New Delhi:
Months after protests at the Hyderabad Central University and Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University made headlines, a report submitted by a committee appointed by the government to formulate a new education policy has recommended that politics on campus should be curbed and caste and religious based groups on campus be de-recognised.
The committee headed by former Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramanian has also suggested that number of years a student can spend on campus should be limited.
The report says judging students only on results of board exams is wrong and favours a complete overhaul of the examination system.
It wants students appearing for class 10 board exams to have an option of choosing whether they want to give a basic or high level Maths and Science exam depending on the stream they want to pursue after school.
The suggestion has got a mixed response from students. "It is too early for us to decide. What if we change our mind later? Then we won't be able to switch to science stream if we choose a basic level in class 10 boards," said a class 11 student from DPS R K Puram
"If students are absolutely sure that they don't want to pursue maths or science later on in life, it would be a good option for them," said another.
The report also says student up to class 5 should not be detained and does not favour the right to education exemption for minority institutions. It suggests a new legislation should be brought in to regulate higher education.
Professor Anita Rampal, Former Dean Faculty of Education at the Delhi University says the report is a mixed bag.
"The report says a lot of right things on the exam system, but when it comes to policies of RTE, learning outcomes and accountability of teachers, some of the language is regressive. It doesn't tell you how it seeks to achieve all these ideas. Even when it comes to language, there is a sweeping statement that says 40% of the country speaks Hindi and so it's important for national integration. These are problematic statements."
The contents of the report have not been made public yet. The union HRD ministry has said it will be consulting all states before finalizing a new national education policy. Mr Subramanian had last month said he would make the report public if the government did not do so.