Belagavi: The Karnataka Legislative Council witnessed a heated debate over the implementation of the National Education Policy on Thursday where the opposition, BJP accused the ruling Congress government of rejecting the NEP only for political purposes.
The MLCs of the BJP who raised the matter, questioned the Congress government as to why it did not constitute any committee to study the pros and cons of the NEP before outright rejecting it.
“Since the government has not set up any expert committee, therefore, it gives the clear impression that the government has rejected the NEP for political purposes”, said Former Minister, Kota Srinivas Poojari.
Defending the NEP launched by the Central Government, he said that the policy has been framed after much deliberation, holding consultations with the experts and all stakeholders. "But the State government has rejected the NEP and announced to implement State Education Policy merely because the NEP has been implemented by the BJP."
“You should have rejected it based on merit but you have done so merely for political purposes which has now become a major hurdle in providing quality education to the people of Karnataka", he charged.
Claiming that all the private educational institutions of Karnataka have already implemented NEP, he said that the State government is planning to implement SEP only for State schools.
He said that over 1 crore students of Karnataka are studying in over 48,000 government schools. The students who are studying in the government are mostly poor. The State government wants to implement SEP for them while private institutions already implemented NEP
“This means that you are discriminating between rich and poor students as you are giving two different educational policies”, he remarked.
Other MLCs including Ravi Kumar and Y. A. Narayanaswamy also demanded the government to first list out the shortcomings of NEP before rejecting it.
On the other hand, the ruling Congress Ministers and the MLCs blamed the BJP for taking unilateral decisions in implementing NEP.
Manjunath Bhandari said that the BJP government has come up with the NEP to implement its hidden agenda.
Minister Santosh Lad who was also present, wanted to know the benefits the students have achieved in the States where NEP has been implemented already.
“If you are defending NEP so strongly, then you should let us know how it has improved educational standards or helped the students fraternity in the State where it has been implemented”, he said.
Meanwhile, the debate was halted as the house was adjourned for the day since the Ministers were scheduled to attend a Cabinet meeting.