Press Release
Dharwad, Sep 28: A state level Consultation on the National Education Policy (NEP) to deliberate its implications on the Public Education was held at Dharawad on September 26, 2020 . The seminar was organised by the Karnataka State School Development and Monitoring Committee Coordination Forum. The Seminar was inaugurated by Veeranna Mattikatti, former chairperson, Karnataka Legislative Council and presided by Basavaraj Gurikar, senior vice-president , AIPTF. The chief patron of SDMCCF, Dr Niranjanaradhya V P delivered key note address on NEP followed by open discussion.
After elaborate discussions, the meeting resolved the following:
1. The National Education Policy has nothing much to strengthen public.
2. The NEP has diluted the Fundamental Rights provided by the Constitution and operationalized through Right to Education Act and failed to make any committments to implement the RTE Act holistically to strengthen neighbourhood common school system as per Section 3 of the Act.
3. The Policy has further failed to commit for necessary amendment to article 21A of the Constitution to extend the fundamental right to all children from birth to 18 years to provide care , protection , nutrition and quality education through state funded public system.
4. The policy is deliberately designed to promote centralization, privatization and corporatisation of education by further weakening public education and facilitating the closure /merger of government schools.
5. The SDMCCF unanimously resolved to urge the Central government to withdraw this policy and to constitute an Education Commission headed by well-known development educationist with adequate representation to primary stakeholders and domain experts to come up with national policy framework that provides greater flexibility for the states to prepare their own policies as per the Constitutional values and decentralized implementation mechanism involving PRIs and SDMCs to ensure fundamental right to all children from birth to 18 years to provide care, protection, nutrition and quality education through state funded public education system.
6. The Forum also urge the state government not to make any hasty decisions to implement the policy without wider consultations with the primary stakeholders from GP to state level.