The National Education Policy, 2020 has been much awaited. The draft NEP 2019, which serves as the base to this document, was formulated by a nine-member team, all belonging to upper castes, headed by the former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan.
National Education Policy 2020 has gender as a cross-cutting theme. It aims to establish gender equality across all levels, from primary to higher education, however, these come across as preambulatory and lack any logistical and directive methods to be undertaken.
Broadly, the NEP 2020 aims to create a shift from resource-based and theoretical to a more holistic educational environment. It does mention the need for gender-responsive policies, through provisions like bicycles for female students, etc.
However, in it’s intent it is not gender-reformative and doesn’t go into detail to reform gender stereotypes or acknowledge underlying patriarchal frameworks that serve as an impediment to the education of women and transgender students.
In the critique of the draft NEP released last year, Nivedita Menon along with several gender advocacy groups like SAATHII, TARSHI and others had critiqued the draft for its understanding of gender “DNEP 2019 does include gender-related themes and provisions across teaching-learning curriculum, foundational literacy and numeracy, teacher’ training, teacher’ recruitments et cetera; a closer look at the policy doesn’t provide gender as a cross-cutting concept. The policy has to recognize that gender is not just a women and girls’ issue, it also pertains to boys, men, Lesbian Gay Bisexual communities, transgender communities, those with intersex variations, and those living with disabilities”.
Gender Inclusion Fund
NEP 2020 has introduced “Gender Inclusion Fund” and “Special Education Zones” to ensure education for the Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs), which include gender, socio-cultural and geographical identities and disabilities.
“Gender Inclusion Fund” will be available to states to implement priorities determined by the central government critical for assisting female and transgender children in gaining access to education. It puts forth suggestions for conducting gender sensitisation workshops for the teachers to reflect gender neutrality in the classrooms, providing bicycles to the girl students to travel to the schools and reserving leadership position for women, to address local context-specific barriers to female and transgender students.
Language Policy
NEP 2020 emphasises on teaching in regional languages up to class 5. However, in my opinion, English is the key to employability and privilege in the current day. In such cases, private schools are the only places where English education is available.
Across the country, it is reported that male students have disproportionate access to private schools as compared to female students. Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2019) reports 47.9% of boys go to private schools against 39% girls indicating that parents prefer private schools for boys and government schools for their daughters.
In November 2019, Andhra Pradesh Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh introduced English medium in all government schools as a scheme for the benefit of the poor, claiming that they were expanding the right to education to the right to an English education for all. Thus, education devoid of English will likely impede the progress of marginalised communities, especially SC and ST communities, and even within them harm female students the most.
An article in the Print highlights the role English has played since the independence to provide to be a part of the global economy “Class-based inequality will widen in India, as those who are able to afford posh English-medium education in the cities pull further ahead of talent from the hinterland.”
Menstrual Hygiene, Sex Education and Sexual Harassment
Most of the schools assume menstrual hygiene management (MHM) to be implicit in their Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) strategies. The document doesn’t explicitly mention anything about menstrual hygiene or related provisions like sanitary napkins. Menstruation still continues to be an obstacle which several female students, especially from vulnerable communities face, an obstacle that hinders their education.
Accurate and adequate information on menstruation at schools can help in reducing menstruation-related illnesses and dropping out. Provisions like clean washrooms and water and sanitary napkin distributions also find only fleeting mentions.
The NEP 2020 stays very much silent on comprehensive sex education much like it’s predecessors. ‘Sex education’ has been subsumed under the component of “ethical and moral reasoning”. It is done with the intent to advance “basic health and safety training, as a service to oneself and to those around us”. It sparingly envisions equipping students to make “future judgment surrounding consent, harassment, respect for women, safety, family planning, and STD prevention”. It sparsely mentions the themes of consent, good touch/bad touch etc.
It doesn’t mention sexual abuse of female and trans students, internal complaint committees and related provisions. Sexuality is not envisioned as inherent and empowering. Healthy body image, gender-based violence are also other themes which are overlooked.
The last government-supported study on child sexual abuse in 2007 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development had brought forth similarly worrying numbers. Of the 12,447 children and adolescents interviewed in 13 states, 53% reported to facing one or more form of sexual abuse.
In the age of ‘bois locker room’, it becomes all the more necessary to include conversations about web-based violence and cyberbullying.
The Underlying Understanding Of Gender
It also fails to talk about a comprehensive puberty education program including both boys and girls with an equal focus to sensitise both boys and girls. The presumption that gender-based discrimination and gender inequality can be addressed by focusing on women and solely on women is rather widespread. Thus, most steps around ‘gender inclusivity’ are for the empowerment of female students without challenging the gendered institution of education.
The policy does not take into account the largely patriarchal setups under which schools function. For instance, 39.4% of girls aged 15-18 years drop out of school and college, according to a recent report by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
However, the probable causes for this, like early marriage, selling into beggary and sexual slavery go unaddressed. Dropouts are also a result of caste-based discrimination and lack of infrastructural inclusivity for students with disability. Both these groups are mentioned superficially. Caste, patriarchy and ableism aren’t addressed as structural challenges.
It also doesn’t mention the digital divide which plagues the world in a post-pandemic time. Female students have disproportionate access to technology by virtue of familial preferences and other reasons. Digital learning curricula should necessarily include aspects of gender-responsive teaching-learning processes, gender bias within digital spaces, cyber safety, privacy and digital rights. The policy also does not challenge the existing gendering of streams – the lack of female students in STEM for instance.
Further, no gender justice is possible without addressing the underlying caste and class structures. With the scrapping of several scholarships, increasing privatization of education – one which forgoes reservation and other actions for equity – the projected leap forward in equitable education for all genders is undermined.
Gender Disparity In Higher Education
The policy does not mention anything about the universalisation of higher education, only the universalisation of secondary education. All-India Survey of Higher Education published by the UGC in 2019 shows that the student enrolment at the undergraduate level has 51 percent boys and 49 percent girls.
The data reveals diploma too has a skewed gender distribution, with 66.8 percent boys and 33.2 percent girls. At the level of research streams also, male students outnumber females. In PhD courses across the country, there are 56.18 percent boys and 43.82 percent girls.
The document fleetingly mentions transgender students. The literacy rate of transgender people at 56% in alarmingly lower than the national literacy rate at 74% (Census 2011).
The document does not provide any affirmative action for transgender students and fails to address any measures to create positive environments for these students at school for instance counsellors, sensitisation workshops for peers and gender-neutral washrooms.
It fails to address schools as a place of violence for transgender* students and makes no attempt to recognize this group for any actions like reservation, scholarship etc. Policies for Intersex students find no mention in the document. The LGBTQ+ community is alienated as well.
Looking forward
The NEP 2020 says that the central and state governments will strive to increase expenditure on the education sector to reach six percent of the GDP. This has been the stated goal since the 1960s since the Kothari Commission’s report, but is yet to be achieved.
The policy document talks about starting a gender sensitisation program for teachers, which will focus on how to teach students with disabilities as well. It also mentions hiring female teachers, and elucidates on the need for ‘female role models’. However, to view it from a gendered lens devoid of the caste and class intersections in education would be a one-sided picture.
The lack of mention of affirmative actions is detrimental to Bahujan students. Thus, female students from these groups will also face the brunt due to caste and class oppression. Under the directives of the NEP 2020, any programmes need to not only empower vulnerable students but also challenge the institutional structures that create this vulnerability.