Jharkhand BJP has criticised Chief Minister Hemant Soren for opposing the National Education Policy (NEP) out of political reasons and said it tantamount to opposing academic abilities of tribals of Jharkhand.
The State spokesperson of the party Pratul Nath Shahdeo, who addressed a press conference at the party headquarters on Tuesday afternoon, said that Soren should have some introspection instead of opposing the NEP.
“During his previous regime as chief minister he had scaled-down weightage of local languages in examination conducted by Jharkhand Public Service Commission and at the same time his Government had introduced the Civil Services Aptitude Test system in the JPSC which is detrimental to the interests of tribals and moolvasis,” Shahdeo said.
The BJP accused the chief minister for trivialising the issue and explained how NEP is going to be beneficial for people. “NEP gives importance to local and tribal languages and primary education will be given in mother tongue. But, the Chief Minister instead of welcoming it raised the question of how and where to get such a large number of teachers,” he said.
Shahdeo pointed out in Jharkhand there are 17,000 students, who have completed their higher education in tribal languages of Jharkhand.
“The Chief Minister even went on to say that not much literature in tribal language is available. This is untrue because if we talk about Nagpuri, Santhali, Mundari and Kurukh these have sufficient literature and books and moreover research works can be done to promote literature,” Shahdeo said.
The BJP reminded the chief minister that Santhali was declared 8th schedule language during the regime of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee besides the previous state government in Jharkhand headed by Raghubar Das had recommended inclusion of Kudukh and Mundari in 8th schedule of the Constitution.
The BJP explained that NEP is beneficial to the interests of tribals of Jharkhand owing to the fact that students often leave their study incomplete.
“The good thing about NEP is that dropout students can resume their study at any time and even if they leave their education, they will get a certificate, diploma and degree as prescribed. But for chief minister, tribals are just a vote bank for him,” he said.
He rejected allegations of the Chief Minister that education policy was formed without consulting stakeholders saying the process had started in January 2015 and opinions of State Governments were sought.