Stalin govt boycotts meeting with Union education minister over NEP, other key issues

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu government on Monday boycotted Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal's virtual meeting with the Education department secretaries of the States. This was in protest of the union minister directly interacting with the officials, rather than the state ministers. 

The School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi told media persons that his department has received a communication from the union government that there would be a meeting with the Education Secretary on various subjects including implementation of New Education Policy 2020.  In response, he wrote a letter to Centre underscoring the fact that it would be better if the discussions are held with the State Minister instead of doing that at the official level since a new government has assumed office in Tamil Nadu. But there has been no response to his letter. 

"Despite our request to hold discussions at the Minister-level, the Centre has chosen to go ahead with its plan to hold discussions only with the officials. Protesting this, we have boycotted this meeting. We don't have any intention to confront the Centre but our protest is based on our principles," the Minister said.

The Minister said there are many issues in the NEP 2020 - three language policy, public examinations for the standards III, V and VIII, to be discussed at length, further pointing out that the DMK has already opposed many aspects of the NEP 2020. The Centre did not consider the views expressed by the party. 

The key issues being discussed in the meeting chaired by the union education minister are online education during Covid-19 period, implementation of National Education Policy 2020 and whether class XII exams are feasible in the current scenario.  

The Union Minister is also scheduled to interact with Vice Chancellors of Central Universities on Tuesday and is likely to hold a meeting with the Directors of IITs and IIMs later this week.