People's Democracy

DR Murli Manohar Joshi, union minister of human resources development, misled the parliament in his reply to the Lok Sabha on August 20. This was the categorical allegation leveled against him by renowned educationists and scholars in a press conference organised by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) on August 24. Giving a point by point reply to the claims made by Dr Joshi, they also asserted that, from the level of states to the parliament, no process of discussion was initiated and no transparent method adopted while pushing through the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) developed by the National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT). The changes made by the NCF are clearly communal and underline how the 1986 National Policy on Education (NPE), amended in 1992, was sought to be undermined without taking the parliament in confidence. The press conference was addressed by historian Romila Thapar, economist Prabhat Patnaik, educationist Arjun Dev who had been associated with the NCERT, another educationist Anil Sadgopal, and political scientist Ms Zoya Hasan.

It may be recalled that the Lok Sabha debate on Saffronisation of Education was initiated by Somnath Chatterjee on August 16, and concluded with Dr Joshi’s reply.

In his initial remarks on Jyotish, Professor Prabhat Patnaik drew attention to the fact that Dr Joshi’s claim about not making any new beginning was a plain untruth. He said hitherto there was no Jyotish degree recognised by the UGC, nor is it a case of some isolated institution running a course in it. Under Dr Joshi, the UGC is vigorously imposing pseudo courses like Jyotish, Spiritual Consciousness and Spoken Sanskrit. In regard to Spoken Sanskrit, it is even trying to bypass the universities, which are autonomous bodies, to directly recruit simple graduates as teachers. This shows how the RSS is hell bent on planting its men in various places.

Underlining the lack of transparency in the proposed changes, Professor Romila Thapar gave examples of how Dr Joshi adopted the cheap trick of distorting the opinions of academicians to substantiate his contention. She reminded that the minister quoted a Pakistani archaeologist Mohd Rafiq Mughal, Professor Dyles, Dr Bhagwan Singh and Romila Thapar herself to buttress his claim that the Aryans were original inhabitants of India. But the fact is that, barring Dr Bhagwan Singh who is a fiction writer, none of the quoted archaeologists and historians agrees with this claim. They only advanced the thesis of Aryan migration instead of that of an Aryan raid or invasion, and this thesis of migration underlines not a confrontation of diverse cultures but their mutual interaction and assimilation. Regarding the proposal in the NCF that history be replaced by a composite social science course comprising four subjects, Professor Thapar asked how this could be described as a lessening of the child’s burden.

Professor Arjun Dev said the NCERT prepared and Dr Joshi released the NCF last year without any endorsement by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) which has education ministers of all states as its members. The NCF thus lacks legitimacy. Dr Joshi’s argument that state education ministers are members of the NCERT council whose annual meeting endorsed the NCF, is also wrong. For, a debate on the NCF in the annual meeting was not possible, nor any such debate took place. The meeting was only informed that such a document had been prepared. But not to talk of the states endorsing it, education ministers of two states had even cautioned about value education and religious tinge. Describing the NCF as a blatant violation of the 1986/1992 education policy, Professor Dev reminded that there was no mention of "religion" in that education policy that was endorsed by the parliament, while the NCF poses as if religion is the main basis of all values. Professor Dev also accused that Dr Joshi wrongly quoted from the Chavan committee formed in 1996. He also challenged Dr Joshi’s claim that several scholars were involved in the preparation of the NCF. He said the NCERT had invited Professor Yashpal, late Ravinder Kumar, etc, to deliver lectures and not to discuss the outline of the Framework. He emphatically said that the whole process of preparing an outline paper, discussing it within the NCERT and then releasing it for a wider discussion, was given a go-by from the very outset.

Professor Anil Sadgopal said the NCF will add to the burden of the students. He accused the government of trying to impose a definition of Hindutva-based patriotism on Indian education. He also underlined the attempt to impose dubious concepts like Intelligence Quotient, Emotional Quotient and Spiritual Quotient, alongwith value education.

Professor Zoya Hasan detailed how the long list of foreign education institutions, given by Dr Joshi to justify the RSS-driven decision of starting a Jyotish course, was taken directly from a website, while in most cases it is not a university course. She also raised several questions regarding the Spoken Sanskrit course and the direct recruitment of teachers, without any interview, by the UGC.

The statement issued at the SAHMAT press conference follows.

1) The minister said that "Prof Yashpal, Prof M Mukhopadhyaya, Prof J N Kapoor, Dr Arvind Kumar, Dr Anirudha Rajan, Dr Sagat Mitra, Dr Ravinder Kumar, Prof Yogendra Singh, Dr Smt Kapila Vatsyayan, etc, discussed the preparatory material for the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF) (p 12530 of the Lok Sabha proceedings).

The fact is that, in all, eleven experts were invited, most of them to give lectures to the Curriculum Group and not to discuss the issues of curriculum. According to our information, Prof Yashpal, Dr Kapila Vatsyayan and Prof Yogendra Singh have denied being a party to the formulation of the NCF in its present form. The late Prof Ravinder Kumar was invited to give a talk on the "Freedom Movement from 1857 to 1947," not to discuss the problems of the history curriculum.

2) One of the major issues that were raised during the debate in parliament was the refusal by the HRD minister to convene a meeting of the CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education) to consider the NCF. It was pointed out that without the CABE’s consideration and approval the NCF is devoid of any legitimacy.

The minister’s contention was that there is no need to call a meeting of the education ministers (CABE). This is violative of the National Policy of Education (NPE) for the following reason:

The NPE, para 10.2 states: "The Central Advisory Board of Education will play a pivotal role in reviewing educational development, determining the changes required to improve the system and monitoring implementation." Leave alone giving CABE a pivotal role according to the NPE, the minister is obviating the necessity of CABE itself.

3) The minister’s contention was that since all education ministers are members of the NCERT general council, there is no need for a meeting of the CABE. This is highly misleading. It needs to be recalled that all education ministers of all states have been members of the general council of the NCERT from the time the NCERT was constituted 40 years ago. This has never been viewed as obviating the existence and importance of CABE.

This in itself is a glaring example of deviating from the NPE (1986, 1992).

4) The HRD minister has quoted the minutes of the annual general meeting of the NCERT, to conclude that the education ministers of states and experts considered the NCF and approved it. The minister claimed that the NCF was read out at the meeting.

This is far from the truth for the following reasons:

a) The primary function of the annual meeting of the NCERT is to approve the draft annual report. The HRD minister, who presided over the meeting, left soon after he had made his speech. His statement that "To prepare the framework of curriculum a meeting was held by calling ministers of education of all states together" is misleading in this context.

At the NCERT meeting, only eight ministers were present and of them only two ministers made any reference to the NCF in their speeches.

b) At the NCERT meeting, the NCF was never put up for consideration. It was already taken as approved since the HRD minister in his speech during the meeting stated, "Communication will be sent to the state/UT governments to consider ways and means as to how best the new National Curriculum Framework may be operationalised. The union HRD ministry will also organise in January 2001 a meeting of the education ministers of the states/UTs in this context." (The meeting never took place.)

c) The two state education ministers the HRD minister has quoted from the NCERT annual meeting, had also emphasised the need to be cautious with the new NCF. In fact, the education minister of Tripura categorically stated: "The curriculum load need not be increased through value education programmes" (p 12544). And the education minister of Bihar, referring to education about different religions advocated in the Framework on pages 19-20, 35-36 and 117-118 (NCF), stated that "the children should be oriented towards nationalistic feelings and secular values need to be inculcated" (p 12543).

5) Even the letter the HRD minister wrote to 67 political parties quite clearly presumes that the NCF had been approved; it only seeks suggestions for implementation. The letter, as quoted by the HRD minister in Lok Sabha, said: "I take this opportunity to impress upon the need for considering this document in your party fora and among legislators who like to help and guide the respective state governments in implementing the Curriculum Framework in a desirable manner…"

6) The HRD minister affirmed his commitment to NPE (1986, 1992) and asked to show any deviation from it in the NCF. In its general thrust, the NCF is at total variance with the NPE, as will be evident from the following example:

In the matter of value education, one would be struck by the fundamental contradiction between the two. The NCF refers to religion as a major source of values and lays a lot of stress on it in many of its sections. The NPE (para 3.4, 3.5, 3.6) refers to a "common core" in the context of the National Curriculum Framework and clearly lays down the various components of the "common core;" these components are all areas of value education. The NPE, additionally, has three paras (8.4, 8.5, 8.6) under the sub-head ‘Value Education.’ However, in none of these paras and indeed nowhere in the entire document on National Policy on Education, does even the word "religion(s)" occur.

7) Furthermore, the NCF and following it the minister, in his speech, have misrepresented the Chavan committee report on value-based education in order to justify and put a garb of value education on what is in fact a move to communalise education. The Chavan committee report nowhere refers to religion as a source, major or minor, of values. According to NCF, "The Chavan committee (1999) strongly urges education about religions as an instrument of social cohesion and social and religious harmony." The minister, in his speech, repeated this. In the Chavan committee report, however, there is no such statement. The Chavan committee does have a para (para 13) about religion which, according to it, "is the most misused and misunderstood concept." But this para has little to do with what the NCF and the minister would like to do with "teaching about religion."

The Chavan committee’s major thrust was on secular values, on principles of democracy, on non-imposition of fundamentalist ideas, etc. It also stated that "distortion of history should not be allowed" but distortion of history is one, if not the most important, priority area of the present dispensation in the government as well as in the NCERT.

8) The HRD minister reeled out a list of universities where astrology is already being taught, both at home and abroad. The case of foreign universities is really revealing. The HRD minister has gone to the website FindAstrologer.com, clicked on it, deleted the correspondence courses from it, and taken the entire nation for a ride. Reading the names of these institutes is enough to make one realise their worth.

Also, why such a fervent proponent of ‘indigenism’ wants to imitate foreign universities is beyond comprehension.

As far as the universities of Plymouth, London and Manchester in the UK are concerned, we have visited their websites and found no match for astrology.