Education Policy draft may be out in public domain soon
New Delhi: With the extended deadline for the K Kasturirangan committee, constituted last year to draft the National Education Policy (NEP), set to end on Friday, senior government officials said that its finalised draft is likely to be in the public domain “soon”.
The Prakash Javadekar-led Union human resource development (HRD) ministry had on October 31 extended the deadline of the committee to December 15.
“The committee has expressed its wish to submit the report,” a senior official familiar with the development said, adding that it would be sent to the Cabinet for approval. The HDR minister said on October 30 that the committee had said the draft policy was ready and that the term of the committee was being extended because to the code of conduct of the Election Commission being in force ahead of the assembly elections in five states in Novemberdecember.
The Kasturirangan panel, constituted last June, has been granted five extensions. It was originally meant to submit the draft report in December last year. An official who is part of the drafting process said on condition of anonymity that a 257-page draft report has been almost finalised by the panel.
NEP was a key reform promised by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its 2014 general elections manifesto. The new policy is expected to lay the contours of how education is disseminated in the country from the most basic to the higher levels.it is meant to make key alterations to the existing education policy was framed in 1986 and modified in 1992.
The nine-member Kasturirangan panel is the second one formed by the government to bring out a draft of the country’s education policy. The first, headed by former Cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, was constituted 2016, when Smriti Irani was the Union HRD minister. The Subramanian committee submitted its recommendations in May 2017. But the government decided that more consultations were needed. It formed a nine-member panel under space scientist Kasturirangan, saying the new committee it would use the report of the earlier panel as an input.