an undergraduate degree? No convincing answers have been offered so far.

The Multiple Exit/Entry System or MEES has no necessary relationship with the FYUP but has nevertheless been integrated into it. Delhi University is inaugurating an FYUP with four exit points – one in each year, with its own credential. A certificate is awarded after one year, a diploma after two, and different Bachelors’ degrees after the third and fourth years. As stated in a July 2021 UGC document, the MEES has three aims: Reducing the dropout rate; providing flexibility and a wider choice of subjects to students; and enabling credit transfers for lateral movement or re-entry. Once again, these are laudable objectives, but it is unclear how the MEES will achieve them.

The fatal flaw in the FYUP-with-MEES format is that four different courses of study with different learning outcomes are sought to be offered through a single curriculum. This means that the first year of the FYUP must fulfill the requirements of a standalone certificate course, while simultaneously functioning as the first year of not only a two-year diploma but also of a three-year and a four-year Bachelors degree. The same is true for the second year. A modular structure that integrates a three- and four-year degree into the same curriculum may be feasible, but it is impossible to design a single curriculum that does justice to four different courses. As existing syllabi are force-fitted into this format, the most likely outcomes are diluted long courses, or lopsided short courses, or both.

According to the latest official survey on education (NSSO Report No.585, 2017-18), two-thirds of those in the 18-24 age group who had enrolled in higher education institutions were currently not attending them, so it would be wonderful if the MEES could help reduce this number. However, the three most common reasons given for not attending are financial constraints, economic activities and domestic activities, which together account for 62 per cent of men and 54 per cent of women. It is difficult to see how multiple exit and entry points will address these issues. For example, can students with a one-year certificate after high school expect to earn enough to finance their return to college? A far more direct method would be to provide targeted scholarships for students with financial constraints.

Multiple exit points will certainly help in renaming drop-outs as certificate or diploma-holders. But they cannot ensure that these credentials will bring significant benefits for holders. Earlier, the indivisibility of the degree provided an incentive for students and families to try hard to complete their degrees. Meaningless short-term credentials will encourage families to withdraw their wards from education, especially women. In Indian conditions, a return to education after dropping out is extremely difficult for those without economic and social resources.

The NEP seems to have fallen prey to dominant global trends in higher education governance. Modalities such as credit transfers originated in Europe and the OECD and were promoted by multilateral agreements like the Bologna Process, and the Lisbon and (the more recent) Incheon Declarations. They are designed to solve the European problem of excess capacity in higher education and to expand the catchment area for institutions to ensure their viability. Our problems are radically different and demand context-sensitive solutions.

Higher education today is facing severe challenges across the globe. The instrumental justification for higher education – based on its presumed link to employment, development and social mobility – no longer works. Four decades of neoliberal restructuring of the global economy have broken the link between higher education and employment – if it ever existed. Today’s financialised economy creates wealth for the few without creating decent work for the many. Moreover, the respect that higher education once commanded for its nurturing liberal values and critical thinking has evaporated. We are faced with the aggressive anti-intellectualism of authoritarian populist regimes that champion “alternative facts” and wish to build a “Post-Truth” world.

Along with the rest of the world, India has seen the “massification” of higher education over the past two decades. But the unprecedented widening of access has failed to reduce inequalities or promote mobility. As the Agnipath events show, it is dangerous to offer false hope to the young. Only time will tell if the NEP manages to avoid this predicament.

The writer teaches at Delhi University. Views expressed are personal