Policy draft urges abolition of quotas in education

The draft report prepared by the state government under the National New Education Policy has recommended abolishing of reservations for SC/ST children in the education system by replacing it with financially weaker and educationally backward sections. Education activists have said that this is an attempt by the government to remove caste-based reservations from the education system and have written to the chief minister asking him to remove the recommendation from the draft and demanded the preparation of a new draft.

As per the draft report on ‘Enabling Inclusive Education — Education of the SCs, the STs, Minorities & Children with Special Needs’ (CSWN), on page 34 it is recommended “there should not be special schools for SC/ST because it will widen the social discrimination gap and all children should study and play together.”

According to activist Kishore Darak, “The recommendation is a direct attempt to discontinue caste-based reservations. It which will have a bad impact on children belonging to such families and hinder their educational progress and growth,” said Mr Darak. He further added that while the recommendation says that “there should be only two categories i.e. financially and educationally weaker section” the report has failed to define the word ‘educationally backward’ which is ambiguous and misleading and hence should be removed.

MLC Kapil Patil from the teachers’ constituency has also written to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis demanding that the draft report be scrapped as it was made by the consultation of a few education department officials and NGOs. “The draft has a lot of flaws and seems to be made hurriedly without giving though to the 25,908 villages in the state. The draft running into 44 pages has been prepared in five days it is incomplete. Also as it is in English there is a need to scrap the recommendations,” said Mr Patil.