Consensus among states on implementation of National Education Policy 2020, says Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan

Dharmendra Pradhan

There is a total consensus on the implementation of the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan said on May 24.

“A few states have been positioning themselves saying they will not implement the New Education Policy but are actually implementing it. So-called opposition (to implementation) is only political,” he said at the annual session of Confederation of Indian Industry.

Reiterating the importance of the policy, he said, “NEP is futuristic. It is pro-student and pro-poor. There is total consensus on its implementation.”

The minister’s statement comes amid opposition to the implementation of NEP by the Tamil Nadu government.

The Tamil Nadu government has reached the court in response to a public interest litigation filed at the Tamil Nadu High Court in 2021 for the implementation of NEP. The state government has raised concerns about certain provisions of the policy.

“I have had a detailed discussion with the CM and education minister of Tamil Nadu. The opposition is only political,” Minister Pradhan said.

The minister also spoke on the importance of the NEP, terming it ‘the mother department’ of the government which will bring together education along with skills.

“It is all due to NEP that degrees now include bachelor courses on AI. We need to upskill our workforce. We are inviting new universities to India but I have requests from several countries to open IITs and IIMs there,” he said.

The NEP aims at revamping the Indian education system with policy emphasis on the holistic development of children while doing away with the rote learning methods. The policy has been pegged to improve the educational standards for students in primary as well as higher education. It hopes to transition the market from a learning-based approach to a skill-based model, the minister has said.