New education policy to be announced before May 26: Irani

“The National Education Policy will be before the nation by May 26,” she said.The minister added: “Under the new education policy, the NCERT will address all those challenges facing the education system,”  Irani said the NCERT needed to address many issues as even students say they know more about Renaissance than about Maharana Pratap.

On the No-Detention Policy introduced by the UPA government in schools, she said a review was being carried out and “a decision will be taken soon”. “No-Detention Policy has led to students being unable to cope in Class 9. The state governments want it scrapped,” she said.

She added the government was taking a number of initiatives towards providing education to all and an endeavour ‘Swayam’ was being undertaken with the help of IITs, IIMs, central universities, NITs and some private universities to provide free online education to children of classes 9 to 12.

 “It will provide quality education online through a portal and mobile app in 10 Indian languages for Classes 9, 10, 11 and 12, including Board exams. It will start in the next two months and students enrolled through it can get free education online and only money will be paid for giving exams,” she said. The Minister added: “This is a very big step in school education for the poor.” 

She also talked about MoUs being signed with MIT in the USA and Stanford University for improving syllabi in NITs, besides creating a separate cadre for teacher trainers. Irani said the government had roped in HC Verma, a professor from IIT Kanpur, to undertake training exercises at government schools in UP to promote interest in science.

Irani said though allegations of saffronisation of education keep coming, the National Curriculum Framework, which was devised in 2005, has not been changed.