Chennai: Tamilnadu on Monday did not participate in the virtual meeting of Education Secretaries organised by Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on National Education Policy (NEP)-2020.
The meeting had called for the participation of the Education Secretaries only from all States and not the State Education Ministers.
Tamilnadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi had already dashed off a letter to Pokhriyal sating that it would only be appropriate if the Education Department Minister participates along with officials from the Department for such a high-level meeting.
He also said that he was ready to participate and share the views on the implementation of NEP.
“Since there was no reply to the letter, we chose not to participate,” Anbil Mahesh told reporters here.
It may be noted that the DMK had strongly opposed the NEP when it was rolled out last year and demanded its revocation.
Stating that several suggestions given by the DMK when the draft NEP was released were not taken into consideration, he said many aspects in the NEP needed further discussion, including the three-language policy.
“Despite our request to hold discussions at the Minister-level, the Centre has chosen to go ahead with its plan to hold discussions only with the officials. Protesting this, we have boycotted this meeting. We don’t have any intention to confront the Centre but our protest is based on our principles,” the Minister said.
The Minister said there are many issues in the NEP 2020 – three language policy, public examinations for the standards III, V and VIII, to be discussed at length, further pointing out that the DMK has already opposed many aspects of the NEP 2020. The Centre did not consider the views expressed by the party.
Objecting to the ‘tacit’ implementation of Hindi and Sanskrit through the three-language formula, the minister said centralisation of education is unacceptable as it was not in practice even in the developed nations.
“Delhi can’t decide what the people of Tamilnadu, especially our rural students should learn. Tamilnadu’s two language policy has been in practice since the times of Anna,” he added.