New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday called for “maximum flexibility” in implementing the new national education policy and said it is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to put into effect the policy in letter and spirit.
West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, however, said the policy undermines the country’s federal structure, and it will not be implemented in the state any time soon. His Delhi counterpart Manish Sisodia claimed that the NEP lacks a roadmap for implementation and needs proper planning so that it is not reduced to just a wonderful idea.
The NEP, which was approved by the Union cabinet in July, replaces the 34-year-old national policy on education framed in 1986 and is aimed at paving the way for transformational reforms in school and higher education systems.
“We have to collectively address all doubts. The vision of flexibility with which this policy was brought… We will have to show in a similar way maximum flexibility in implementing it,” Modi said while addressing the ‘Governors’ conference on the role of NEP in transforming higher education’.
The conference was attended by President Ram Nath Kovind, Education Ministers from states and Union territories, and vice chancellors besides governors.
The President said the new NEP aims to achieve at the earliest joint investment of Centre and states to six per cent of GDP in the field of public education as has been consistently clarified from the 1968 Education Policy to the current one.
Likening the education policy to defence and foreign policies, the Prime Minister said they belong to the country not government
It is natural for stakeholders to have questions about various aspects of the policy and “we are all working to address all these questions”, he said.
Criticising the new NEP, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who attended the conference, said it encourages privatisation and “hurts” the spirit of cooperative federalism.
“The new policy encourages commercialisation and privatisation. As the Union government did not consult with states before preparing it, despite education being a part of the Constitution’s concurrent list, implementing it would hurt the spirit of cooperative federalism,” he said.
Bengal Education Minister Chatterjee said he has objected to the Centre’s decision of not including ‘Bengali’ in the list of classical languages, during his address at the meeting.
“There is no question of implementing NEP in the state for the time being. More discussions need to be held on the matter with all stakeholders,” he said.
“We have expressed our reservations about certain aspects of the NEP, which have been framed without taking Bengal into confidence. They undermine the country’s federal structure and the role of the states,” the minister, who attended the conference, told reporters.
Chatterjee also said that NEP implementation can wait, as the state currently needs to focus on the COVID situation.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, said, “The new national education policy lacks the action plan to implement it”.
