Nagpur: Minister of state for human resource development Satyapal Singh on Thursday visited the RSS headquarters here to deliberate on the new education policy that is being drafted by the Narendra Modi government.
“Yes, we will address the issues raised from time to time by the RSS, including imparting primary education in Indian/local languages. Besides, how the ancient Indian knowledge can by included in modern school curriculum will also be examined,” Singh asserted just before meeting the RSS top brass.
He said the first draft of the new education policy could be ready by March 31. A five-member committee headed by former chief of ISRO Prof Kasturirangan has been given the task of drafting the policy.
Speaking informally to reporters at Rajwada Palace on the sidelines of a seminar on ‘Edu Vision 2020’, Singh, a former police commissioner of Nagpur, said the new education policy is also expected to deal with concerns like affordability, enhancing quality, accountability of institutions, digital education and integrating education with essential life skills. The seminar was organized by Central India Group of Institutions run by Mehmuda education Society.
Singh found himself in the headlines recently when he declared that the Darwin’s theory of evolution was ‘scientifically not correct’ as no one had ever witnessed man evolving from ape. On Tuesday he said, “Allopathy could be mixed with Ayurveda and Unani to produce drugs that are best suited to treat ailments.”
He said the idea struck as he stood to make his valedictory speech at the seminar which had pharmacy education as one of the topics of deliberations.
“There are certain diseases for which Allopathy has no cure. But if combined with Ayurveda or Unani or Homoeopathy some efficacious drugs can be developed, it will be worth it to give relief to patients,” he added. “The medical education should focus on how to avoid diseases and live healthy life instead of cure after contracting ailments,” Singh stressed.
“The objective of education should be to liberate, give happiness to individual and the society in general and help the nation progress,” he said addressing the student community attending the seminar. Citing the large scale vacancies in engineering colleges, he said it was the direct result of the courses getting outdated.
“Only 11 to 13% of those passing from our engineering colleges were actually employable,” he said while laying stress on continuous upgradation of curriculum to make them relevant to changing times.
Singh announced that a marathon 36-hour national level interaction with around 1 lakh engineers would start at 8am on March 30 in which Prime Minister Modi, through videoconferencing, will elicit views of the young minds on major issues before the nation.
