The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) submitted its comments and recommendations at the Draft New Education Policy to Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Union Minister of Human Resources Development, at his workplace inside Parliament 29. Rajya Sabha MP Elamaram Kareem also joined the SFI delegation with their position at the Draft NEP.
“We have additionally cited how exceptional proposals inside the document are exclusionary in nature for the disadvantaged sections and will have a detrimental impact on many states. We demand to prevent imposing the NEP and initiate a larger democratic system of having a look at and consultation with special sections inside the society, such as the pupil firms and democratically elected scholar unions,” said Mayukh Biswas, General Secretary of the SFI.
Why they do not like NEP
The SFI said that they’ve known that the “imperative democratic tactics, constitutional outlooks and progressive technique” have been lacking inside the making of the coverage draft, which has made it not anything, however, ill-organized. Moreover, they claimed that the period — much less than two months — allowed the public to observe the 484 page-lengthy (in English) record (and in Hindi, approximately 650 pages) to submit their comments changed into insufficient. “In truth, the document has not been made to be had in different local languages which itself makes massive participation of humans not possible,” read a report released by way of the pupil company to explain their stand. The SFI has put forward six most important reasons why they idea the NEP changed into not sufficient:
Attack on Federal Character of the usa and education
The NEP proposes to create an “India-concentrated” training device to lead to the introduction of an “equitable and colorful know-how society.” But the pupil leaders suppose that many of the proposed structural changes are contradictory to the actual sense of this. The NEP does not consist of gifted suggestions to acquire this; rather it goes truely towards the spirit of ‘Indianness’ in the training zone. “The concept of ‘Indian-Centred’ education want now not be completely isolated from all different orientations emerged in overseas lands, as an alternative it needs to be an amalgamation of the deferral characters, democratic ethos and colorful range of the country in every aspect. But the NEP has copied many of the failed neo-liberal experiments from the worldwide experiences and heavily unnoticed the divergent plans and programs the human beings of India want in step with the unique situations of their societies,” stated the SFI.
They welcomed the recommendation of renaming the HRD Ministry as the Ministry of Education. But introduced that only a renaming will cause no revolutionary trade unless a concrete plan is made to make sure fruitful functioning of the whole machine. The proposed National Education Commission, headed using prime minister, will form the whole schooling gadget into a device inside the hands of the united states’ best political leadership, they said.
School System
The NEP proposed that autonomous faculty boards may be answerable for the decentralized control of school clusters. This consists of instructor appointments, faculty shape, educational calendar and time desk, curriculum, requirements, checks, etc. At any factor, the SFI claimed, this cannot be controlled underneath one centralized machine owing to the variety in distinct areas. “The draft proposes a formal education device from the age of 3. This contradicts the globally normal norm that formal education ought to be after the age of 5. ‘Early formative years training and pre-education is only a preparative phase earlier than real schooling. Integrating it with formal education could not convey any wonderful final results. Instead, it might opposite the welfare role performed by way of the Anganwadi in children’s healthy development.
The draft ignores the contribution made by the Anganwadi system in enhancing the health and vitamins of children,” the SFI added. Providing an “exit” factor from Class VIII itself without stressful a whole ban on baby labor is tricky because the cutting-edge infant labor legal guidelines allow children to work in “circle of relatives” enterprises from 10 years onwards, reinforcing both caste-based occupations and monetary exploitation. This can have a huge social implication and violation of infant rights. The SFI had applauded the NEP’s thought to offer ok nutrients to all students as much as Class 12. “This is a high-quality technique and has already been efficiently walking in states like Kerala. But greater clarity is wanted on which department and authorities might be made accountable. Additionally, the prison mechanism needed to be added for the mid-day meal scheme’s transparent functioning,” they delivered.
Campus Democracy
The student organization demanded that they had been disappointed that there isn’t always even a single factor about the scholars’ campus democracy and democratic rights within the whole document of the NEP. “Education has a crucial goal of strengthening democratic values and education the new era to be capacity contributors to a democratic society. Therefore, it’s also essential to make certain that scholars and researchers enjoyed all democratic rights guaranteed via India’s very constitution. Students and researchers ought to never be dealt with as secondary residents within the academic establishments and should be allowed to perform all democratic sports in an environment of zero surveillance,” study the file. “We demand there need to rule with the aid of the Parliament of India to shield the campus democracy and free and honest elections of college students unions in all instructional establishments, irrespective of public or personal,” it brought.
Social Justice
The SFI said that there had been an absence of measures sufficient to cope with social justice in better schooling. There have been many incidents they delivered against the scholars belonging to socially oppressed groups inside the better training establishments stated in the latest time. “Caste discrimination and violence are increasing within the education sector. Reservation isn’t filled in many of the institutions, including the crucial universities. We call for a unique chapter within the training coverage to comprehensively cope with this issue and also suggest a stringent regulation towards any form of caste discrimination in the institutions,” the SFI brought. “The NEP 2019 has been wholly insensitive towards the issues and wishes of the people with disabilities. The draft, which claims to be inclusive, uses the term ‘Children with Special Needs,’ a time period rejected by persons with disabilities themselves. It no longer handiest fails to offer Braille or audio version of the draft and shows no concern of the businesses that work for the betterment of disabled students. In truth, the function of unique schools which can be run more often than not via NGOs is being ignored in the draft,” the pupil organ introduced.
The commercialization of education, being the important timetable, the SFI claimed that the draft pushes the disabled children who broadly speaking come from negative socio-financial backgrounds to similarly deprivation and discrimination. Though the draft suggests the necessity of “changing mindsets and halting harmful practices to foster gender equity and inclusion,” any explanation about what these “harmful practices” are, continues to be vague. Moreover, any citing about sexuality or opportunity sexual orientations fails to find a place in this 21st-century document.
