SC's call on NEP 2020 vindicates Bengal's stand: Bratya
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Kolkata: Reacting to Supreme Court's observation on Friday that it cannot force a state to adopt
National Education Policy 2020
, state education minister
Bratya Basu
said this vindicated Bengal's stand.The PIL was filed by a BJP lawyer from Tamil Nadu seeking direction to the TN, Kerala and Bengal govts to implement NEP 2020.
The SC bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said: "We cannot directly compel a state to adopt a policy like National Education Policy 2020.
"Basu wrote on X: "The Hon'ble Supreme Court has once again upheld the State Government's position that while the broad contours may be fixed by the Centre, education policy should be left to the state govts to accommodate the diversity of our country." The minister added that this proved "how far ahead" CM Mamata Banerjee, "under whose guidance we formulated the State Education Policy maintaining the basic structure that is applicable for the whole country", was.Academicians and professors also welcomed the SC's observation. Former Jadavpur University and Calcutta University VC Suranjan Das, who was part of the state expert committee, said: "When we started to formulate the education policy, we looked at two perspectives. We did not want a situation where our students would remain isolated from the rest of the country. Similarly, in the teaching and learning part, we did not want the state to be completely de-linked from the country. Hence, we took the best practices of NEP 2020 and framed our policy in tune with Bengal's requirements and needs."General secretary of All India Save Education Committee, Tarun Kanti Naskar, said: "We have been opposing this policy from the very beginning and so welcome this observation of the apex court. Education is under the concurrent list, which means both the Centre and states can legislate on education. However, the present governing dispensation at the Centre is used to considering it as under the central list and forcibly imposing all central policies, including NEP 2020, on states. Also, NEP is not legislation but a Cabinet decision. Central govt thus violates the spirit of federalism. This policy is a blueprint of privatisation, corporatisation, commercialisation and communalisation of education."West Bengal College and University Teachers' Association general secretary Keshab Bhattacharyya said: "We were always against implementation of NEP 2020 as it will destroy the public education system and pave the way for privatisation of education."Bengal had in April 2023 constituted an expert committee which checked initiatives of other states like Maharashtra and Kerala and other education panel reports — both at state and national levels — before submitting its recommendations for the State Education Policy (SEP).SEP 2020 sees the continuation of the state's 5+4+2+2 school structure — one year of pre-primary and four years of primary till Class 4; four years of upper primary till Class 8; two years of secondary education (Class 9 to 10) and two years of higher secondary (Class 11 to 12) — as opposed to the 5+3+3+4 division recommended by NEP 2020. The three-language formula in SEP 2020 also gives importance to the mother tongue. For higher education, four-year UG courses have been rolled out, keeping in mind the future of lakhs of students.
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