NEW DELHI: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi On Monday strongly criticised the Nationwide Schooling Coverage (NEP) 2020, accusing the Union BJP authorities of utilizing it as a software for “centralisation of energy, commercialisation, and communalisation” within the training sector.
The previous congress president mentioned, “The Union Authorities’s monitor report during the last decade has convincingly demonstrated that in training, it’s involved solely with the profitable implementation of three core agenda gadgets — the centralisation of energy with the Union Authorities; the commercialisation and outsourcing of investments in training to the non-public sector, and the communalisation of textbooks, curriculum, and establishments.”
In an opinion piece printed in The Hindu information paper, she claimed that the coverage hides the federal government’s “profound indifference” to the training of India’s youth and kids.
“Unchecked centralisation has been the hallmark of this Authorities’s functioning during the last 11 years, however its most damaging penalties have been within the area of training,” she wrote, alleging that the federal government has sidelined state governments in key decision-making processes. She identified that the Central Advisory Board of Schooling, which incorporates ministers from each the Centre and states, has not been convened since September 2019.

Sonia Gandhi additionally alleged that the federal government has “coerced” state governments into implementing the PM-SHRI scheme by withholding grants meant for the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). “These funds have been attributable to States for years as a part of the monetary help required to implement the Proper of Youngsters to Free and Obligatory Schooling (RTE) Act,” she wrote, including that even the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Schooling had known as for the unconditional launch of SSA funds.
Criticising the NEP’s influence on larger training, she pointed to the brand new draft pointers for the College Grants Fee (UGC) in 2025, which she claimed goal to decrease the function of state governments in appointing vice-chancellors. “The Union Authorities has given itself — by means of the Governors who’re usually designated because the Chancellor of the College — near-monopoly energy within the number of the Vice-Chancellors in State universities,” she acknowledged, calling it a “grave menace to federalism.”
Gandhi additional accused the federal government of pushing for “unchecked privatisation” of faculty training. She argued that the NEP undermines the idea of neighbourhood faculties assured below the RTE Act by selling the thought of “college complexes,” which she mentioned has led to the closure of practically 90,000 public faculties since 2014 whereas rising the variety of non-public faculties.
She additionally criticised the shift from block grants to the Greater Schooling Financing Company (HEFA) for funding universities, arguing that it forces establishments to take loans that in the end end in larger scholar charges. “Between 78% to 100% of those loans are being repaid by universities by means of scholar charges. In different phrases, the value of the Authorities’s retreat from financing public training has been borne by college students dealing with price hikes,” she wrote.
On the problem of communalisation, she accused the federal government of “indoctrinating and cultivating hatred by means of the training system.” She cited revisions in NCERT textbooks that eliminated references to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and Mughal historical past and criticised the hiring of school members primarily based on ideological concerns fairly than educational advantage. “Management positions in key establishments… have been reserved for pliant ideologues,” she wrote, warning that the dilution of {qualifications} for professors and vice-chancellors is a part of this agenda.
Calling for an finish to what she termed the “carnage” of India’s public training system, Gandhi wrote, “During the last decade, our training programs have been systematically cleansed of the spirit of public service, and training coverage has been sanitised of any issues about entry to and the standard of training.”