DTF STATEMENT ON DELHI GOVERNMENT’S EDUCATION BUDGET

The Delhi Government is not only mirroring the aggressive narrow nationalism of the Central Government, it is also fully committed to put into place the Central Government’s New Educational Policy 2020 (NEP) that seeks to privatise the education sector, and substitute dubious online education in place of formal education at the school level too.

Manish Sisodia competing with Nirmala Sitharaman in promoting sainik school in his “deshbhakti” budget exposes AAP’s hidden ideological position.

The Delhi Government is seeking changes in the DU Act, with a clear motive of taking over DU colleges funded by it. The NEP 2020 anyway stipulates changing all acts pertaining to universities through an overarching legislation necessary for handing over every Higher Educational Institution to a nominated Board of Governors (BoG) where the academia will have no say but will be governed by these BoGs. That the BoGs are tasked with resource efficiency in doing business too is part of the NEP.

Why then, is the Delhi Government in a hurry to get the DU Act changed? Is it to get a slice of the cake where it will have a greater say in forming the BoGs of these institutions? There does not seem to be any other reasons when the NEP itself is to soon dismember colleges from Delhi University.

Its proposal to set up an online school for students anywhere in the country is a mere implementation of the NEP that empowers business in education at all levels. The Central Government itself has provided an online platform called NEAT2.0 for private edu-tech companies to do business in education entitling them to sell 75% of seats for revenue with 25% reservation for the poor. The Delhi Government, too wants a pie of this business for its revenue or for the revenue of private partners it may rope in.

The DTF calls upon teachers, students and concerned citizens to raise their voice against the Delhi Government’s anti-education thrust and the dire consequences for education as NEP gets rolled out.

𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐚 𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧, 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭A𝐛𝐡𝐚 𝐃𝐞𝐯 𝐇𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐛, 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲