Ministry of Human Resource Development Constitutes a Drafting Committee to Frame the New Education Policy

Ministry of Human Resource Development Constitutes a Drafting Committee to Frame the New Education Policy 

Ministry of Human Resource Development has undertaken an unprecedented collaborative, multi-stakeholder and multi-pronged consultation process for formulating the New Education Policy. The three-pronged consultation process included online, grassroots and national level thematic deliberations. 

The Ministry organized an online competition for a logo, slogan and tagline for the New Education Policy, for which over 3000 entries were received. The consultations were officially launched on MyGov portal on 26th January, 2015 on 33 themes across School and Higher Education. Over 26,500 suggestions have been received online.

Apex level institutions and regulators, such as, UGC, AICTE, NCTE, AIU, NCERT, CBSE, IIAS, NLMA, NAAC, NUEPA, IGNOU, IITs, IIMs and Central Universities have held detailed discussion on identified themes with participation of renowned academicians, experts, practitioners, NGOs, civil society, student & teacher representative bodies, industry associations, and stakeholder different Ministries of Government of India.

The grassroots consultations stem from the federal structure of the country in which states are equal partners in carrying forward the education agenda and have a critical voice in policy formulation. A meeting was held by the Minister of Human Resource Development on 21st March with Education Ministers, Secretaries and other senior officials of the State Governments in which the consultation process, including the process of uploading there commendations on MyGov, was explained in detail and suggestions of States on the process as well as the themes were also invited. All participants appreciated the consultation process.

An extensive, time-bound, participative, bottom-up consultative process across nearly 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats, 6600 Blocks, 6000 Urban Local Bodies, 676 districts and 36 States/Union Territories was carried out between May to October, 2015 and so far 63,100 villages, 3088 Blocks, 822 ULBs, 247 districts and three States have uploaded their suggestions on https://survey.mygov.in. Some states have conveyed that they have completed the consultations and have asked for more time for uploading the suggestions. More uploads are expected by the first week of November.

Consultation process was one of the agenda points in the meeting of Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) held on 19th August 2015. Views of all States and members of CABE were invited on the consultation process and the themes. All States were also requested to undertake the consultation process and complete it within the defined timeframe and, if felt necessary, include additional themes.

Six Zonal Meetings were held by the Minister of Human Resource Development Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani in Eastern, Central, North-Eastern, Western, Southern and Northern Zones covering all States and UTs in September-October 2015 which were attended by Education Ministers and officials of the respective States/UTs. States will be submitting their outcome documents with suggestions. Before each zonal meeting, the Minister of Human Resource Development interacted through video-conference with the states of the concerned zone. It included interaction with the State level officials of education departments, district level officials of a 68 districts and local elected representatives.

A separate meeting was held by the Minister of Human Resource Development with Ministries of Government of India. Their suggestions were noted and they were also asked to send their suggestions. In all, 13 Ministries of Government of India have sent their suggestions to Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Six online talks with leading subject experts, field practitioner engagement through the UN Solutions Exchange platform, online survey by CBSE with over 15000 responses, youth survey and focus group discussions by Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, UNESCO Category-I Institute in Asia Pacific were conducted as part of the public engagement. In addition, several organizations and individuals have sent in their views, suggestions and inputs through post and email which have been collated.

Ministry of Human Resource Development has decided to constitute a Drafting Committee for framing the New Education Policy. The Chairman of the Drafting Committee is Shri T.S.R. Subramanian, Former Cabinet Secretary and the four members are: Smt. Shailaja Chandra, former Chief Secretary, NCT of Delhi; Shri Sewaram Sharma, former Home Secretary, NCT of Delhi; Shri Sudhir Mankad, former Chief Secretary, Gujarat and Prof. J S Rajput, former Director, NCERT. The National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi will act as its Secretariat. The Committee is expected to submit the Draft National Education Policy as soon as possible but not later than 31st December, 2015. Along with the draft education policy, the Committee will also submit a Framework for Action.