Experts sought a closer look at the draft National Education Policy, calling for reforms that would minimise the scope for further privatisation of the education sector, at a day-long session held in the city on Wednesday.
“There is no dearth of policies, but what is lacking is their effective implementation to achieve the aspirations of the Government and other stakeholders,” said Lok Satta founder Jaya Prakash Narayan here on Wednesday.
Addressing the South India Regional Consultation to review the draft National Education Policy, organised by Save the Children in collaboration with National Coalition for Education (NCA) and Right to Education, Mr. Narayan said that though the policy was being claimed as futuristic, it left a lot of scope for privatisation.
Mr. Narayan stressed the need for legislation that would prevent teachers from being engaged in non-teaching activities.
At the end of the day-long session, the meeting made recommendations urging authorities to focus on key issues like access, equity, quality, affordability and accountability. The recommendations will be sent to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.
The speakers said around ₹7,000 was spent on the education of each child but a quality assessment mechanism for measuring learning outcomes was missing. State governments must be given freedom to decide the medium of instruction. Transparency, infrastructure development and adequate teacher training must be the cornerstones of the education sector, the speakers said.
Other priority areas included steps to ensure quality in private management colleges as they were high in number, inclusion of a ‘Comprehensive School Safety’ in the curriculum, recruitment of only trained teachers, measures to address the school needs of children in streets, especially of the physically challenged ones and frequent checks of data management to avoid duplication.
Lakshmi, director of Andhra Mahila Sabha, Vikas Gora, Save the Children general manager (South India) and Murali, national member of Forum for RTE took part.