NEW DELHI: HRD Minister Smriti Irani on Friday shot down education policy drafting committee chairman T S R Subramanian's suggestion that the report on National Education Policy be made public before it is shared with the States.
Subramanian, who submitted the much-awaited report to the Ministry on May 27, demanded that it be made public and put on the Ministry's website.
Dismissing the alleged threat by Subramanian that he would go ahead and make the recommendations public, the Minister said, “This education policy will not become a legacy of one individual who seeks a headline.” Media reports have claimed that Subramanian expressed dismay over the report, submitted on May 27, not being made public in a letter to Irani.
"It is true that on May 27 we got some recommendations, but still State governments have to express their opinions. So to present an incomplete thing before the people, I feel, would be an injustice. More so because we have been working in cohesion with the States."
Subramanian, however, told Express the recommendations should be made available on public domain as feedback and suggestions were taken into consideration during the preparation of the report.
During the interaction, Irani took on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for "the state of education" in his constituency Amethi where she had lost to him in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Without naming him, she said the students there were being deprived of quality education due to lack of institutes. She said a campus of the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University would be set up in Amethi to provide quality affordable education to students there, especially girls.
She felt there is a gradual decline in the quality of learning outcome under the no-detention regime but listed a series of initiatives undertaken by her Ministry to address the issue. She said a new Shala Asmita Yojana (SAY) would be launched next month. It would entail maintaining an online database to carry information about student attendance and enrolment, midday meal service, learning outcomes and infrastructural facilities, among other things, on one platform for both private and government schools.
Counter point
Education policy drafting committee chairman T S Subramanian told Express the recommendations should be made public as feedback and suggestions were taken into consideration during the preparation of the report