(Paper presented at the national seminar held at Shillong from December 9-10, 2006)
In this paper I wish to argue that the defective educational policy in the country in general and North East in particular is not only counter productive but is not at all conducive to the so called New Economic Policy. Further, I wish to argue that without comprehensive manpower planning along with radical change in educational policy no significant change is going to take place in the country in general and North East in particular.
This is an admitted fact that education is one of the major instruments of social change and economic development and precisely because of this reason education has to be geared to economic development. M.K. Gandhi, one of the outstanding personalities of the past century was keenly aware of the subtle connection between education and socio-economic development. His views on education then appeared very quixotic and strange and his economic policies very primitive to some politicians and planners including Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi advocated basic education (Naitalim). According to him, education upto secondary level should be free and compulsory. Further, education should be so modeled from the very beginning that no student depends on white collar jobs after completion of his/her studies. Gandhi was not against higher education but he was against state funding of higher education and had a point.
Now let us, with this background, discuss education and New Economic Policy in the context of North East. To begin with, primary and secondary education in the North East is in a shamble. Particularly in Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh there is not a single good mother tongue school worth its name. For whatever reasons, people in this part of the country prefer to send their children to English Medium Schools. This is likely to result in stunted growth of personality of children. Ideally speaking the child must be taught in the language that he/she speaks at home. In fact, there is no substitute for mother tongue in this regard. Not only this, except mother tongue based literature, history, geography and environment studies the course content of all other courses should be the same throughout the country. It is a paradox that only in India parents willingly pay high tuition fees for their children upto secondary classes in privately owned English medium schools than a Post-Graduate, M.Phil and Ph.D stages. This paradox must go and upto secondary stage, education must be owned, financed and managed by the Central Government. In fact, more money should be spent upto secondary education and less money should be spent on the so called higher education particularly on liberal arts and general sciences.
Meaningful and effective professional education must start just after secondary stage. Dairy, poultry, piggery, agro industries, food processing, horticulture, floriculture, black smithy, carpentry and masonry are ideal forms of professional education that could be imparted in North East and at least to begin with, 50% students after secondary stage should be diverted towards it.
Professional education of higher order like engineering, medicine, surgery, agriculture, law and management and the like should start after Pre University or +2 stage. At least 50% of the students passing out Pre University should be asked to join these professional courses. That is to say only 25% of students after secondary stage should be allowed to go for higher education upto graduate level in general sciences and liberal arts. Further, little less than 50% of those who complete their graduation studies, that is to say, only 10% of students should go for University education i.e. M.A., M.Sc and M.Com and such like. Further only 2 to 3% of students who complete their Post Graduation should be allowed to go for research. In other words, only those who have competence, inclination and interest should be allowed to go for research. This will save the country from academic and economic disaster.
Of nineteen Central Universities in the country six are situated in the North Eastern region. The worst situation is that these Universities for all practical purposes have become state Universities and are absolutely localized. In Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur universities, 95% of students are from the concerned state only. In NEHU, Silchar and Tezpur Universities, tangentially 5 to 7% students are from the outside the concerned state. Further, these Universities keep on repeating and teaching the same old courses in liberal arts and general sciences like Philosophy, History, Pol.Sc., Physics, Chemistry and Botany and churn out unemployed and unemployable Post Graduates, M.Phils and Ph.Ds. The situation has come to such a pass that in most of the cases Ph.D theses are either duplication, triplication or even repetition of other Ph.D theses submitted elsewhere.
Confusion gets worse confounded when so called research publications, including Ph.D supervision are made requirements for promotion to Lecturers in Senior and selection grades including Reader and Professor. They just copy out from books and journals and publish in name of research. Instances are not rare where teachers have published eulogies on payment to the publishers in honour of spouse of the Vice-Chancellors to get promotion. There has been a glut of Ph.Ds in the North East. Some of the Ph.Ds move from College to College and school to school to secure a livelihood. This means that the state not only must invest in giving higher education and also invest white collar jobs for these students. This trend must come to a stop because the country really does not need so many Ph.D degree holders with half baked / semi baked knowledge and ideas. This clearly shows defective educational planning in North East. In this connection I wish to suggest that total and comprehensive man power planning is a must for North East.
The new economic policy with motto of globalization, liberalization opening of border for trade and on the top of it the “Look East Policy” is not at all going to benefit the North East. As a matter of fact, the market of the North Eastern region is flooded with textile, electronic and other goods manufactured in other countries. Opening of the North Eastern border will facilitate and accelerate the free flow of goods and commodities between North Eastern Region and other adjoining countries of the world. If in pursuance of globalization and liberalization the economy of North Eastern region is linked with the world economy without sufficient preparation the result is bound to be disastrous. The matter is very simple. No country or region can prosper simply by trade and commerce without producing and manufacturing material goods. As for instance if West European countries particularly Great Britain began to develop economically in the seventeenth century onwards it is because of two reasons; (i) industrial revolution gave rise to immensurable production of material goods and almost near monopoly market condition was readily available in parts of Asia and Africa. Let us hypothetically imagine a situation where the North Eastern Region allows industrialists from other parts of the globe to set up industries in the region in collaboration of local industrialists. First of all the region is absolutely fragile and cannot sustain heavy industries. Before they take any decision in this regard they must prepare a comprehensive and eco-friendly plan for small scale industries and train and motivate the local people to come forward for it. Without this type of plan and preparation no benefit is going to accrue to the people.
Further, the entire North Eastern region should be taken as a Unit for.-economic and educational development. It is true that the North Eastern Council (NEC) has been set up broadly for this purpose but it is yet to develop a holistic and totalistic view of the situation. Take for instance, the institution of higher education in the region has not been properly planned. All the six central Universities including the existing state Universities are running the same traditional and conventional courses like History, Philosophy, Pol. Sc, Education, Physics, Chemistry and such like. Proper planning should have been to allow particular Universities to run specific courses depending on requirement of trained man power. For example, was there any need to open departments of History, Pol. Sc. and Education in all the Universities in North East? With proper planning and monitoring, new subjects and disciplines could have been opened instead. Similarly, instead of opening departments / centres for Folklore, Linguistics in various Universities there should be only one broad based Research Institute one each in Folkloristic and Linguistics. Money thus saved out of monitoring and proper planning could be spent in other sectors of education. Unfortunately the University Grants Commission has become almost defunct; instead of playing the crucial role of shaping / directing the course of higher education it has reduced itself merely to a fund distributing agency.
Globalization and liberalization as an instrument of economic interlinking can thrive only on certain socio political and cultural conditions. The North Eastern Region has not been free from some kind of terrorism and insurgency. Whatever may be the factors for such type of social and cultural unrest, people in general and the government in particular must try to find an immediate and effective solution to the problem.
It is an admitted fact that globalization and liberalization are likely to lead to economic prosperity and economic prosperity in turn gives rise to the culture of consumerism. Throughout the world the culture of consumerism has given rise to fresh socio-cultural problems. Though this dimension of the problem does not fall within the ken of the present paper, yet in passing I wish to point out that the basic and primary objective of all education and socio-economic planning including globalization and liberalization is to make man good and secure happiness for him. Unfortunately, there is nothing in modern education and modernity that could make man good.
Xavier P. Mao
Department of Philosophy
N.E.H.U., Shillong
