Mita Mukherjee

More than 500 academics and educationists in the country on Monday urged the Centre to revoke its New Education Policy 2020 and formulate a New Education Commission consisting of eminent educationists of the country as members to formulate a revised “Pro-People” policy.

In separate letters to Union Education Minister  Dharmendra Pradhan and chief ministers of all states, the academics urged the necessity to formulate a fresh policy as they said the NEP 2020 “in its present form, is anti people and anti-poor.”

According to the academics, the present policy “will destroy the national fabric by disturbing the unity and integrity of the  country and promote divisions among the haves and have-nots.”

 It also stated that the NEP 2020  would encourage privatization, commercialization and corporatization of education,” and it violates the rights of the State Governments to decide on matters related to  Education, which is in the concurrent list.”

Irfan Habib, historian, Ram Puniyani, former Professor, IIT, Mumbai,  Prakash N. Shah, former President of Gujarati Sahitya Parishad, Ali Nadeem Rezavi, Secretary,  Indian History Congress, are among the signatories on the letters. Vice-chancellors of several universities and veteran teachers of the many universities and letters have also signed the letters, Tarun Naskar former professor of Jadavpur University and general secretary of All India Save Education Committee said.

He said eminent academics, scientists and educationists have urged the Union government to revoke the NEP 2020 because a number of changes included in the policy will deprive students of exposure to several fundamental discoveries, particularly in science.

“In an attempt to promote the Indian Knowledge System the NEP recommends certain changes, particularly in science education, that will deprive our future generation students from exposure to certain significant scientific discoveries. For example, the periodic table and Darwin’s evolution theory have been removed from school syllabus. We will not allow the Centre to axe important chapters in this way in the name of reducing syllabus burden on students,” Naskar told EducationWorld.

In the letters to the chief ministers, the educationists demanded not to implement NEP  2020 in their states as it “runs contrary to the federal, democratic structure of the country and would  promote centralization of all power in the hands of the Union Government.”

They urged the states  to constitute  separate education commissions in their own states with eminent educationists as members  to formulate an alternative, pro-people education policy as required for their respective states.

Also read: NEP 2020 & NCF convergence necessity