The Karnataka government is set to scrap the contentious National Education Policy (NEP) from the next academic year since the groundwork to shift to the state education policy will take time to complete. Chief minister Siddaramaiah informed a Congress meeting about the decision to scrap the NEP, which has already found stiff opposition in non-BJP states.The chief minister and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, had earlier made it clear that the Congress government wouldn’t allow the NEP rolled out by the previous BJP government in the state. Some groundwork is needed before scrapping the NEP. Since we came to power just before the academic year, there was no time to change it in the current academic year, The previous BJP government had implemented the NEP in higher education and was set to roll it out in schools when it lost the Karnataka elections.
The chief minister said that teachers, students and parents had all raised objections to the NEP that had been implemented in haste by the Union government. Siddaramaiah had in his budget speech in July announced the decision to withdraw NEP since it was incompatible with the federal system of governance. He had cited several anomalies which undermine the Constitution and democracy. A Uniform education system does not suit a nation like India which has diverse religions, languages and cultures. Shivakumar had recently equated the NEP to "Nagpur Education Policy", alluding to the city where the RSS is headquartered. The Congress government had already begun work to cull the NEP from the education system by instructing the board of studies of all state universities against framing the syllabus for the fourth year of the honours degree courses that the NEP offers. The government made it clear that the traditional three year degree courses would continue in the state by instructing the board of studies of all universities to prepare syllabi for only up to the sixth semester, set to begin in September.
Under the NEP, students can opt for the honours degree by studying two extra semesters, thus making them eligible to enrol for PhD programmes. The Karnataka State Higher Education Council has intimated the government that a four year degree course would require immediate addition of resources and sought to stick to the conventional three year degree courses. The BJP has objected to the government’s move to scrap the NEP with former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai pointing to the work that went into preparing it under a committee headed by U.R. Rao. It took nearly three years to prepare this and implement it, Bommai told reporters, slamming the Congress government. His party colleague and former higher education minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said the honours degree would help reduce the duration spent to earn a master’s degree before enrolling for PhD and was thus was a well thought out programme
