Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2020
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
Protest against the Centralisation, Communalisation and Commercialisation of Indian Education
The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly denounces the Union Cabinet decision to unilaterally impose a New Education Policy and rename the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Education is in the Concurrent List in our Constitution. It is a gross violation by the Central government to impose a New Education Policy unilaterally bypassing all the objections and opposition recorded by various state governments.
A new policy of such a nature needs to be discussed in the Parliament. This was assured by the government earlier. The draft is, as per norm, placed on the table of the Houses with a statutory time limit within which Members of Parliament can move amendments/give opinions. The Parliament has been completely bypassed.
The draft of New Education Policy was put out in the public domain seeking suggestions and opinions from all stakeholders, mainly the academicia, the teaching community and the students. In addition, many intellectuals had also sent in their observations. None of these have been considered.
This unilateral drive is to destroy the Indian education system with a policy that seeks greater centralization, communalization and commercialization of Indian education.
The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly protests against this move by the BJP Central government. The Polit Bureau demands that a thorough discussion in Parliament be held before implementation begins.
