'Saffronisation' moves in education criticised

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 29. The Human Resource Development Minister, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, today asserted in the Rajya Sabha that the Government was neither saffronising education nor pushing in any hidden agenda.

Dr. Joshi assured the Elders that the Government was not willing to commercialise higher education in the country and strongly defended the process of preparing the National Curriculum Framework for school education.

In his 70-minute reply to a calling attention motion on recent circulars of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the National Council for Education, Research and Training (NCERT), he said the Government was not willing to leave higher education to market forces, so long as he was holding the job and had not accepted the Birla-Ambani report on it.

The motion moved by the Congress and other parties witnessed heated discussion and noisy interruptions from both the Opposition and ruling NDA benches, leading to a ruling from the Chair that nothing except the Minister's reply would go on record.

The discussion also saw the DMK, a member of the ruling alliance, joining issue with the move to introduce astrology and Vedic maths as subjects of study in universities while the National Conference demanded that the Government at least consult the constituents in the NDA.

The Minister's contention that the Framework was finalised after the Ministry failed to elicit response from the 70 political party leaders it was circulated to, drew vociferous protests from the Opposition, which insisted that circulating it did mean concurrence. He said that the Framework was discussed in two conferences of State Education Secretaries held in November, 1999 and April this year in which the NCERT made detailed presentation.

Dr. Joshi promised to look into NCERT books that carried `objectionable references' to saints and national leaders thereby causing disharmony and delete them, a point raised by Dr. Mahesh Chandra Sharma (BJP) during his spirited intervention.

He said action and initiatives taken both by the NCERT-UGC in school and higher education sectors were in pursuance of and within the parameters of the 1986 policy with a view to bringing about quality upgradation and meeting emerging challenges.

Earlier, initiating the discussion, Mr. Eduardo Faleiro (Congress) criticised the Framework and moves in the UGC as a `great leap backward to the dark ages' and charged that the Government was bringing into play `its regressive agenda'. Urging the State governments to `reject' the Framework, he said the move to introduce Vedic maths and astrology were a `caricature' of attempts to inculcate a scientific temper since it was based on tradition instead of logic and experiment.

Interestingly, Mr. P.N. Siva (DMK) was vehement in opposing the move and said this came at a time when there was need to usher in education to meet the demands of the next generation like information technology and bio-technology. `The UGC is taking a giant leap backwards' in the face of stiff opposition from members of the scientific community, he said.

Another NDA partner, Mr. Mirza Abdul Rashid (National Conference) disputed the Government's claim to have discussed with all States.

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