New Education Policy to be made public by May 26: Smriti Irani

Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani (Photo: IANS)

New Delhi – Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani on Monday announced that the Narendra Modi government will bring a new education policy by May 26.

“Under the new education policy, NCERT will address all those challenges facing the education system, as even students tell me, we know more about Renaissance but not about Maharana Pratap,” Irani said while speaking at the ‘Samvaad’ Conclave organised by India TV to assess the performance of two years of Modi government.

Responding to a query on the JNU controversy, Irani said her ministry never meddled in the affairs of the university.

“The matter (JNU) is sub-judice and as in-charge of this ministry I believe it will be incorrect to make any statement at this juncture. Whoever has made this case (sedition) should now prove the charges before the judiciary,” Irani said.

“Another truth in the matter is that if you see the bail order copy of the court, the judge has expressed sentiments that reflect the voice of the people. The statement made in the judgment copy was not of mine, it was of a judge,” she added.

On the death of Dalit student Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad, she said: “Whatever I have spoken in public domain I substantiated that in Parliament with facts and it was the reason that privilege motion against me was not taken up.”

The Minister also took swipe at Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi, saying that the series of letters between the university and lawmakers he was referring to also had the name of his partymen.

Answering a question over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree row, the minister said “If you approach a university as a third party it is the responsibility of the varsity to protect the privacy of the candidate.”

“But when this issue came up in public domain, our party president willingly released the PM’s marksheet and even the university has confirmed that the documents are genuine.”

Underlining the need to spread technical education, Irani said under the government’s ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan’, the IITs, IIMs and central universities have adopted five villages in 90 districts across the country to boost education and technical know how.

She also appealed to private institutes to emulate the government’s intiative.

The minister also said that though the allegations of saffronization of education keeps coming up, the national curriculum frame which was devised in 2005 has not been changed.