Vowing to never accept the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 even if the Union Government were to release Rs 10,000 crore funds in lieu of that, Chief Minister M K Stalin said that the State would manage to provide quality education with its own resources because the NEP would take the State 2000 years behind by doing away with social justice, decimating Tamil language and the people and impeding the progress of the future generations.
Chennai:Vowing to never accept the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 even if the Union Government were to release Rs 10,000 crore funds in lieu of that, Chief Minister M K Stalin said that the State would manage to provide quality education with its own resources because the NEP would take the State 2000 years behind by doing away with social justice, decimating Tamil language and the people and impeding the progress of the future generations.
Addressing a meeting of the Parent Teacher Association at Thirupayar in Cuddalore district on Saturday, Stalin listed out the drawbacks of the NEP that included a provision to encourage students to drop out of education, stop the scholarship given to students from marginalized communities and the introduction of a scheme to promote the learning of traditional vocations (kula kalvi) in education.
The imposition of the third language would come in the way of children developing skills for their future could also put stumbling blocks in learning for the students at every class, he said adding the two-language policy had enabled the students develop skills, which had been made evident by the success of children from the State who had excelled in various fields around the world.
Making it clear that he was not personally not inimical to any language and that anyone was free to learn any language, he said imposing on the people against their will would not be tolerated and the State would let the world know that its people were of a unique nature.
Pointing out that when he wrote to the Prime Minister about the funds that were being withheld by the Union Government, the Union Minister for Education came out to declare that Prime Minister loved Tamil Language, Stalin said that it was hogwash because the Union Government that had spent Rs 74 crore for Tamil, a language spoken by over 8 crore people, had allocated 1488 crore for the development of Sanskrit that was known to just a few thousands of people.
On Hindi imposition, he said that in the past 75 years, 52 Indian languages had been pushed to the brink of extinction due to those States accepting Hindi, he said, adding that now those States had realized their folly and were trying to salvage their mother tongues by drawing inspiration from Tamil Nadu whose people had been endowed with an exemplary classical language as their mother tongue.
Though the Union Government’s reports lauded Tamil Nadu for its performance on the education front, Rs 2,154 crore funds meant for the education of 43 lakh students had been blocked because the NEP had not been implemented in the State, the Chief Minister said and assured that all programmes undertaken by the State Education Department would be carried out without any hitch even if the funds were not released by New Delhi.
