Intersectionality in the National Education Policy 2020: A Study on Gender-Caste And Gender-Religion Through Socio-Cultural Barriers in Primary Education

Abstract

Primary education is globally identified as an important determinant of the development of a person and remains an elusive prospect to many in India (Randhawa 2019). However, this inequality in the access and retention of primary education is inequal; students from the Scheduled Castes and Muslim community are less likely to receive quality primary education, and girl students are disadvantaged than their male counter-parts in accessing quality primary education. Post-Independence, education has become a nucleus driving national policies on education, several committees and national, state-wide and local schemes to reduce these two disparities of education. As a result of the individual focuses, policies have been siloed in their focus and education has not penetrated till the last rung of the Indian society. Recent works on policy have shifted the focus onto Intersectional Policy, taking from feminist theories, to enable policy-makers to look at the individuals and communities in a society constrained and affected by their different identities and the power relations. This study seeks to analyse the National Education Policy 2020 in India through an intersectional framework studying the gender-caste and gender-religious intersectionalities. Due to the lack of previous work on intersectionality in education policy, the study undertook an extensive literature review to identify the barriers to primary education for girls, Scheduled Castes and Muslim students and created a Policy Action Framework with the NEP 2020 to understand the intersectional approach. The study found that the National Education Policy 2020 had stated in its goals to achieve intersectional access to education, but however most of its policies were found to be not intersectional in nature. Using the Kothari Commission’s report, due to its foundational developments in promoting backward classes education, the NEP 2020’s approach towards intersectional communities as a single Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Group has been analysed as a goal towards primary education equity.