Dublin Descriptors, Bologna Process, and Indian learners

The UGC is currently on a spree, releasing ‘guiding’ documents in quick succession in line with the NEP 2020’s ‘light but tight’ control. One such recent addition to the mix is the National Higher Education Qualifications Framework (NHEQF), adding to the chaos. To make India a Vishwaguru and to get rid of the Macaulayvian colonial education system, this document takes copious support from the Bologna Process and Dublin Descriptors and gives due references to their theoretical framework for two pages in this 63-page document. The Bologna process was a series of inter-ministerial meetings of European countries to arrive at comparable qualifications for degrees across the European continent for the mobility of their students across the continent. The Dublin Descriptors are the ‘learning outcomes’ designed by a few educationists in Europe. These ‘reforms’ in education happened some two decades ago, near the dawn of the 21st century. It is not only the space-time gap that the UGC has ignored but also the ‘context’ of and for education, which are vastly different in Europe and India. Education is not only about an individual’s learning capacities and capabilities but is also about sociocultural and politico-economic factors that determine learning and the construction of knowledge.

This document affirms that India has one of the largest systems and networks of higher education institutions (HEIs), with 1,043 universities, 42,393 colleges, and 11,779 standalone institutions catering to the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 27.1 per cent, and by 2030 aims to raise it to 50 per cent. It fails to acknowledge India’s sheer size, federal structure, and education being on a concurrent list, with states spending more on education than the centre’s contribution. The proposed NHEQF seemingly does not have much faith in continuous comprehensive learning and advocates multiple entry and exits in a graduate programme. In an undergraduate degree, there are three entry-exit options: certificate, diploma, and degree as an award after each year by pursuing 10 credit bridge courses, out of which six credit courses must be of ‘employable’ qualifications. NHEQF does not shy away from establishing and reaffirming the education-employment relationship. Though rhetorically, MHRD is renamed the Ministry of Education (MoE), yet the ‘objectives’ of this document explicitly state that it was drafted for education to be’more demand-focused and user-friendly’, and also to’reduce the mismatch
between education and the labour market.’

Earlier too, it was believed that schooling and the school reproduce the status quo and work as conveyor belts, creating skilled hands for the labour market and committed citizenry for the State, but this was not underlined as a ‘legitimate’ and ‘valid’ natural outcome of learning. The learning and knowledge were believed to be beyond earning a livelihood and being a ‘productive’ member only. Even within this ‘degree within a degree framework’, the qualifying marks and percentage are eulogised with an option wherein the learner in her third year achieves a 7.5 CGPA, she can go for the fourth year of graduation for a degree with Honours, and if she does a research-intensive course, she can be awarded a degree with research paving her way for admission into a one-year PG degree or directly to a PhD.

The NHEQF has earmarked every level of higher education, beginning from 5 to 10. However, a PG diploma has equivalence to the 4th year of a UG degree. It can be problematic for some UG degrees that are pursued after a graduation degree, like BEd or LLB; these are PG programmes but UG degrees. The NHEQF suggests 1-year, 2-year, and 4-year BEd programmes for aspiring teachers. The level of appropriation accorded to these remains a mystery in this document. Similarly, how and why a learner with a graduation degree will pursue a PhD, as for the National Eligibility Test, for which a PG degree is mandatory and remains a basic qualification for becoming a teacher in a college or university, also remains unresolved.

Also, the basic calculations for credit hours pose another problem. One credit is to be supported by 15 hours of direct teaching and 30 hours of indirect teaching-learning, which is 45 hours per credit, and for someone pursuing 20 credits, this works out to 900 hours per semester. Excluding examinations and vacation time in a year, this will require 10 hours of work every day. Even if the UGC mandates every HEI to do all the faculty appointments and creates the basic infrastructure in every institution, achieving this will remain a remarkable feat.

This draft and NEP 2020 also talk about the Academic Bank of Credits and their accumulation and transfer, but both remain silent on their how-abouts. Some are getting credits from a B-grade university (even though the grading and procedures for NAAC grading are very doubtful and suspicious) and can shift them to an A/A+ or an O-graded university, or credits from a private university to a state- or centre-funded university/institution again remain unanswered.

The myth and mystery of ‘learning outcomes’ borrowed plentifully from Dublin Descriptors too remain elusive in this document. Learning outcomes, whether specific to a discipline or generic, do not apply to every discipline, from physics or mathematics to history, music, or physical education. The rush to create ‘multi-talented’ global citizens is visible in the whole megalomania for the learning outcomes, specific higher education framework, from complex problem solving to research skills to collaborative working to leadership style to the multicultural aptitude to environmental awareness to empathy. All these, along with discipline-specific outcomes, are to be evolved with every programme and course, and these should be objectively mappable and measurable. This is what is suggested by the NHEQF. The Indian learner, her socio-economic-historical-cultural context, and many being the first generation to reach college or university have been ignored and get short shrift by this framework when she was expecting an impetus for the indigenous knowledge systems and the twenty-first century curricula and pedagogy.

(Furqan Qamar, former adviser for education in the Planning Commission, is a professor of management at Jamia Millia Islamia. Navneet Sharma teaches in the Dept of Education, Central University of Himachal Pradesh)