The rhetoric over “which history” should be taught to school students has always been a contentious issue. The debates generated in the process are understandable and imperative, as what young students learn about their past has a direct bearing on how they view their own identity, cultural heritage and nationality. Governments across the world have therefore sought to influence their school history curricula, with the prime objective of shaping or reshaping notions of the countries’ national identity. In the context of the Indian classrooms, what is baffling is the inability to tread a fine balance between what students should know about the past to how they should know.
Highlighting the complexities of higher education participation in a stratifi ed society, this article tries to understand the role that college contexts play in infl uencing the identities of socio-economically disadvantaged students. Drawing on data from fi ve lengthy interviews, the purpose is to explore the identity concerns of students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds in their experience of getting to and attending the University of Delhi, which has historically been home to middle and upper classes.
The National Education Policy of India 2020 is a significant policy document laying the national-level strategy for the new millennium. It is ambitious and claims universal access to quality education as its key aim, keeping with the Sustainable Development Goal 4 of the United Nations Agenda 2030. One of the highlights of the NEP is its emphasis on mother tongue education at the primary levels in both state- and privately owned schools. The present paper critically assesses the NEP 2020, primarily in relation to the language-in-education policy. The paper argues that it presents a “contradiction of intentions,” aspiring towards inclusion of the historically disadvantaged and marginalised groups on the one hand, while practising a policy of aggressive privatisation and disinvestment in public education on the other.
The in-service teacher training provided in the public schooling system has often been criticised on grounds of both inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Two principles that can overcome these weaknesses are a “third-space” curriculum built around problem-solving practices of teachers and leveraging the adaptability of online mechanisms for professional development. We describe a large-scale experiment based on these principles. The main lesson is that our training establishments need to develop new technical and academic capabilities, or at least partner with institutions having the necessary expertise.
The National Education Policy, approved by the union cabinet on 29 July 2020, is the third education policy document of the country, coming after a gap of 34 years since the last one. This article is a brief commentary on some of the relevant concerns around the question of provisioning for good quality universal education, equitable access to education, and the increasing push to wards privatisation.
