The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The Karnataka government on Monday, August 21, has officially announced that it has decided to withdraw the National Education Policy (NEP) and come out with a state education policy that would be in place for implementation from the next academic year.
In a statement reported by Deccan Herald, chief minister Siddaramaiah said the Union government cannot frame policies on education, which is a state subject. “The NEP was framed without taking states into confidence. An education policy can’t be imposed on states. A uniform policy is not possible in a diverse, plural country,” he said, not failing to add that that states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have already rejected the NEP.
Higher education minister M.C. Sudhakar said no names were proposed or discussed in the meeting for the expert committee. “We will consider all stakeholders while framing the policy,” he said. According to deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar, the Karnataka government is likely to refer to an October 2016 report on Karnataka State Education Policy prepared by the former Karnataka Knowledge Commission.
Siddaramaiah had already confirmed that the NEP would be withdrawn next year in keeping with the Congress’s election manifesto promise over the controversial policy.
The policy would be for primary and higher education.
The decision was taken after a high-level meeting of Karnataka government officials, academics and vice-chancellors of the universities, Shivakumar told the media.
“We have decided to scrap the National Education Policy, which has been adopted by the BJP government. Next year, we are coming out with the new Karnataka Education Policy,” Shivakumar is reported to have said after the meeting.
The Telegraph reports that “a special committee would be launched next week to work out the details of the proposed state policy” in keeping with future requirements.
In August 2021, under a BJP-led government, Karnataka was the first state to adopt the NEP in higher education.
The NEP has got a lot of pushback from southern states, seeing themselves as centres of education and knowledge.
Recently, in April, the curriculum steering committee meeting of the Kerala State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) had issued a statement announcing that it had decided to include the portions omitted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in the state school syllabus. Education minister V. Sivankutty has also said that the state will include omitted portions in the Kerala school syllabus. NCERT has excluded Mughal history, Gujarat riots and Darwin’s theory of evolution from school textbooks.
Tamil Nadu had formed a 13 -member committee in June 2022 to frame a distinct state education policy. Headed by retired chief justice D. Murugesan, it is expected to file its report by next month.