Suspecting ‘secretive’ conduct of public hearing on National Education Policy 2019 by the State Council of Education Research and Training on the premises of St. Joseph's College, a group of about 70 protesters belonging to political parties and other organisations disrupted the meeting by raising slogans.
The meeting that had the participation of the Chief Educational Officers of seven districts, including Tiruchi, District Educational Officers, school headmasters, and principals of District Institutes of Education and Training, however, resumed after the protesters dispersed upon learning that the meeting was meant to be a workshop for dissemination of the salient features of NEP 2019 to the teaching community.
The protesters had a reason to suspect the nature of the meeting since the inscription on the writing pad distributed to participants depicted ‘public hearing.’
Also, the presence of students and parents could not be explained convincingly by the organisers.
The apprehension of the protesters belonging to the Left parties, Naam Tamizhar Katchi, Democratic Youth Federation of India and a few other organisations was that the regional-level meeting would endorse the NEP 2019 secretively, according to sources.
Seeking to allay apprehensions of the protesters, Joint Director of SCERT Pon Kumar said the mention of ‘public hearing’ on the writing pads was inadvertent and that the hearing would indeed be held on a later date after prior information to all stake-holders.
