Smriti Irani’s education policy may be nixed

The government is soon likely to constitute a committee for preparing the draft National Education Policy, effectively indicating that the earlier report prepared by T.S.R. Subramanian committee — convened during the tenure of former HRD minister Smriti Irani — has been put in cold storage. This move has also ensured that the proposed policy is in for another major delay and is unlikely to be finalised for another few months.

It is understood that Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar is keen that an academician should head the committee and make recommendations on the basis of suggestions received by the government so far. This newspaper was the first to report on August 26 that T.S.R. Subramian report was likely to be put on a backburner following Mr Javadekar’s keenness on continuing his own consultation process on the issue.

Mr Subramanian, a former Cabinet secretary, was the chairperson of the five-member committee entrusted with the responsibility of making suggestions for drafting a new education policy for the country.

Sources stated that the last round of discussions on the proposed national education policy are currently underway and are likely to be completed by the end of this year. A discussion on the issue is scheduled to take place in the CABE meeting on October 25. A meeting of members of Parliament has also been scheduled for November 10 for a detailed discussion on the national education policy.

The proposed committee will prepare the final draft, which will be put before the Cabinet for its approval and its implementation could take up to an entire year, sources stated.

The Subramanian committee report is now only being utilised as an “input in the wider scheme of things in the education reforms”, sources added.

It is understood that the implementation of a new NEP was one of the major issues that was being pushed by Prime Minister Narendar Modi himself as the NDA government tries to leave its imprint on the important education sector of the country.

Other members of the committee included former chief secretaries of Delhi and Gujarat, Shailaja Chandra and Sudhir Mankad respectively and ex-NCERT chief J S Rajput. The committee had submitted its report to the government on May 27 this year suggesting measures that the country must take to improve the sector that caters to over 300 million students.