BENGALURU: Karnataka State Education Policy Commission member and educationist Prof V P Niranjanaradhya said a system should be formulated to provide universal education based on fundamental rights.
“The Right to Education Act was enacted to strengthen the universal education system. However, this system has been weakened continuously. An education policy should be formulated to prevent discrimination in the name of caste, gender and religion,” he said at a conference on ‘State Education Policy: State Level Convention for Better Education’ organised by the All India Students Association (AISA) on Sunday.
Former vice-chancellor of JSS University, Mysuru, L Jawahar Nesan said there were a lot of conflicts with the previous BJP government against National Education Policy (NEP) during his tenure as vice-chancellor. “My objections to NEP were conveyed to the government and it was not tolerated by them. Through NEP they are aiming to bring India-centric education but their India is not an inclusive India and divides the country based on caste and religion,” he said.
Social justice, gender and sexuality rights activist Akkai Padmashali, who is part of the SEP’s sub-committee set up to look into the caste, religion and gender discrimination in educational institutions, said, “In NCERT books, minority rights were mentioned. However, that was removed citing that that concept is ‘Western’. It is necessary to formulate an education policy without any discrimination.”
“Only if centralisation, corporatisation and saffronisation of education are completely rejected, a comprehensive education policy can be formulated at the Karnataka level,” AISA State Convener Lekha Adavi said.