The All India Students’ Federation (AISF) is organising a national convention “Reject NEP 2020” against the National Education Policy (NEP) here on Sunday, in which Ministers from Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra are expected to participate.
Vicky Mahesari, national general secretary, AISF, said they decided to host the event in Tamil Nadu owing to the consistent fight put up by the State government against the centralisation of powers by the Union government and the State’s opposition to National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test (NEET), and NEP.
He said while sustained protests by students and teachers’ associations could be one approach to fight the NEP, another viable strategy was to get like-minded State governments to initiate the fight by pressuring the Union government and passing resolutions in their respective Assemblies. He said one of the things the convention intended to achieve was to bring such forces together.
Speaking on the reasons for rejecting NEP, V. Vasanthi Devi, former Vice-Chancellor of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, said that “three Cs,” which are centralisation, commercialisation and communalisation of education, formed the core of NEP. She argued that the NEP, if implemented, would make education inaccessible for those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, as being witnessed with the enforcement of NEET.
Tamil Nadu Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy, School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, Kerala Higher Education Minister R. Bindu, Maharashtra Housing Minister Jitendra Awhad, Telangana State Planning Commission Vice-Chairman B. Vinod Kumar, and Communist Party of India general secretary D. Raja are among the dignitaries expected to participate in the event.
