No Language will be imposed before consulting  with states

No Language will be imposed before Consulting States  – The eight member expert committee headed by prominent scientist K. Kasturirangan handed over the draft of National Education Policy to the newly appointed Human Resource Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Friday, May 31, 2019.  The country adopted its education policy in 1986 which was revised in 1992 in lieu of betterment of the country’s education system.The new education policy is coming after a span of 30 years.

 

The Aim of National Educational Policy is

  • to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge
  • to eliminate the shortage of manpower in science, technology, academics and industry
  • The Draft National Education Policy, 2019 is built on the foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability.

 

New amendments suggested by the committee:

  • The new education policy for school education objectifies three years of preschool instead of two, to be followed by 12 years of schooling.
  • Extending the free schooling policy under the right to education from current class one to eight to class one to twelve.
  • Under the midday meal, a nutritious breakfast meal was also proposed to be given out to preschool and primary pupils.
  • Another key feature of this policy under the school education system is to expose children to multiple languages right from the foundational stage that is grade one and two. 
  • The higher education system does not see many changes under it, however it proposes a four year honours program for all undergraduate general stream courses with multiple exit options in which either a child can leave after 2 years with a diploma degree or after 3 years with a degree without honours and after 4 years with a degree along with honours. 

 

Southern States not interested

Wide outrage by academicians and political parties in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh was raised over the drafted Education policy on which Union external affairs minister S.Jaishankar reiterated to the public that the country respects all the languages and no certain language will be imposed. He further tweeted “The national education policy as submitted to the HRD Minister is only a draft report. Feedback shall be obtained from general public, State governments will be consulted. Only after that the draft report will be finalised. The government of India respects all languages. No language will be imposed,”

Jaishankar told the reporters that, ‘the committee had submitted its report and the draft has been prepared but the government has not yet taken a decision. The decision will only be taken once the feedback on the draft will be received.”

 

The vice president of the country M.Venkaiah Naidu at the “Industry Academy Interaction for Improvement of Quality of Academics” organised by the Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy put his foot forward to make a point to the people not to react hastily and understand the policy and go through the entire report, study and analyze it before jumping to any conclusions. 

 

As the education policy still leaves the nation bewildered about what the final policy will look like the draft is all set to go under transition and emerge as a amendment to the existing policy with more stress being laid on multilingual education and comprehensive education systems for everyone in the country. 

 

 

Also see: