HYDERABAD: Opposing the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 prepared by a committee headed by K Kasturirangan and marking Quit India Movement, the All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE) along with Save Education Committee (SEC) staged a protest near the Ambedkar statue at the tank bund in Hyderabad on Friday.
Addressing the gathering, AIFRE working secretary Prof K Laxminarayana said, “Instead of recommending more resources and facilities for the public universities and appointing enough teachers, the committee is promoting privatisation of education.”
Prof Chakradhar Rao of SEC said that India is known for unity in diversity, however, the Kasturirangan committee has struck its diversity by recommending a ‘One nation, One education’ policy. “Since education is on the concurrent list, both Centre and the States have the right to legislate. But the draft NEP has given all powers to the Centre and has not clearly defined the role of the States. It is against the federal structure of the constitution,” he observed. He also noted that in a nation with such varied social and economic demographics, it is not possible for everyone to have the same needs.
“Already 90 per cent of higher education is in the hands of private entities; so is the case of nearly 60 per cent schools. Now, the draft NEP proposes that private education should be given the same backing as public education. If this gets implemented, education will become out of reach for the poor in the years to come,” said Y Ashok, AIFRTE State president.
Seminar on draft NEP
The Students Federation of India (SFI), along with Centre for Educational Studies and Service (CESS), organised a seminar on the draft NEP 2019 at ICSR, Osmania University on Friday.
Academicians unanimously agreed that higher education will be affected if 25,000 colleges are shut down as proposed by the draft, which claims that the move is to improve the quality of education. “Allowing colleges award degrees will fester corruption and downgrade the quality of education further as there won’t be authorities like UGC or AICTE to regulate them,” said Nagati Narayana, CESS chairman. He also criticised the excessively centralised structure of the draft.