After its repeated objections to the National Education Policy, Tamil Nadu flagged the non-release of funds by the centre under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan. And now, it seems another education sector programme – the PM-SHRI scheme – has been hit amid a frost in centre-state ties.
In a recent letter to Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan reminded the state government to proceed with an MoU for the PM-SHRI scheme. The minister expressed surprise that the DMK government had modified the memorandum by deleting a key paragraph referring to the NEP. This modified version was sent to the centre in July, nearly four months after the Tamil Nadu government gave an undertaking that was seen by the centre as the state’s willingness to sign the PM-SHRI MoU in this financial year.
But it wasn’t the first time that the Tamil Nadu government expressed its reluctance about the NEP. Back in October 2021, the Tamil Nadu government had stated that it would have its own state education policy instead.
This divergent approach, echoed by a few other non-BJP governed states, had also spilled over to the release of SSA funds.
The Tamil Nadu CM had earlier written to the prime minister seeking the release of SSA funds. It came close on the heels of a stand-off between the Punjab government and the centre about the payment of dues, with the centre eventually releasing the first instalment. But the release was preceded by the Punjab government’s consent to implementing the PM-SHRI programme.
Behind SSA fund contentions
Contentions around the SSA fund are just signs of new irritants in centre-state relations, and to be precise, between the centre and the non-BJP governed states.
The centre at the same time has linked the PM-SHRI scheme to the objectives of the NEP, and the release of the SSA fund to realisation of the objectives of the PM-SHRI.
Adherence to the NEP is an implicit condition to be a beneficiary of the SSA and sign the PM-SHRI scheme, according to the Tamil Nadu government. Tamil Nadu school education minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi earlier berated the centre for penalising the state for not implementing the NEP.
Need for astute handling
In its educational framework for school education, and under the SSA, the centre prioritised quality schools under the centrally-sponsored PM-SHRI programme. The union ministry of education’s policy statement about the flagship scheme mentions that 14,500 PM-SHRI schools will work towards enabling students to “become engaged, productive, and contributing citizens for building an equitable, inclusive, and plural society as envisaged by the National Education Policy 2020’’. So the objectives of the scheme are cast in the policy image of NEP.
The scheme’s blueprint entrusts the management of PM-SHRI schools on central as well as state governments, and on local bodies also.
The 42nd Amendment of the Indian constitution had moved education from state list to concurrent list under the seventh schedule, thus empowering both state legislature and parliament to legislate on matters related to education. So the handling of a concurrent list subject needs to be more astute, even if it’s an issue of policy and state grants, and not legislation.
At a time when the federal edifice is fraught with frequent tensions, the centre and the states need to find a middle ground to avert one more flashpoint.
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