Education Ministers to attend SAHMAT meet

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 1. The Education Ministers from at least eight States under non-NDA Governments will join the campaign against `saffronisation' of education at a three-day national convention being organised here by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) from Saturday.

Giving details about the ``action programme'' against ongoing efforts to communalise the curriculum and educational mainstream, Prof. Prabhat Patnaik of Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the convention was an effort to mobilise opinion within the State machinery and outside against the assault on democratic and secular values.

While the Education Ministers from Bihar, Chattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Pondicherry, Rajasthan, Tripura and West Bengal have confirmed their participation, those from Assam and Nagaland are expected to participate. However, the Kerala and Tamil Nadu Governments have not responded to the invitation.

While the non-NDA Ministers were invited to throw in their lot with the ongoing battle of wits and words against `saffronisation', their presence was solicited because of the manner in which States have been kept out of the ``national'' effort to change the curriculum despite education being a State subject.

The former head of the Department of Education in Social Sciences and Humanities, Prof. Arjun Dev, said the Centre had neither consulted the State Governments nor the Central Advisory Board of Education while introducing the changes in school and higher education. ``Nor is it discussing these changes in Parliament as is enjoined upon it by the New Education Policy of 1986.''

About the opposition to the introduction of value education, he said values were already being imparted to children during their schooling. ``What they propose to do is make value education synonymous with religious education; they have even introduced the concept of a spiritual quotient. In the name of spiritual education, they want to introduce obscurantist ideas.''

Also, SAHMAT does not subscribe to the National Council of Educational Research and Training contention that value education was being introduced in the curriculum as per the recommendations of a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development headed by the former Union Home Minister, Mr. S.B. Chavan. ``That committee had stressed on constitutional values and was not in favour of compromising with the scientific temper of the country.''

Another issue slated to come up for discussion is the ``devaluing of institutions of higher learning and apex research bodies''. Referring to the recent controversies involving the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Indian Council of Historical Research, Prof. Patnaik said: ``What happened in these two institutions was a manifestation of the communal agenda and the shrinking of space for rational discourse.''

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