New education policy to get nod in November

The much-awaited national policy on education seems to be finally becoming a reality soon with the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry giving it a final shape after the conclusion of a consultation exercise.

The policy document, which will first be placed before the Union Cabinet for clearance, is expected to be unveiled in November.

“The formulation of the policy is now in final stages. It will come sometime in November,” official sources in the ministry told DH.

The Ministry recently concluded the consultation exercise after the draft policy was discussed at length with the states at the meeting of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) on September 21.

The meeting, chaired by HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, was attended by the Education Ministers of 26 states and Union Territories.

The remaining states were represented by their respective senior officials.

Union ministers including Prahlad Singh Patel and Kiren Rejiju had also attended the meeting besides vice-chancellors of various universities and heads of the higher education regulatory bodies.

According to sources, most of the states in the CABE meeting supported the proposal for making pre-primary education an integral part of the school education system.

But, some of the states objected to the proposal for setting up a Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (national education commission) under the Prime Minister.

“We have received a large number of suggestions on the new education policy. We will incorporate all the good suggestions, which we have received, in the final policy document. At this moment, it will not be appropriate to make any comment on the feedback that we have received from various stakeholders,” a ministry official said when asked.

While the new policy has been in the making for the last four years, an 11-member committee set up under former Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chief K Kasturirangan submitted the draft of the policy to the HRD ministry on May 31.

After assuming charge of the HRD ministry, Nishank initiated another round of consultation for feedback from the stakeholders on the draft policy.

The new education policy will replace the last policy that was formulated in 1986.

Key points:

1. HRD ministry mooted a plan to formulate a new national policy on education in July 2014 soon after the BJP led NDA came to power at the Centre.
2. The then HRD minister Smriti Irani began a nationwide consultation exercise for the policy in January 2015.
3. In the first phase of consultation, over 2 lakh meetings were organised in villages, blocks and districts to elicit people's view. The government also received feedback online at mygov.in.
4. On October 31, 2015, HRD ministry constituted a committee under former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian for the evolution of the new education policy.
5. The Subramanian committee submitted its report to the HRD ministry on May 27.
6. The HRD ministry partially accepted the Subramanian committee report and continued the consultation exercise.
7. On June 24, 2017, the HRD ministry under Prakash Javadekar constituted another committee under former Isro chief K Kasturirangan to prepare the final draft of the policy. Kasturirangan committee submitted the draft policy to the HRD ministry on May 31, 2019.