State yet to decide on draft NEP 

A committee headed by renowned educationist Kasturi Rangan, submitted the draft NEP to the Union government on May 31. The draft drew criticisms from various quarters for various recommendations, including making Hindi compulsory at school level.

Opposition parties made a hue and cry as they claimed that the draft NEP is trying to impose three language policy, but though state government is claiming that it is against the three language policy no policy decision had been taken so far. Opposition parties even raised the issue in the Assembly and demanded the government to take policy decision on the issue similar to NEET and send it to the Centre.

DMK president MK Stalin, said that two language policy was adopted by former CM, Annadurai and had been the base of all the education policy in the state. So, the state government should take a policy decision on the draft NEP at the earliest.

Though an all-party meeting on the issue was conducted and opinions of all the major parties were obtained, the decision is yet to be taken.

In the meantime, Actor Suriya’s comments criticising the draft NEP created ripples in the state as opposition parties supported him and members of ruling party criticised him. BJP functionaries said that NEP is a revolution in the field of education and should be implemented.

BJP state leader Professor Srinivasan, said, “Previous government provided free education between the ages of 6 and 14 but the draft NEP recommends free education for children from the age of 3 to 18. As far as language policy is concerned, the draft NEP recommends students of north Indian states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to learn any one of the south Indian languages and so the policy does not corner any particular state or language.”

However, Minister for Tamil Official Language and Tamil Culture K Pandiarajan, said the language issue is just one subject in the draft and that government will take a decision soon. “Experts are in the process of preparing a report on the NEP and the government will review the report before taking decision on the issue. However, the decision will be taken soon,” said theMinister.