NEP's proposal does not focus on government schools: Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia

Delhi Education Minister said that the new National Education Policy does not talk about the government schools and their improvement.

Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia has said that the new National Education Policy (NEP) which has been revised after decades does not talk about government schools. "There is no mention at all about what can be done or what will be done to improve the state of public schools in the country. Does that mean all initiatives will be successfully implemented in private schools and colleges and that is the only way out?"

He further stated that the proposal to make the board exams easier will not help in addressing the issue of the rote learning process as the education system in the country will continue to be a slave of the evaluation system. The policy fails to address the need to improve the public education system and focuses more on private education, and some of the reforms outlined are part of wishful thinking, he added. 

"Our education system has always been a slave of our evaluation system, and it will continue to be so. The plan to make board exams easy is not going to address the root cause of the problem which is the focus on rote learning. The emphasis will still be on year-end exams, the need is to do away with the concept of evaluating students at the end of the session, be it easy or difficult," Sisodia told PTI in an interview.

"By saying that board exams will be easy, we are not moving towards a focus on knowledge application. The policy fails to address this issue. Some of the reforms proposed are good too and in fact, we have already been working on them, but some of them are just part of wishful thinking," he added.

"The policy says philanthropic participation will be encouraged. Almost all big chains of schools and even higher education institutions are based on a philanthropic model only, which the Supreme Court has already referred to as 'teaching shops'. So are we going to encourage that only? Why did we need a new policy then," he asked.

"The policy is bringing wishful thinking that six per cent of GDP should be implemented. If we do not have a plan to implement what has been proposed, then words are just words. I have raised multiple times that there should be a law mandating the states as well as the central government about a fixed GDP percentage allocation for education, but even the policy fails to address to that, Sisodia said.

Asked about teaching in mother tongue or regional languages proposed by the NEP, Sisodia said, "I totally agree that the medium of instruction should be the home language in the initial years so that the foundation is strong, but I believe it should be limited to the foundation years or the pre-primary stage. Taking it up to Class 5 is not a good idea."

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