TN keeps off meeting on national edu policy

DMK wanted its new education minister also to be a part of the meeting

Sending across a strong message to the Centre on Tamil Nadu’s disillusionment over the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the DMK government did not let the State Education Secretary attend a meeting called by Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on Monday.

When the Union HRD Minister called for the online meeting to discuss the implementation of NEP, the DMK government wrote back saying that it would like its new Minister for School

Education also to take part in the discussions as the State had certain reservations on the issue.

Since the Centre did not bother to reply to the email, the Education Secretary kept off the virtual meeting at 11 am convened with three agendas – conducting online education in view of Covid-19, implementation of NEP and feasibility of holding class 12 examinations in the present situation.

Stating that it would not be proper to call it a ‘boycott,’ School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi said the DMK Government felt that the meeting should take note of the Minister’s view and not just that of the officials alone.

It was a matter that concerned the future of student and not something to be politicized, Poyyamozhi told the media in Trichy, clarifying the DMK’s stand on the NEP.

Even when the draft proposals of NEP were brought out in 2019, DMK President M K Stalin had raised a slew of objections and the party’s MPs had also followed it up, he said.

Among the things unacceptable to the DMK when the NEP was announced in 2020 were the holding of public examination for students of Standard 3, 5 and 8, the mandatory vocational courses and the three language formula, the Minister said.

‘Delhi cannot decide what the people of Tamil Nadu, especially those in the rural areas, should learn,’ Poyyamozhi said, adding that the plan to introduce vocational training seemed to be a move to re-introduce the practice hereditary professions, under which students would have to take up the same work done by their ancestors.

Also the manner in which the three language formula was being introduced would render the learning of English useless as the NEP stipulates the learning of two Indian languages, he said. It was a bid to impose Hindi on the students, he said.

Poyyamozhi pointed out that the NEP was silent about reservation. What would happen to BC, SC and ST reservation in education was not in the policy and hence we wanted to raise a lot of issues, he said.

Another point that he raised was that while students were admitted to school only when they turned five years in most developed countries, the NEP envisaged the starting of school at the pre-KG level and also permits students to drop out whenever they wanted.

The DMK has been consistent on its opposition to NEP, right from the beginning, particularly in view of the fact that the two language policy followed in the State was brought in during the rule of C N Annadurai and adhered to by M Karunanidhi.

Also the DMK, which first came to power in 1967, by opposing the imposition of Hindi on the people, had taken a firm stand on the issues.