Knowledge, Inequality
and Education: The Political Economy of New Education Policy in Higher
Education in India
Ish N. Mishra
The
concept of knowledge, in
terms of the ideas, imaginations and values regarding the visible world of the
objects and the invisible world of ideas, as the source of hegemony in all the ages, is
prehistoric and predates the institutions of education. The system of education
began with the advent of civilization after the disintegration of the primitive
communal egalitarianism due to the emergence of inequalities for historical
reasons and the class division of the societies. The institutions of education
emerged to define, manage, homogenize and monopolize the knowledge to maintain
the hegemony of the ruling classes. The education is one of the most effective
ideological apparatuses of the ruing classes in transforming the ruling class ideas
are the ruling ideas. The neoliberal political economy of the global capital
needs neo-liberal education in place of liberal one in order to sustain
it. That is why the WTO included it in
GATS as a tradable service. Indian government that in principles has committed
to sign the treaty, has resorted to hurriedly impose drastic, arbitrary changes
in the education policy in violation of the established statutory procedures,
in order to pave the way for full implementation of GATS provisions. This paper
seeks to examine various aspects of the political economy of India’s new
education policy documents in the historical perspective and its linkages with global
capital that is no more geocentric either in terms of its source or the
destination. Most appropriate method to deal with the subject is the historical
method.
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