NEP 2020: A catalyst for quality research in India

The NEP 2020 is expected to transform Indian education. Research, for the matter of education, was not a priority in India over the last several decades, perhaps National Research Foundation mooted through NEP could bring some hope to the younger generation who are keen in excelling in research field. Also, it could be seen as a step to boost the quality of the research output, writes Vice-Chancellor of Hyderabad University, Prof Appa Rao.

Hyderabad:The Government of India (GoI) has departed from its age-old “Planning Commission” after it implemented a dozen five-year plans (after 60 years). It was renamed as ‘NITI (National Institute for Transforming India) Aayog’ (literally meaning Policy Commission) that has become too familiar in the first five years for the sweeping changes to transform India. The NITI Aayog has pushed accountability in the public expenditure with close monitoring and use of available technologies. The inevitable change was to implement the schemes of GoI in a digital mode and monitor using the Public Fund Management System (PFMS) to bring increased transparency and accountability in spending public money.

Now, the New Education Policy (NEP)-2020, revised after 30 years, is expected to transform Indian education to address the national needs with global standards, with its flexibility and accountability to have improved quality. While there are many new policy guidelines in the NEP-2020, this article will limit broadly to research related policies.

The focus on STEM to be shifted to the STEAM Education and research always go hand in hand. Research has a lot many things to do for a nation to become self-sufficient and is more pertinent when India is talking of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’. The investments made in research will give consistently high returns over a long period of time. The return on investment for the expenditure on research will always be high! Forced exposure of young minds to the cultural, linguistic and socio-economic diversities in school/college/universities in India trigger many students to find solutions to different issues that plague our society. The spirit for research in Humanities and Social Sciences stems from such exposure, which gets sharpened in Universities that nurture the research culture. But, research in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects largely happens outside of the Universities.

The University researchers compete with the scientists in India on one hand and with global leaders in these subjects on the other side. The advantage for Universities is the inflow of young talent year after the year. The NEP-2020 envisioned to see a large number of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), including Universities, IITs/NIITs to transform as multidisciplinary Institutions. The policy intends to see the transformation of the HEIs into STEAM (bringing in a significant component of Arts) focused Institutions and not limit their research to STEM subjects. In the process, the policy has emphasized the importance of arts and social sciences for the world in general and India in particular.

National Research Foundation

Several of the Indian professors experience one sharp observation made by contemporaries in developed countries on the unique pattern of investment on research in India. Over 15,000 research fellowships and a couple of thousands of post-doctoral fellowships are supported by the GoI. Over and above, we have attractive and highly competitive research fellowships available under the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) scheme. The research fellowships in India are primarily to attract and motivate the talented youth to passionately explore curiosity-driven research without attaching strings. Such large-scale support to the young researchers, with direct research fellowships for Ph. D., awarded through a national level competition, is unique for India.

Research grants have also been liberally given (compared to the global competition for research grants) to researchers in HEIs and scientists in research laboratories at a reasonably high success rate. Research infrastructure support has been generously granted to the HEIs that have performed well in the given circumstances. Different schemes were implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), University Grants Commission (UGC) etc., in addition to the grants given directly to the individual or group of researchers.

Making use of such support, a few centrally-funded HEIs like Banaras Hindu University Delhi University, University of Hyderabad etc., have excelled with quality research output to get a coveted status called Institution of Eminence (IoE). These Universities joined the league of research-intensive premier institutions like the Indian Institute of Science and couple of IITs that got the IoE. India requires more such HEIs to become Research Universities, and the NEP-2020 has articulated this point.

The fellowships to the meritorious students and research grants to the researchers and scientists have dramatically improved the research culture in India. Fine-tuning of the current approach is essential to bring in more accountability for the taxpayers' money spent on research. The National Research Foundation (NRF) mooted through the NEP-2020 could be seen as one step to achieve an increased degree of transparency and accountability with a goal to boost quality of the research output. The NRF has to frame research priorities, identify national needs, support researchers to carry out research at global standards and monitor the performance of individuals or groups receiving research funds. The NEP looks at the NRF as an instrument to transform the research ecosystem in the country.

Nurture the Research Culture

A country with over 1000 HEIs, we need to have more of them to qualify as research Universities. Both the Central and State Governments have to carefully devise strategies and identify non-overlapping areas to complement each other’s efforts. The GoI on its part has to evolve schemes built over the success stories of the Central Universities to promote high-quality research without compromising on research ethics. Given the complexities and inertia in the public institutions, a model that gives permanent employment has to be tweaked to a model that builds responsibility and accountability, which may not be the same as hiring services of professionals for a tenure of 5 or 7 years.

Confidence giving guaranteed appointment to the youngsters that requires a minimum output could be a hybrid model. Initial signs indicate that such a hybrid model stood the test in Indian Institute of Science and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER). At the same time, it is also important to ensure that the HEIs should have built a healthy research culture.

A culture that promotes asking good research questions, a culture that promotes incremental or disruptive innovation, a culture that provides start-up grants to the youngsters, a culture that encourages collaboration, a culture that is open to interdisciplinary research, a culture that allows researchers to address big questions etc., has to be built and nurtured in more and more HEIs, for India to compete globally.

The State Universities, which are in large numbers, face an altogether different set of problems. Most of the state universities stare at the largest pool of youngsters with the smallest pool of resources including the availability of faculty. The faculty recruitment happens once in blue moon, with a yawning gap of 10-20 years, dampens the research opportunities.

Several campuses suffer from lack of adequate infrastructure to think of research. The situation forces the young researchers to run pillar to the post to pursue their research goals. A few campuses have irregular water and electricity supply, leave alone the uninterrupted Internet services. There is an urgent need for several of the State Governments to pull up socks to rejuvenate the University campuses if they have to build and sustain a research culture and remain in the competition to get the status as research Universities.

The role models for the state Universities to emulate could be Anna University, Savitribai Phule University of Pune, Jadavpur University, Punjab University etc., Education being a concurrent subject, the GoI has to devise a larger coordination effort with the states to realize the dreams of building the nation on research strengths and carry out research that serves the local needs but is of global standards. It requires an efficient management system that facilitates evaluation on fingertips (on laptops or mobiles) without regular face-to-face meetings. The experience of video conference-based meetings in the pandemic situation will be the new normal to avoid long journeys for short meetings, saving both energy and resources, and more importantly increase the efficiency.