A new wave has hit the already suffering tides of education policies in our country, and the wave is called the CBCS, that is the Choice Based Credit System. The government is all set to implement the system in each and every college and university of the country without giving the least thought to having the necessary infrastructure for the same. While the hasty implementation of the semester system has inflicted a burden on the poor labourer’s wards, a majority of whom have been forced to drop out from their studies, because of their inability to pay the ever increasing fees twice a year, we can only be in anticipation of what the new system will have to offer.
Prestigious universities like the JNU have already erupted the volcano against the policy to implement the system, but the stride has to be widespread. The JNUSU says, “It is a factory model of education. It will hamper the critical thinking and interests in research.” it is not only the students who have proposed an opposition to the policy but also the teachers. Organisations like the DUTA have been in a resilient protesting mode too. The teachers have been putting forward the agenda that under the CBCS, it is only a regularity to see a teacher teaching for more than 5 hours a day, because of the serious dearth of teachers that the universities have. It is a direct violation of the human rights of the teachers. In 2015 only, there are over 5000 posts of teaching staffs vacant in the public universities. Many colleges have departments where a single teacher has to teach more than two subjects to compensate the dearth.
The system of CBCS has also been the chief cause of the degradation of education in many colleges of the country, where it has ushered nothing but a typical rote style of education, putting excessive stress on examinations, making the students run after marks and marks only. The dwindling number and quality of research scholars is a glaring example of the situation. The present BJP government might show a whole lot of pretexts, but the fact is that it had opposed the bill while the UPA was in the centre. The government has been procrastinating the tasks such as the hike in education fees and correction of the semester system, which sadly many of the universities and colleges are still confused about and yes, that includes the technical and professional colleges too.
The government’s propensity for serving the market and the industry is a prime cause for its consistent effort in getting the policy through. The system surely, will increase the employability of the students but it will also pave the way for the foreign universities to directly establish tie-ups in India, which will in turn make higher education more expensive. The deepening crisis in the middle and lower classes regarding the funds for education will increase and so will be the business of banks. The nexus between the banks, private universities and the government are surely going to benefit leaving the students and parents in the maze of scarcity and struggle. A student then, has to work, even if he is interested in research, just to pay back his loans. Of course, the upper classes won’t have to abide by these. The industry will not have to invest a single rupee but it will still be served on a platter, what it needs most, an army of skilled, needy labourers.
The CBCS, as a system is flawed in many parts. Under it, a student can get physics degree without even studying the subject. Taking the example of a prestigious university, the number of credits required to be awarded the MSC degree is 120 but the credits for the compulsory subjects alone is 136. The expectations from such a degree holder are high but under the education policy, can he fulfil those? The question remains unanswered.
The UGC had employed the bill in as discrete a manner as possible, there were no discussions held with the stakeholders for the same like the teachers and the students. Naveen Gaur, a professor of the Physics Department in Delhi University said, “The UGC letters read more like directives.”
The system will land a huge blow on the critical thinking of the students, as the system already, under the semesters, leave them with very little time to think outside the box. Nobody questions the validity of the system; it has been already been implemented long ago in many technical colleges but when the government is planning to go all out with the system in the general colleges too, the procedure it has adapted is purely wrong. With everybody having the idea of the constantly degrading quality of technical education under the CBCS, the questions being raised are on the undemocratic and autocratic manner in which the bill has been implemented. The policy has to undergo changes in order to correct the flaws it has and the changes can only be truly and most practically offered by the three most involved communities in the whole scenario, the students, teachers, and the parents, and that includes both the general and the technical colleges. The students as well as the teachers need to address this glaring issue on an urgent basis, otherwise we would have nothing, but another disaster in the already hard hit education system.
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