HUBBALLI: Sharply condemning the state government for scrapping the National Education Policy and changing textbooks in the middle of the academic year, senior BJP leader Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of being in the clutches of Left intellectuals. More than opposed to the content of textbooks, the Congress was opposed to the name of the authors, he added.
Speaking to reporters here on Tuesday, Kageri said that the haste with which the government introduced changes in textbooks, without holding consultations with stakeholders, showed it was just politically motivated. Also, it gave no concrete explanation for scrapping the NEP.
Moreover, it was an act of mixing politics with the education curriculum and vitiated young minds, he charged. Though the government has now constituted a committee to revise textbooks and frame the State Education Policy (SEP), more changes could not be expected other than showing disrespect to the people and organisations who contributed richly to the Freedom Struggle, creating social harmony and building the nation.
It would be another effort of appeasement politics of the Congress, he said, expressing concern. Kageri dared Congress ministers running educational institutions to implement the SEP’s recommendations first, and also predicted that the institutions run by influential people would follow the NEP, while poorer students studying in government schools and colleges are left to learn as per the SEP. “It was an effort of the Congress to deprive the poor of NEP, which prepares them to face the challenges of a competitive world and build prosperous careers,” he added.