: Speaking at the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) meeting, which was attended by Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar and State Education Ministers on Tuesday, Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia suggested that the Centre rename the HRD Ministry as Education Ministry.
“It is unfortunate that the country does not have an Education Ministry. The name HRD ministry should be changed to Education Ministry as HRD is just a part of it,” said Mr. Sisodia. He also said that it was only the government schools and not the private schools that provide an ultimate solution for school education in India.
On his experience so far as Education Minister, Mr. Sisodia said that quality and accountability in government schools should be ensured and stressed that the education budget must be increased at the national level. He also proposed an extension of the Right to Education (RTE) Act to children who do not fall in the 6 to 14 years age bracket.
‘Overburdened teachers’
“There is no dearth of talent in teachers of government schools, but they are bound by too many formalities. From nursery till class XII, teachers and principals are currently enslaved by curriculum, diary, syllabus and policy. Efforts at the national level are required to liberate teachers and principals from these shackles,” said the Minister.
He said teachers should not have to deal with duties like making voter cards, ration cards, election duty etc, since this adversely affects their teaching schedules.
Making a case for the scrapping of the ‘No Detention Policy’, Mr. Sisodia said that it was implemented without any preparation.
“Text books were not changed, teachers were not trained and neither were any changes made in the B.Ed programmes before this policy was implemented. Given such a situation the policy should be done away with for now,” he said.
