Asian Education Podcast

Continuing our series on ‘the politics of education on China’s periphery’, in this episode Ed and Gairan interview Yan Fei, who co-authored a paper for the Comparative Education special issue (60.1) on ‘shifting state policies and the curricular portrayal of China’s minority nationalities’. Dr. Yan has researched the changing depiction of non-Han groups in China’s history textbooks during the entirety of the period of Communist rule, since 1949. In this latest work, co-authored with Edward Vickers, he brings this story up-to-date by examining developments during the Xi Jinping era since 2012.

We begin our discussion by reviewing the earlier history of the curricular treatment of China’s non-Han ‘minorities’. One issue that emerges is the persistent salience of ‘class struggle’ and historical materialism in framing narratives of ‘minority’ history in the late 20th century, even after narratives of the broader Chinese past had begun to embrace (Han) ‘tradition’ and rehabilitate elite ‘patriots’ from China’s past. This reflects a longstanding CCP strategy of emphasising the economic and developmental benefits that ‘minorities’ have enjoyed as a result of Communist rule, and contrasting these with the ‘bad old days’ of pre-revolutionary rule by ‘ethnic’ elites.

However, as is also discussed in our interview with James Leibold and Tenjin Dorjee (Series Two, Episode Three), since the early 2000s there has been a significant shift in official policy on the teaching and portrayal of ‘minority’ cultures and languages. Unrest in Tibet in 2008 and Xinjiang in 2009 fuelled anxiety over the loyalty of Tibetans and Uyghurs, and caused many Han officials and scholars to question a belief that economic development would gradually reconcile such groups to Chinese rule. This is the context for a tightening of various aspects of ‘minority’ policy, including the treatment of non-Han groups in the school curriculum.

2017 witnessed a major restructuring of the school curriculum and of the curriculum development process itself, reversing a process of decentralisation (albeit tentative and limited) that had been launched in 2001-2. This involved recentralising production of textbooks under the auspices of the People’s Education Press (PEP) in Beijing, as well as a significant tightening of the censorship process. PEP now publishes the history textbooks used in schools throughout China (with the exception of Hong Kong).

One question that arises here is the effectiveness of schooling and school textbooks in shaping popular understanding of the past, especially in an era of pervasive digital technology and widespread use of social media (especially amongst the young). Dr. Yan suggests that more research is needed into such matters. But in China, the extent of CCP control over social media and the internet means that information available through these sources may not significantly diverge from what is presented in school textbooks or public museums. If anything, social media discourse will tend to exaggerate or magnify nationalistic messages that are expressed more blandly in textbooks and other official sources. At the same time, the relationship between official historical and popular discourse is not simply one-way; to effectively shape or manipulate mainstream opinion (at least amongst educated, Han urbanites), the Party may need to work with the grain of folk memory.

Although the Xi era has witnessed significant changes in curricular content and the curriculum development process, has there been a real rupture with what came before? Fei suggests that what we have seen under Xi in many respects represents an intensification of trends already underway before 2012. He explains the talk (dating back to just before Xi’s accession to the leadership) of a need for a ‘second generation ethnic policy’. In the aftermath of the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, a number of Chinese commentators on ‘ethnic’ matters argued that the established, Soviet-inspired approach to the ‘nationalities question’ was part of the problem. Rather than encouraging identification with sub-national ‘minorities’, as the old approach was seen as doing, some scholars proposed an emphasis on inculcating a singular ‘national’ identity above all. As Fei notes, while the CCP regime has never explicitly endorsed such calls for a ‘second generation minorities policy’, in practice most of the reforms introduced over the past decade have followed the line proposed by advocates of this shift.

In his PhD dissertation, Fei identified certain topics or periods in Chinese history as especially important or useful for tracking shifting official attitudes towards minorities - for example, the portrayal of the famous Song dynasty general Yue Fei (and his debated status as a ‘National Hero’); and the portrayal of Mongol and Manchu rule in China during the Yuan and Qing dynasties. Changes to the treatment of these periods or issues in the most recent editions of display an intensification of two trends: an emphasis on a teleology of ever-closer ‘national’ unity; and a celebration of traditional Chinese (i.e. Han) culture, stressing the way that non-Han conquest dynasties were transformed (i.e. tamed) by Han influence. Fei also notes a significant change to the narrative of the Qing conquest of Xinjiang in the 18th century, which is portrayed not as a ‘conquest’ at all, but as a response by the central government to ‘rebellion’ on the part of the Uyghurs.

Such changes to the historical narrative taught in Chinese secondary schools may not be immediately noticeable to many students or even their teachers, since the stories of China’s ‘minorities’ occupy a relatively peripheral place in the broader national story. They are deeply felt on the part of ‘minority’ students and communities, in the context of wider efforts to suppress their cultures and languages (discussed in our next episode on Tibetan boarding schools). At the same time, by reinforcing Han chauvinism and nationalist pride in ‘excellent traditional Chinese culture’, recent curricular changes make it more difficult for Han students to understand the situation and sentiments of their ‘minority’ compatriots. This, Fei suggests, is likely to exacerbate Han-‘minority’ tensions in contemporary China.

Suggested readings:

This second season of the Asian Education Podcast features conversations with various contributors to a special issue of the journal Comparative Education on the theme of ‘The Politics of Education on China’s Periphery’. The special issue is devoted primarily to analysis of peripheralised communities on the geographical margins of China - in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. But we’re also talking more generally about those who find themselves on China’s social and cultural margins. For example, we have one article in our collection (by Wan Yi and Edward Vickers) that looks at aspects of educational policy and practice relating to rural migrants and their children.

In this first episode, Edward Vickers, co-editor of this special issue is joined by Gairan Pamei for a discussion with Chen Sicong, the special issue’s other co-editor.

As recently as the 1970s, China was governing by a regime that explicitly dismissed many aspects of Chinese traditional culture in the name of ‘revolution’. But today, the same Communist Party regime portrays what is now termed ‘excellent traditional Chinese culture’ as central to its political legitimacy. Chen Sicong’s article for the special issue helps us understand this ideological transformation and its implications for education, and especially for teaching about citizenship.

Sicong writes very critically of the worldwide tendency over recent decades - enthusiastically embraced by many in China - to portray politics as an outgrowth of essentialised ‘cultures’. We begin by discussing why this ‘cultural turn’ has occurred, not just in China but worldwide.

With more specific reference to the Chinese situation, we then discuss why the Communist Party has become significantly keener since the 1990s on associating itself with traditional culture. We examine what aspects of Chinese ‘tradition’ have been selected by the regime for special emphasis, and why. And we ask whether (or how far) the ‘culturalisation of politics’ in China has been influenced by the ‘cultural turn’ in Western public and academic discourse.

The culturalisation of politics in China did not begin under Xi Jinping, but it has significantly intensified since his assumption of the leadership in 2012. We spend some time discussing what has changed under Xi, and the extent to which the Xi era has witnessed a significant ideological break with what came before. Here we reflect on the meaning of ‘socialism’, noting that in Asian contexts (including modern India as well as contemporary China), dominant interpretations of the concept tend to have emphasised a modernising, statist agenda, rather than prioritising the pursuit of social equality.

This leads us into a consideration of the content and meaning of ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, and its representation in China’s school curriculum. How does this draw on or interpret ideas about Chinese culture or tradition? And how is this related to Xi's signature concept, 'The Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation'?

Attempts to associate the Communist Party with a particular vision of Chinese ‘tradition’ inevitably involve a drive to impose a very particular conception of ‘Chinese’ identity. Sicong argues that the idea of 'Chineseness' underpinning the Xi Jinping Thought curriculum conflates cultural with racial identity. He stresses that grasping the relationship between culture, race and national identity is key to understanding official and popular discourse on nationhood and nationalism in China today.

We briefly consider what the culturalisation of politics in China today implies for the management of relations between the dominant Han population of urban, 'Inner China', and peripheralised regions or peoples. This is a question that is central to many of the papers in the Comparative Education special issue, and one to which we will return in subsequent episodes of the podcast.

In his paper, Sicong writes that 'the culturalist and reductionist construction of politics is liable to confuse Western progressives and deflect international criticism of the CCP, given the pronounced cultural turn of postmodern and 'decolonial' scholarship in the West'. We conclude this episode by discussing the dangers of this sort of reductionism, and its relationship to the failure of much scholarship in the field of educational studies to take a properly critical approach to the analysis of education in Chinese societies.

Sicong Chen is Associate Professor of Citizenship Education at the Department of Education, Kyushu University, Japan. His research focuses on the policy, practice and politics of citizenship education in China, Japan and other East Asian societies. He is the author of The Meaning of Citizenship in Contemporary Chinese Society (Springer, 2018). He has also published articles on global citizenship education and education for social justice.

Readings:

In this final episode of our first season, Edward Vickers talks to Prof. Lin Tzu-Bin of National Taiwan Normal University’s College of Education about one of the most ambitious - and contentious - education policies to be introduced in Taiwan in recent years: the Bilingual Education Policy. Introduced by the current administration of the Democratic Progressive Party (民進黨 or DPP) in 2018, the policy aims to transform Taiwan into a ‘Bilingual Nation’ by 2030.

Positioning himself as a constructive critic, Professor Lin has become one of Taiwan’s leading public commentators on this bilingual education initiative. In this conversation, he and Ed begin by discussing the politics behind the push for bilingualism, as well as the wider debate over language education in Taiwan. As with so much else in Taiwanese culture and public life, issues of identity and of the island’s relationship with China loom large.

Singapore, where Prof. Lin recorded this interview, has frequently been invoked as a model by Taiwanese advocates of bilingualism. But for reasons he and Ed go on to discuss, the Singaporean experience is hard to replicate in the very different context of Taiwan. The declared aim of achieving a bilingual society by 2030 is also unlikely to be achieved, and the setting of such a goal, Lin argues, reflects the political dynamics driving support for this policy within the DPP rather than a sober assessment of educational reality.

Nonetheless, Lin acknowledges the appeal of bilingualism to parents, students and Taiwanese society as a whole. He declares himself a supporter of bilingualism as a long-term goal or aspiration, but seeks to set out a practicable road-map for achieving this. In doing so, he emphasises the importance of building the capacity of Taiwanese teachers to use a Mandarin-English hybrid approach for teaching various schools subject. The use of native-speaking English teachers can make a useful contribution to the teaching of English itself, but does not in his view constitute a magic bullet for speedily achieving bilingualism across the school curriculum.

This conversation illustrates how the politics of English as a global language intersects with the fraught politics of identity in the Taiwanese context. These issues of identity and language politics are ones to which we will return in future episodes of the podcast.

Suggested readings:

The War Heritage Podcast is produced by Tim Winter and colleagues in the WARMAP partnership. A podcast about war and culture in Southeast Asia, it was produced with funding from the UNESCO Jakarta Office. Over the past two decades, Asia has undergone a war memory book, and as the gravity of power in the region shifts away from America and Japan, the legacy of World War II has become a source of acute political tension.

Listeners to the Asian Education Podcast are invited to join Tim Winter, Mark Frost, Toyah Horman, Daniel Schumacher and Edward Vickers for a series of discussions about the challenges of safeguarding heritage in the aftermath of conflict and mass violence, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia. See and read more at http://www.warheritage.info/podcast

Of particular relevance to education are Episodes 8 and 9, hosted by Edward Vickers.

Episode 9, on ‘Vectors of Intangible Cultural Heritage’, looks more closely at the role of education in transmitting or reshaping memories, practices and traditions. Any consideration of intangible cultural heritage needs to take account of how stories, memories, traditions or rituals are transformed, reinterpreted or lost through the passage of time. This episode focuses on the importance of formal education and, in particular, of language to this process of intergenerational transmission. In conversation with Kirsty Sword Gusmao, Helen Ting and Mark Maca, Edward Vickers debates the role of language as a form of superordinate intangible cultural heritage.

Suggested further reading:

Trina Supit (2021). Rebuilding the Education Sector in East Timor during UNTAET: International Collaboration and Timorese Agency. New York and London: Routledge.

Paul Morris, Naoko Shimazu and Edward Vickers (eds) (2013). Imagining Japan in Post-war East Asia: Identity politics, schooling and popular culture. New York and London: Routledge.

Mark Frost, Daniel Schumacher and Edward Vickers (eds) (2019).* Remembering Asia’s World War Two*. New York and London: Routledge.

Shadow education, in the form of examination-preparatory tutorial schooling, is pervasive across much of Asia. The costs in terms of family finances, the narrowing of educational focus and the ex-hausting competitiveness of examination cramming for the youngsters involved have aroused much scholarly commentary. But can shadow education take benign as well as malign forms? And how can regulation help in this respect?

In this episode, Edward Vickers discusses these and related questions with Professor Zhang Wei of East China Normal University in Shanghai. An eminent expert on shadow education, Prof. Zhang has published widely on various aspects of this phenomenon both in the Chinese context and with com-parative reference to other societies in Asia, Europe and worldwide.

Zhang Wei has recently published a new book, The Wild Horse of Shadow Education, that looks comparatively at efforts to regulate the sector in various societies - a focus prompted in part by the re-cent efforts of the Chinese government to clamp down on for-profit tutorial schooling.

Shadow education has long been especially entrenched and widespread in the societies of East Asia. Zhang Wei and Edward discuss some of the reasons for this, with specific reference to the examples of Cambodia, Japan, China - and, for comparison, to Denmark.

Turning to China, they note that the private tutoring industry there expanded enormously from the 1990s until the clampdown of 2021. They explore the reasons for this rapid expansion, and discuss some of the peculiarities of the sector as it developed in the Chinese context.

Attempts have been made to regulate shadow education in various societies at various times. Some years ago, South Korea's government attempted a draconian clampdown on the private tutoring sector, but failed to quash demand. Zhang Wei observes that, in the Chinese context as well, addressing the challenge of moderating demand for tutorial schooling will be crucial to the success of efforts to ‘tame’ the sector. Attempting to limit or regulate supply will not, on its own, quash demand - but merely divert it into other channels (or even further into the ‘shadows’).

With this in mind, Wei and Ed discuss the Chinese government’s 'two reductions' policy, introduced in 2021, which effectively sought to ban for-profit private tutoring overnight. They reflect on what prompted this move, and how successful has it been - or is likely to be.

In her book, Zhang Wei argues that 'shadow education is here to stay' and emphasises the importance of considering shadow education and regular schooling ‘together’. But she also acknowledges the central importance of socio-economic insecurity and factors such as labour market rigidity to the in-tensity of demand for shadow education. Getting to grips with this phenomenon will thus require looking not just at aspects of the education system, but at the wider socio-economic and institutional context.

Suggested readings:

In this episode, Edward Vickers talks to Professor Fazal Rizvi of the University of Melbourne about his recent involvement in recent education reform initiatives in the Kingdom of Bhutan. Famous internationally for its espousal of the ‘Gross Happiness Index’ in place of the conventional notion of GDP, Bhutan is otherwise relatively little understood or researched by outsiders (in part due to stringent controls on access for tourism or leisure travel). But in 2021, Professor Rizvi was invited by counterparts in Bhutan to advise or consult on reforms being pursued by the government there. In this interview, he reflects on his experience so far.

Fazal and Edward begin by discussing how Bhutanese understandings of ‘happiness’ may be somewhat more complex than is often appreciated by those familiar with the GHI. They then review the education reform agenda as enunciated by the King in his 2021 ‘Kasho’ elaborated subsequently by the Prime Minister in 2021, noting its broad scope and ostensibly rather conventional concern with ‘skills’ and employability (understandable in the context of Bhutan’s chronic youth unemployment). The Bhutanese Government regards reform as both necessary and urgent.

But to understand the context out of which the drive for reform has emerged, Fazal emphasizes the need to understand the history of Bhutan’s education system. The character of the system has been profoundly influenced by the involvement of Indian educators, but by comparison with most parts of India it has been ‘spectacularly’ successful. Since the 1970s, access to schooling has expanded rapidly, resulting in comparatively high levels of basic literacy and numeracy today (almost universal amongst younger Bhutanese).

What has enabled this educational success, in a country that has remained relatively impoverished and isolated? Part of this story involves the geopolitical strategic position of Bhutan, wedged between India and China along their Himalayan border. This helps explain the willingness of the Indian government to offer various forms of support to its small neighbour.

Despite the considerable success of educational development in Bhutan (or perhaps because of it), the government in recent years has been seeking to promote ‘innovation’, in particular through the establishment of a new, experimental school, the Royal Academy of Bhutan. Created in 2013 under the leadership of the Indian educational reformer, Arun Kapur, the Academy has now been in existence for 10 years. Adopting a ‘baccalaureate’ approach to curriculum and development, Kapur has sought to depart from the conventional, narrowly examination-focused approach that typifies schooling in Bhutan as in India. Central to the initiative is a focus of education on five areas of development, not only cerebral but also physical, social, emotional and spiritual, in an attempt to grounds educational practice in Bhutan’s cultural traditions.

Fazal explains the vision behind this reforming ‘pilot project’, and the way it has been enacted at the Royal Academy. He notes how the initial pilot was declared a success, but that problems have arisen in relation to attempts to ‘transition’ the experiment to a wider range of schools. Fazal himself was approached in 2021 precisely to advise on this matter. Crucial here are limitations of resources, personnel and training, which make it difficult to replicate the Royal Academy model in schools across Bhutan, or at least affect the speed with which this can be done.

The reform project is ongoing, and its ultimate outcome remains unclear, but while recognizing the difficulties involved in ‘scaling up’ an innovative model of this kind, Prof. Rizvi sees the development of the Bhutan Baccalaureate by the Royal Academy itself as an impressive achievement.

Recommended readings:

In March 2023, Edward Vickers recorded an interview with Professor Krishna Kumar (Episode 7) in which they discussed the reform of the curricula and textbooks produced by India’s National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) during Prof. Kumar’s term as Director between 2005 and 2010. To the surprise of many - including Prof. Kumar - the NCERT curricula and related teaching materials produced then had remained substantially unaltered down to the present day (2023). The BJP regime that took power at the centre in 2014 had so far refrained from seeking to impose a major curricular revision.

However, this situation changed in April 2023, when significant cuts to NCERT textbooks were announced. The changes included:

In this follow-up (recorded in May 2023) to his earlier interview, Prof. Kumar talks to Edward about what these cuts signify. Why were they introduced now, in 2023? How have they been justified? How much impact are they likely to have on actual teaching and learning (given that the majority of India’s schools do not use NCERT texts)? Or does the significance of these changes lie more in their political symbolism - as a signal or rallying call to the central government’s Hindu nationalist supporters? And what do these cuts to textbooks portend for NCERT’s planned new National Curriculum Framework, to be issued in 2024?

Prof. Kumar explains how the recent cuts to textbooks have been justified as a means of ‘rationalising’ the curriculum or reducing the ‘burden’ on learners, invoking arguments that have long been used by advocates of curricular reform. However, he emphasises that simply removing sections from textbooks, in so far as it undermines the coherence of the course of study, is likely to cause greater confusion and difficulty for students.

The recent changes can be seen as part of a drive to reinforce the more traditional, top-down, didactic form of pedagogy that NCERT’s 2005 Curriculum Framework had sought to challenge and dislodge. And this didacticism is related to a political vision that emphasises discipline and control. In political terms, the 2005 Framework was intended in part to signal India’s status as a plural, diverse, democratic society. By contrast, these new changes seek to assert pride in a monolithically Hindu vision of Indian civilisation, represented as pure, unique and unsullied by ‘foreign’ elements. The likelihood is that this vision will be further elaborated in NCERT’s 2024 National Curriculum Framework.

Speculating about the likely impact of these curricular changes, Prof. Kumar wonders how many of India’s states are likely to adopt the latest NCERT textbooks or its forthcoming National Curriculum Framework. He suggests that this new injection of ideology into debate over India’s state school curriculum may accelerate the trend for wealthier Indians to opt out of the state system entirely, and instead send their children to private, international schools that follow a curriculum detached from the local context. This may in turn exacerbate a fracturing of Indian society, with indoctrination prescribed for the masses, while elites secure a liberal education for their own children.

At the same time, Prof. Kumar warns that we should not overestimate the capacity of education on its own to achieve politicians’ ideological goals. The school curriculum will remain a site of contestation, and crude attempts at curricular control may rebound on the regime. Forces in India’s states and at various levels of society that have maintained the country’s diversity will not simply ‘die’ or disappear, and ideologically-driven attempts to suppress diversity may provoke more intense forms of resistance that could ultimately undermine the authority of the ideologues.

Suggested readings:

In this episode, Edward Vickers interviews Professor Krishna Kumar ‘on location’ in Chandigarh, India. Professor Kumar, formerly of the Central Institute of Education at Delhi University, is a distinguished theorist of education and prominent commentator on a range of educational issues in India and more widely. From 2005 to 2010, he was the Director of India’s National Council for Educational Research and Training. Appointed to that position by the new Congress-led UPA government shortly after its 2004 electoral victory, Prof. Kumar took charge of an institution widely seen as having been used for political purposes by the preceding BJP-led NDA government.

The conversation begins with a survey of India’s complex educational landscape, especially as it pertains to the roles of the central (‘Union’) and state governments in curriculum development. Prof. Kumar emphasises the often under-appreciated strength of Indian federalism, and its significance for education. The design of curricula and teaching materials for most Indian schools is determined at state or provincial level, and curriculum development in powerful states or provinces such as Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala is often conducted with limited reference to debates in Delhi. Nevertheless, NCERT's curricula and textbooks hold significance not only for the minority of schools directly under the authority of the central government, but also as a point of reference for curriculum developers at state level (especially in some of India’s smaller states).

Reflecting on the reforms that NCERT undertook during his Directorship, Prof. Kumar explains how he saw his task as involving far more than restoring or reaffirming the secular tenets of the school curriculum that the BJP had undermined. He elaborates the child-centred pedagogic vision that informed the curriculum reforms he oversaw, and how this was related to efforts to transcend simplistic ideological or political divisions.

Turning to perhaps the most sensitive area of the curriculum, the teaching of history, Prof. Kumar explains how he and his colleagues sought to apply the child-centred approach to this and related areas such as political or citizenship education. The approach to history education inherited from the colonial era had presented students with a ready-made, monolithic and ostensibly ‘correct’ narrative of the past. Instead, Prof. Kumar’s team at NCERT sought to devise a curriculum that would make learners aware of the constructed and contested nature of history as a form of knowledge. The new curriculum was designed not simply to tell children what we know about the past, but crucially to prompt them to reflect on how we know what we know.

This approach to teaching history implies an emphasis on the agency of the learner - a vision of students not just as passive recipients of pre-packaged historical knowledge, but as active interpreters of historical evidence. This in turn implies a vision of students as active citizens in-the-making. But as Prof. Kumar explains, the promotion of active citizenship was more explicitly the remit of a new subject that was introduced as part of the NCERT’s curriculum reforms: Social and Political Life. This was designed to replace the old Civics subject, whose didactic pedagogical approach was again traceable to a colonial concern with disciplining and controlling a subject population. By contrast, Social and Political Life sought to encourage students to bring issues of direct concern to them into the classroom, as a means of realising the child-centred vision underpinning the curriculum reforms.

The participatory vision of pedagogy was also reflected in aspects of the curriculum development process itself. Here there was also a consultative, participatory element, involving discussions with teachers from various parts of India (facilitated by satellite link-ups with more remote parts of the country). These consultations were important not only for bringing into play different perspectives on the purposes or aims of various school subjects, but also for drawing attention to complex factors - such as teachers’ capacity and the availability of academic resources - with implications for curriculum design and implementation.

Moving on from discussion of the curriculum reforms of the early 2000s, the conversation touches on more recent developments in relevant to education. These include the implications of the Right to Education legislation introduced under the Congress-led administration; the effects of widespread social media use on the consciousness and political engagement of young people; and the educational impact of the recent Covid pandemic. The conversation also touches on the increasing marketisation and commercialisation of the education sector, and what this means for equality of access and curricular emphasis. (These issues are discussed more fully in Season 1: Episodes 5 and 6.)

This interview was conducted in late March, 2023, by which point the reformed curriculum had been in use for around 17 years. Many observers had expected the new curriculum to be swept away after the BJP ousted the Congress-led government in the elections of 2014. But a committee tasked by the new administration with reviewing the curriculum concluded that there was no need for major reform. In celebrating the unexpected longevity of the reformed curriculum, Prof. Kumar thus comments here that is has ‘not only survived, but sustained with splendid stability’. However, as we discuss in a follow-up interview (Episode 8), significant revisions to NCERT textbooks introduced in April 2023 have since required that this verdict be updated.

Suggested readings:

This episode continues the conversation begun in Episode 5 with Professor Anita Rampal, former Dean of the Faculty of Education at Delhi University. We further discuss the growing ascendency of ‘non-state actors’ in Indian education, with a focus on the push for the use of technology in teaching and assessment. In India, educational technology is today widely embraced as a means of ‘democratising’ education for the poorest. There has been an impetus from the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and NITI Aayog for increased use of artificial intelligence, digital platforms, machine learning and adaptive assessment of students. Anita discusses several ethical issues raised by the push for the use of technology in education and for learning assessments, including:

Recommended readings:

In this episode of the Asian Education Podcast, we are joined by Professor Anita Rampal, who was the Dean of the Faculty of Education at Delhi University and has over 40 years of active engagement with the state education system in India. Her long and rich career as an educationist includes her involvement in the development of the 2005 National Curriculum Framework, in particular, serving as Chairperson of the NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and Training) Textbook Development Committee. Against the backdrop of UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report for 2021/2022 on ‘non-state actors’ in education and its exceedingly positive assessments of key Indian actors such as Pratham and the Central Square Foundation, we discuss the ascendency of ‘non-state actors’ in the Indian education policy landscape and its implications for the right to education – and what is happening on the ground to students and teachers.

In the second part of the episode, Anita discusses the segregation of students in Delhi schools (based on an approach promoted by Pratham, J-PAL, and the Central Square Foundation known as ‘Teaching at the Right Level’), the rise of public-private partnerships, and the implications of these recent developments for inclusive and equitable quality education. The themes discussed include:

Recommended readings: