Student Struggle – July 23, 2019

current list and centre began sharing a major
role. Even after that the primary and second-

ary level of education remained mostly un-
der the arena of state governments. The NEP

submitted by the Kasthurirangan committee
proposes a complete alteration of this aspect.
One single method have been proposed in

administrative, academic and structural level
for the entire country. This itself is a viola-

tion of the federal values of the constitution.
The idea of ‘Indian-Centred’ education need
not be completely isolated from all other ori-

entations emerged in foreign lands, rather it
should be an amalgamation of the deferral

characters, democratic ethos and vibrant di-
versity of the country in every aspect. But in
contradictory, the NEP has copied many of

the failed neo-liberal experiments from the
global experiences and heavily neglected the

divergent plans and programmes the peo-
ple of India needs according to the specific
conditions of their societies. We welcome

the recommendation of renaming the HRD
Ministry as the Ministry of Education. But

just a renaming will lead to no progressive
change unless a concrete plan is made to en-
sure fruitful functioning of the entire system.

While the draft proposes to rename the min-
istry on the one side, it also proposes a more

rigid and centralised political intervention in
the name of national education commission
(which is a supreme authority of all matters

pertaining to education) led by the supreme
political leadership and with prime minister

as the head. This is a governing body which
has a lesser participation of people of aca-
demia but filled with the political leadership

and the high level bureaucrats. Such a state
intervention will only destroy the democrat-

ic nature of any academic system. The pro-

posed national education commission head-

ed by prime minister will shape the entire

education system into a tool in the hands of

supreme political leadership of the country.

This proposal must be withdrawn and the

constitutionally guaranteed federal character

of education should be upheld.

School System

Changes in large scale have been proposed

in school education in the NEP. If the New

education policy is implemented there are

all possibilities for the autonomous elected

school boards to be merged to form larger

boards. The proposed national education

commission is a sign of it. The autonomous

schools boards are responsible for decen-

tralised management of school clusters.

This includes teacher appointments, school

structure, academic calendar and time ta-

ble, curriculum, standards and exams etc.

At any point, this cannot be managed under

one centralised system as the diversity in dif-

ferent arenas, from the geographical condi-

tions, historical experiences to the specific

needs of each state are varying. The direction

in the new education policy will only under-

mine the democratic participation of people

in the decision making with consequent de-

cline in the quality of management. The draft

proposes a formal schooling system from the

age of three. This is contrary to the globally

accepted norm that formal schooling should

be after the age of five. ‘Early childhood

education and pre-schooling’ is only a pre-

parative phase before actual schooling. Inte-

grating it with the formal schooling would

not bring any positive outcome, instead it

would reverse the welfare role played by the

Student Struggle | June - July 2019 13