SHILLONG: The North East Students’ Organization (NESO) suggested that importance be given to the mother tongue and regional languages (by including them in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution) together with English and Hindi and no particular language should be made compulsory.
The organization sent a memorandum to the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal, in an effort to give their suggestions and views on the Draft National Education Policy 2019 with a belief that concerns will be addressed before finalisation of the Education Policy.
On the contentious language front, NESO said it is unacceptable to give the spotlight on the Hindi language asserting that the Draft Education Policy 2019 is trying to surreptitiously thrust Hindi to be the only language of the country.
The organization said it did not support the idea that the importance of English should be reduced and to promote only Hindi in the country. It is to be noted that both English and Hindi ware official languages of the country.
Turning to the socio-economic condition in the rural areas, the organization said the measures taken in the Draft Education Policy 2019 would further deepen the divide between the rich and the poor.
NESO calls upon the Union Government that the Education Policy should be relevant to the people of the region and taking into consideration the cultural heritage, languages and dialects, history and geography of the entire North Eastern Region and its peoples.
Noting that the integral components of any policy document to succeed, NESO said the Union government should make a firm commitment to respect diversity of the Indian society and rights of the States though education was in the Concurrent List, and to ensure prompt and judicious financing were the surest steps needed for any success of the finalized Education Policy.
The organization said the Draft Education Policy 2019 laid emphasis on Centrally-Constituted Bodies which threatens the Federal structure of the country.
In centrally constituted bodies all the policies and rules will be framed by them and subsequently the states will have to implement the policies.
According to the organization, the best option is to suggest ideas from the Central Bodies and leaving the option to the states to decide their own road maps in the best interest of the student but at the same time without diluting the basic intention of such a policy.
The organization observed 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.
Further, NESO is of the opinion that a single Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for the country as a whole should be replaced by state-specific 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.
Stating that too little time was given to the stakeholders, NESO suggested that at least another six months should be given to the stakeholders across the country to deliberate in detail the desirability and workability of the DNEP 2019 after translating it into all the scheduled languages of the country.
NESO also felt that the Education Policy should not be implemented in a fragmented manner and more importantly, in haste.
“The states should be allowed to prepare the roadmaps for the different sectors after consulting the stakeholders and work out the required finances,” the organization said.