Member of the Draft Committee of the New Education Policy (NEP) Professor T.V. (Tejaswi) Kattimani has said that the New Education Policy approved by the Union Cabinet will alleviate “educational divisions” in the existing system and help students pursue courses in various disciplines depending on their interest.
In an interaction with media persons in Hubballi on Thursday, Prof. Kattimani, who is also former Vice-Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak, said that the NEP would bring rural India comprising various skills of farming, pottery, animal husbandry, horticulture and others to the educational mainstream.
Prof. Kattimani said that although 70 % of the people in the country reside in villages and 60 % are dependent on agriculture, the modern education system had neglected the rural education comprising skills and traditional knowledge. “Many are under the wrong perception that having white collar jobs is education. But the main objective of the New Educational Policy is to make the rural India an important part of the texts and achieve compatibility in education and employment,” he said.
Emphasising the need for setting up a system wherein trained scientists use traditional knowledge and time-tested methods to find advanced solutions to existing problems, Prof. Kattimani said that the NEP aimed at achieving this objective.
Role of teachers
Prof. Kattimani said that the failure of the Indian education system was because of teachers. He said that while elected representatives, bureaucrats and the general public too had contributed to the failure, the responsibility of teachers was more. He, however, said that it was teachers alone who could bring about an educational revolution in the country through their commitment and perseverance.
He said that the NEP barred teachers from being used for non-educational activities thus helping them to focus on their core duties. The NEP also focussed on strengthening the government educational institutions while, at the same time, regulating private institutions.
He said that he was against setting up of universities for agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry as the farmer who was engaged in all these activities never made a distinction between them. These universities should not end up sending graduates who would seek jobs but, instead, they should provide comprehensive education on all aspects of farming, he said.
Stressing on the need for increasing budgetary allocation for education, he said that NEP had already made this recommendation and, also increasing allocation annually. “Without modifying and strengthening primary education, it is difficult to improve higher education. NEP aims at bringing in more cultural and social values into the education system,” he said.
To a query, Prof. Kattimani said that Tamil Nadu and Punjab had become model States in the country as they had achieved success in providing higher education in native languages and there was a need for similar initiatives elsewhere. However, Prof. Kattimani declined to comment on why the draft policy was announced without facilitating a debate in Parliament.