The biggest challenge before me, as the Secretary, Ministry of HRD, Government of India, was to enact a law by the Parliament to give a fundamental right to every child of India to receive 8 years of free and compulsory schooling.
As Secretary in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Dr Arun Kumar Rath made an outstanding contribution to enact the long-awaited Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009. This imaginative and path-breaking Act gave children between 6 and 14 years old a fundamental right to demand and receive elementary education as a matter of entitlement. As Chairman of the drafting Committee of the Government of India, Dr Rath introduced far-reaching provisions in the Act aimed at building an educated India. Dr Rath was also the architect behind the Right to Education Act and a national program which sought to universalise secondary education.
After superannuation from IAS in 2009, Dr Rath served as Dean & Professor of Public Policy at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. He was the architect of the School of Public Policy & Governance in MDI, Gurgaon. Dr A.K. Rath is currently a Visiting Professor at IIM Nagpur.
Born in Baripada, Odisha, Dr. Arun Kumar Rath joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1973 after a brilliant academic career, securing top positions in Utkal and Delhi Universities. Master of Science in Theoretical Physics from Delhi University, Dr Rath studied management at the University of Birmingham and the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom and was awarded Ph D by the KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. Here are a few moments of his candid conversation with Neeraj Mahajan.
Isn’t it unusual for a retired bureaucrat like you to join academics? As someone who transitioned from bureaucracy to academics, how do you see the role of civil servants in shaping and implementing education policy?
Yes; it is unusual, though not rare, for a civil servant to join academics after superannuation. I never planned for a post-retirement assignment to be back in government. But as a pursuit of academic excellence, I had registered for a PhD in Business Administration in my favourite subject of Corporate Governance. I chose this topic as I was working on the subject repeatedly, more by coincidence, in most of my assignments in the IAS career. I completed Ph D in Business Administration in October 2008, just before my superannuation in January 2009.
The Ph.d. degree enhanced my interest in academics and research, but I had no specific plan for seeking academic assignments.
Before my superannuation, the Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgoan used to invite me for casual guest lectures to their MBA students and corporate executives. On my superannuation, they offered to appoint me as a full-time Professor of Public Policy and Dean & Chairman School of Public Policy in MDI Gurgoan. For some time, I was not sure if I should accept the offer. However, I joined MDI in July 2009, more as an experiment, with a caveat to give up the assignment if I did not like it. But as it happened, I liked academics and continued in the new Avatar as an academic don !. Since then, I have never looked back.
Sometimes, I wonder how I have completed one and a half decades of Professorship continuously after superannuation from IAS in January 2009.It is rather unusual indeed!
You were closely involved in the development of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. What were the key challenges during its drafting and implementation?
The biggest challenge before me, as the Secretary the Ministry of HRD, Government of India, was to enact a law by the Parliament to give a fundamental right to every child of India to receive 8 years of free and compulsory schooling. Looking back I realise that life is full of surprises. Unexpected turns of events do happen all of a sudden. One such experience was my association with the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009. It is one of the most significant legislations in independent India. It gave the biggest boost to school education in India. RTE raised the status of India as a progressive nation championing the cause of education after a long wait ! RTE received both domestic and international acclaim as a very innovative public policy initiative by India. Yet, it had to wait for six decades after independence. Looking back, it baffles me how RTE was almost given up, and was picked up at the last moment in an unexpected chain of events in which I played a pivotal role.
The biggest task was to mobilise commitment for finance from the central and state governments. Unfortunately, education was, in fact, low on the priority list. A huge financial commitment for education would not come. I would give all credit to one visionary leader, Dr Manmohan Singh, who, as the Prime Minister, championed the cause of RTE and supported me to the hilt in my thankless and losing struggle for RTE.
Looking back, I am surprised at how such an epoch-making Bill was almost dropped in 2008. It was my destiny to be an ardent activist in favour of the RTE l. It was a matter of great satisfaction for me to finalise the draft RTE Bill and ensure its passage through the complex web of government machinery in the proverbial corridors of power. Getting the finances of both the centre and the states was near near-impossible challenge for me.
How effective has the Right to Education Act (RTE) been in improving enrolment and retention rates in primary schools? What gaps still remain in terms of access, quality, and infrastructure in schools across India?
RTE has done exceedingly well in many ways, laying the foundation of a literate India, but has also been a mixed bag of success and deficiencies! The Act has prescribed norms and standards which have ensured that each school has the minimum standards of infrastructure by law. Schools now have pucca buildings, more classrooms, toilets, a library and laboratories. No school is allowed under the tree or in the open, as was happening in the past. It is also illegal to employ unqualified teachers, as was happening before the RTE.
However, there is concern about the learning levels of students in many parts of the country. Independent surveys have revealed that students of a class have not learnt subjects two or three classes below. The learning deficiency syndrome must be addressed.
There are huge teacher vacancies. Many States, in their wisdom, either closed or did not expand B Ed Colleges to fill up the nearly a million vacancies of school teachers in the country existing even today.
Fortunately, the National education Policy 2000 has lauded the achievements of RTE and have recommended strengthening of the system. NEP 2020 has recommended tor extension of RTE to pre-school education for three years and secondary education for four years in addition to the eight years of free and compulsory education at the elementary level. NEP rightly provided for 15 years of universal schooling from 8 years as could be provided in RTE in 2009, primarily due to a resource crunch at that time
How do you assess the impact of the Right to Education Act on equitable access to quality education across different states?
RTE has achieved a great deal both in equity and quality across the country. It needs to be appreciated that there are issues of equity versus quality. At some point, India had to universalise elementary education. Due to RTE, suddenly all children between 6 to 14 years were mandated to be in schools by law as their fundamental right. It created enormous problems of buildings, infrastructure, school amenities, mid-day meals, as well as the need for a huge number of qualified teachers. All these were in short supply, but there was no choice. All children must come to school. There can be no phasing as it will mean preventing some children from joining schools.
Schools had to admit all children without waiting for anything. As such, the inevitable problem of quality does happen. Over the last decade, the infrastructure problems have been solved due to substantial provision in the central and State budgets in a sharing formula of 65 % central share to 35 % state share for implementing RTE. However, the problems of teacher numbers, teacher quality and learning levels remain as unresolved. Fortunately, NEP 2020 accepted these deficiencies and has introduced innovative policy initiatives.
What are your thoughts on the National Education Policy 2020—are we ready to implement it across the country uniformly?
NEP 2020 is an outstanding and ambitious vision document for 21st-century India. It has far-reaching provisions which are necessary to correct the aberrations of the infamous Macaulay legacy in our education system. But NEP is only a vision document and not a law like the RTE. Many States are yet to adopt it in their State policy. Unfortunately, we have lost five years since 2020. Some of the targets have to be extended due to the lapse of time.
Some of the laudable provisions in NEP 2020 are worth mentioning. These are vital to enhance India’s educational ranking in the world. One of the major recommendations is to universalise pre-school education for three years for every child to enhance their cognitive capacities and make him school-ready. Today, most of the children, particularly from the poorer and disadvantaged sections, miss pre-school education, which is detrimental to his learning levels in later years. Further, the school system is to be revamped with emphasis on student-centric classroom process. Higher learning levels, introduction of formative and continuous assessment in place of summative assessment, compulsory vocational education and stress on mother tongue education at the primary level are significant provisions. There must be stress on teacher quality and training. The conditions of teachers should be elevated to attract the best and brightest students to join as teachers.
NEP also provides for world class multidisciplinary universities, flexible graduate programs with easy exit and entry options at each class level, credit transfers, ten-fold rise in research and innovation by universities, integrated B Ed courses of national standards across the country, integration of multiple national regulating authorities into three and the like provisions. All these provisions of reform and development call for much higher investment on education. Unfortunately, we have not given the priority which education deserves in allocating the funds and other resources of the country for education. Every Indian desires the best education for his children. But we do not have the education champions who would fight for the cause of education. NEP strongly pitches for at least spending 6 % of India’s GDP on education from the current level of less than 4%. Both the both centre and the States must accept their roles and responsibilities in partnership and spend at least 6% of GDP, like all developed nations of the world. NEP must be implemented across the country uniformly, with the Centre as well as the Finance Commission providing financial support and extending gap funding to States in need
How can India improve the employability of graduates from public universities and colleges?
NEP emphasises skill development, vocationalisation and almost a ten-fold increase in research and innovation in the educational institutions. Higher teacher quality, better learning levels and student-centric process of teaching and learning, along with market-driven courses and syllabi, should enable students from universities and colleges, both public and private, to acquire better skills and competence to be employers’ choice.
What should be the government’s role in ensuring that private educational institutions uphold academic standards and social responsibility?
NEP specifically recommends that education will not be for profit. As such private educational institutions will be governed by philanthropic and altruistic objectives as per NEP 2020. They should be like Sec 8 companies (as in the Indian Companies Act 2013) doing social service as part of their responsibility to society. They should generate surplus, which will be used for the institution instead of giving a dividend to the promoters due to the profit earned. Multiple mechanisms with checks and balances should be and place to stop the commercialisation of education. This will be a key priority of the regulatory system under NEP 2020.The commercialization of education as happening at present must stop through the new regulatory systems under NEP 2020.
Governance of educational institutions is a top priority of NEP. Introduction of effective governing structures for universities, independent accreditation, “light-but-tight” regulations by new regulatory bodies, student centric processes and teacher empowerment as well as adequate financial resources should enable the educational systems of the country to rise on the global education index and fulfill the vision of India@2047 as a Vishwa Guru!
