Not about rights and equity The National Education Policy 2020, quietly approved without a parliamentary debate amidst the traumatic COVID-19 pandemic, does not address the urgent concerns of millions of students. Its thrust on ‘consolidation’ and centralisation is detrimental to equity and inclusion, and goes against the constitutional federal structure where states make their policies. The policy contradicts the mandate of the Right to Education Act and denies quality ‘inputs’ to those who need them most. Reconfiguring the school structure for early diversion into minimalist vocational courses, it promotes ‘multiple pathways’ including Open Schooling even at primary stage. Newer hierarchies of ‘skills’ versus ‘knowledge’ are forged within a deeply segregated and stratified system. Moreover, disregarding diverse socio-economic realities of disadvantage and deprivation, and without a commitment to girls’ transformative agency, it threatens to push them out into instrumental trajectories of learning and life. By Anita Rampal
