NEP should be relevant to the people of NE region: NESO to Centre

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJuly 30, 2019

SHILLONG: The North East Student’s Organization (NESO) has asked the Centre to ensure that the National Education Policy is relevant to the people of the North eastern region besides allowing the states to prepare their respective roadmaps for different sectors and workout the required finances. 

In a memorandum submitted to the Union Minister for Human Resources Development Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Tuesday, the NESO also demanded that another six months’ time should be given to the stakeholders to deliberate in detail the desirability and workability of the draft NEP 2019, after translating it into all the scheduled languages of the country. 

“NESO calls upon the Union Government that the Education Policy should be relevant to the people of the region and taking into consideration the rich cultural heritage, languages and dialects, history and geography of the entire North Eastern Region and its peoples.” said NESO chairman Samuel B Jyrwa. 

Urging the government not to implement the police in a fragmented manner and, more importantly, in haste, Jyrwa said the states should be allowed to prepare the roadmaps for the different sectors after consulting the stakeholders and work out the required finances.“A firm commitment of the Union government to respect diversity of the Indian society, to respect right of the States though education is in the Concurrent List, and to ensure prompt and judicious financing are the surest steps needed for any success of the finalized Education Policy. These commitments should be integral components of any policy document to succeed,” he asserted. 

Pointing out that the draft NEP emphasisis on the need to have Centrally Constituted Bodies in which all the policies and rules will be framed by them and the States will be only asked to implement them, he said such a policy is not acceptable as it threatens the Federal structure of the country. 

According to him, the best option is to suggest ideas from the Central Bodies and leaving it to the option of the states to decide their own roadmaps in the best interest of the student but at the sametime without diluting the basic intention of such a policy. 

Jyrwa further opined that the Draft National Education Policy 2019 also has to take into account the diverse socio-economic condition in the rural areas as most of the measures will further deepen the divide between the rich and the poor. 

The chairman also maintained that the NESO does not support the idea that the importance of English should be reduced and to promote only Hindi in the country adding it is to be noted that both English and Hindi are the official language of the country. 

“The policy is trying to surreptitiously thrust Hindi to be the only language of the country in which it can never be accepted but rather more importance to be given to the mother tongue and regional languages (by including them in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution) together with English and Hindi and no particular language should be made compulsory,” he said. 

He added that the Draft has offered no academic justification for a three year course for the pre-primary which will result in the postponement of completion of school education by one more year, this will definitely be a burden for the marginalised section of the society. 

Meanwhile, the NESO is also of the opinion that a single GER for the country as a whole should be replaced by state-specific Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER). 

The state of education should be considered and evaluated state-wise to evolve appropriate strategy for further roadmap and action plan. The financial allotment should be related to the state GER, Jyrwa stated.