New policy: Academics criticise ‘saffronisation’ of education

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 24

The Punjab Educationists’ Forum organised a seminar on the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) new education policy draft at Punjabi Bhawan Ludhiana today.

The seminar was attended by college/ school principals/ teachers, academicians, members of the Senate and Syndicate. The keynote speaker was Tarsem Bahia, principal of a local college, who criticised the policy and said it dismantled the already existing educational apex institutes such as the University Grants Commission (UGC) by creation of a Higher Education Council (HEC) comprising 50 per cent ministers and headed by the prime minister, its policy of disaffiliation of colleges from universities and creation of autonomous colleges among others.

“The number of colleges will be decreased by almost 70 per cent from 40,000 to somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. Its policy to monitor private educational institution is not clear. It also seems that under the new education policy, private institutions may flourish by charging hefty fees from students,” he said.

He emphatically criticised the policy on the basis of its language policy and declared it “saffronisation” of education. The policy ignored the already existed education policy which had the sound foundation of secularism, humanism and scientific temperament, he said. He pointed out that in the new draft there is no mention of good pay scales for teachers, he added.

On positive aspects of the policy, he stated that declaring end of adhocism by introducing the ‘no temporary teacher will be allowed’ policy, is a good initiative. Other points included a stress-free examination system, multiple exit and entry point to be offered in higher education and raising general enrolment ratio (GER) in HE by 50 per cent upto 2030.

Kuldip Singh said there were certain major stakeholders in education such as the Union Government, state governments, minorities and academia, and no education policy could be framed without due consultation of all stakeholders.

The forum discussed funding of education in a federal country like India where the states have little resources. The success of such policies depends upon the funding of Union Government. The past practices have proved that the Centre’s share was decreasing while that of states was increasing day-by-day. The forum also criticised the declarations made by the NDA government and its real practices such as accreditation of Reliance University as an institute of academic excellence and providing grants worth thousands of crores when the university had not been established yet.

The forum took a serious note of the incidents happened at the Senate meeting on August 23, during which the BJP RSS tried to behave in an undemocratic manner and dictatorially tried to make appointments against regulations and laws established through the Panjab University, Chandigarh, calendars. It also criticised the threats of newly nominated member to the Senate, Union State Minister Som Parkash, that structural changes could be made to monopolise BJP’s edge in the Senate.