Joshi: boycott unwarranted
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Oct 23 — The two- day state Education Ministers’ conference ended today with the Human Resource Development Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, making a conscious attempt to downplay the controversies that marred the event yesterday.

Addressing mediapersons at the conclusion of the two-day deliberations of the conference, Dr Joshi said "there was some misunderstanding and some politics but that is now a thing of the past". The conference ended with consensus on nine points, the minister said.

When asked about the boycott of "Saraswati vandana" recitation at the meeting by ministers from non-BJP ruled states, the Human Resource Development Minister said it was "unwarranted". "I don’t see any logic behind the boycott of Saraswati vandana", he said pointing out that "such invocations are a traditional Indian practice even, in Christian establishments".

Maintaining his cool in the face of hostile questions, Dr Joshi said even in West Bengal "Saraswati Puja and Kali Puja" were holidays.

In this connection, the minister informed that "Saraswati vandana" was recited at a function on December 3,1997, at Vigyan Bhavan to honour national awards winners. The President and the then Prime Minister, Mr I.K. Gujral, were also present. "This function was held at the same venue where the Education Ministers conference was held. The government at that time was supported by the Telegu Desam, the Congress and the Left parties, but nobody objected then", he quipped.

Clarifying that the controversial annexures attached with the agenda papers for the conference were not official papers, the minister said the papers had only been circulated among ministers so that these could be deliberated upon during the meeting.

When asked as to why the government dropped the controversial annexures and the presentation by Mr P.D. Chitliangla, an educationist perceived to be close to the RSS, the minister replied "in a democracy you have to function on the basis of consensus."

When it was pointed out that Punjab Education Minister Tota Singh of the Akali Dal, an ally of the BJP, had also boycotted "Saraswati vandana" and objected to the agenda, Dr Joshi said the Punjab minister was satisfied when "I explained to him the issue later".

To a question as to what had happened to his "dream" of "Indianisation and spiritualisation of education", Dr Joshi replied that he would stick to the government’s national agenda for governance.

The minister said the government had no intention to discriminate against the minorities in the field of education. "We have increased the budgetary allocation for the minorities by 30 per cent. It is now up to the states to come with schemes for them", he said, adding that the government was willing to help the madarasas in their modernisation effort.

Dr Joshi did not agree with a suggestion that the unruly scenes at the conference and the subsequent withdrawal of controversial items from its agenda amounted to loss of face for the government. "I had explained to the press two days back and also to the Education Ministers through a letter that the annexures circulated with the agenda papers were not official documents. They had only been circulated for the opinion of the states".

Earlier, the minister informed that the conference had agreed to set up a national committee chaired by him to determine the outlines of a universal education mission. He said "universal access, universal education retention together with the qualitative inputs would be the key components of the mission".

The national committee would consist of education ministers from Assam, Haryana, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The minister said there was a strong feeling among the participants that the financing of education was not commensurate with the needs of this sector and more funds would be needed, both from public and private sources.

"The funding of education would have to be done both by central and state governments as a collaborative national effort", Dr Joshi said, adding that it would have to encompass all sectors of education.

It was agreed that in keeping with the requirements of science and technology and the information era, information technology would have to come in a comprehensive way in the education system, both in terms of training manpower and supply of appropriate hardware and software. This would be part of the IT task force agenda for education.