Ebook: "Decolonising Indian Education: National Education Policy 2020", Ars Artium: An International Refereed Research Journal of English Studies and Culture

Despite their mammoth infrastructure none of the modern Indian educational establishments could make a mark among the top 150 institutions of the world. Nor have they been successful in producing any landmark fundamental or applied research. Even the graduates churned out by them are unemployable, unproductive, irresponsible, self-centred and greedy shirkers with a highly colonial attitude and mind-set. The contemporary Indian education unabashedly and unflinchingly disseminates the colonial conviction that the West is wiser, more just, and more humane and has the panacea for every ill. It being Indian only in its location shows scant respect forIndian culture and traditions. While the system was Anglo-centric earlier, it is Anglo-American-centric now, be it the issue of cultural-ethos, curriculum, medium of instruction, teaching materials and methods, testing methods, qualifications of teachers and learners or funding of education. The modern education creates a mind with the hallmark of imitation and mimicry and it successfully generates a feeling of inferiority, erases memory and cultures, introduces an alien conceptual vocabulary, and produces a shadow/shallow mind whose creativity is smothered with dullness. Through new types of funding/fellowships the Indian minds are being neo-colonised. How the National Education Policy 2020 seeks to transform the imitative mind to a thinking mind rooted in Indian culture and ethics is the theme of this paper. Pros and cons of all the above issues are discussed in the paper with proper reference points from ancient Indian educational history.