The New Education Policy (NEP 2020), approved by the Central government, has come under attack from Congress. On Sunday, Congress fielded former HRD Minister Pallam Raju, chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala and former MP and chief of Congress’ research department Rajeev Gowda to slam the government over NEP.
In the press conference, the party has alleged that this education policy is going to create a “digital divide” in the country. Surjewala said that NEP misses certain fundamental goals.
The Congress said that NEP, which aimed to pave the way for transformational reforms in ‘schools and higher education’, is high on catchwords, gloss, appearance and verbosity and yet lacks coherent implementation of roadmap and strategy, clearly defined milestones and critical finances necessary to execute this grand vision. “The NEP 2020 misses the fundamental goal of human development and expansion of knowledge,” added Surjewala.
He said, “NEP will lead to increased segregation of the poor and disadvantaged by creating a ‘Digital Divide’. Over 70% of children from marginalised sections may be completely excluded as it was seen during access to online classes in the Covid-19 period. This will also make the rural versus urban divide even stronger on account of absent or diminished internet connectivity/access to computers in rural areas.” Surjewala further said that there is no discussion of SC, ST, OBC and deprived class.
The Congress has also questioned the timing of the launching NEP 2020. It said that the timing of the NEP 2020 in the middle of the Corona pandemic when all educational institutions are closed is, in and of itself, questionable. “On a policy that impacts and affects our present and future generations, even parliamentary oversight has been circumvented. Contrast this with the rigorous parliamentary and widespread consultation that preceded the Right to Education Act,” added Party leaders.
While raising the question about financing mismatch, the party said, “spending on education as a percentage of the budget, has fallen from 4.14% in 2014-15 to 3.2% in 2020-21 under the BJP government. Even this budgeted amount will see a cut of 40% owing to the Corona pandemic in the current year taking the education spending to (close to) 2% of the total budget. There is thus a huge mismatch between promise and delivery with no clarity on whether NEP 2020 proposes financing of 6% of GDP to come from public funds or private investment”.
Congress also questioned NEP dependence on Anganwadis for delivering quality ‘Early Childhood Care and Education’ (ECCE).
After almost three decades, keeping in mind the present employment scenario, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday had approved NEP 2020 which is expected to set the road map for the education sector.
