Tamil Nadu’s New Education Policy

• IAS NEXT, Lucknow
• 09, Nov 2021

Reference News:

Chief Minister M K Stalin has said the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 will not be implemented in Tamil Nadu. An expert committee would be formed soon to prepare a new education policy of the state.

Why is Tamil Nadu opposed to NEP?

Tamil Nadu’s arguments:

NEP being recommended by the Centre was “for elites” and the education “will be confined and limited to a few sections”.

• Besides the opposition to three-language policy, the state has also questioned the prominence given to Sanskrit over and above Tamil and other languages.
• Above all, NEP intrudes into a crucial domain of the state – education.
• Therefore, NEP is being viewed as a policy against social justice, federalism, pluralism and equality.

Is it possible for Tamil Nadu to not implement NEP and formulate its own education policy?

• The very word ‘policy’ in the National Education Policy, 2020 indicates that it is only a recommendation, not binding on anything or anyone.
• Also, education is in the concurrent list, not in the union list.

Previously, when Rajiv Gandhi brought in the second national education policy in 1986, many parties had opposed it. Like the agriculture policy, even after the law was passed by Parliament, a number of legislatures passed resolutions against it.