Does the National Education Policy try to dilute reservation? Is it not the addressing issue of inclusion of SC, ST, OBCs and Divyang in the educational sphere? Some such apprehensions were raised by a few leaders and educational experts. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury recently wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking clarification on these matters. He asked why there was no mention of the term 'reservation' in the NEP draft.

As we know that reservation has remained as one of the central issues in the politics of the Indian democracy. It has immense potential to create positive and negative mobilisation in electoral politics. The political forces may use it as an opportunity to mobilise a section of OBC and Dalit people in their favour. The reservation issue may be twisted for political gain. Yechury raised apprehensions of the possibility of dilution of reservation provisions through the National Education Policy 2020. The education ministry of the NDA-led government recently passed and is working hard to effectively implement the NEP 2020.

The education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank clarified that no such intention is reflected in the draft of NEP. He further explained that NEP 2020 emerged under Article 15-16 of the Indian constitution, so it cohesively abides by constitutional provisions. The entire debate on reservation is pushed around the issues of educational empowerment of SCs, STs, OBCs and Divyang.

In fact, there are two ways to create educational inclusion of the marginalised communities: one is following policies of reservation in educational institutions. The second is, evolving other supportive measures to generate capacity among socio-economically deprived communities to participate in and acquire the benefits of education.

Apart from using reservation for creating educational inclusion of the marginalised communities, NEP 2020 also proposes many creative ways. Aside from existing categories of marginalised people, NEP has tried to explore various other categories such as Divyang, transgender, ecological and geographically marginalised zones, etc, and realised the need for their educational inclusion. It has created a separate cluster for various forms of marginalities which are facilitating inequalities in Indian society. This cluster is defined as socio-economic deprived groups (SEDG). The NEP defines the need for exerting special focus on these various marginalities, prevailing like viruses in the Indian society. The strategy appears to form diverse policies but cultivate the unified impact for these marginal groups. That is why NEP also suggested defining special educational zones (SEZ), areas which are inhabited by a large number of educationally deprived social groups. These SEZs will provide an opportunity to the states to give special attention, form special policies to reduce educational deprivation of the deprived social groups. The scholarships, transportation facilities and other ongoing support schemes will continue with many other capacity-building new policies and measures.

While addressing issues of educational inclusion of the marginalised, the NEP proposed an interesting idea to give special emphasis on the educational inclusion of the girl child and women of the deprived sections. The NEP not only realised the need of educational inclusion of the girls and women of weaker sections but women as a whole and made a provision to make a Gender Inclusion Fund (GIF). This fund may be used to launch special schemes for the educational inclusion of women, which is almost half of our Indian population.

As we know, democracy has the pressure of the minorities and marginal inherent in its nature. That is why NEP 2020 made various provisions to strengthen the educational capacity of minorities in India. It respects and gives support to their traditional medium of education and also tries to include them in the modern sphere of educational culture.

The education minister asserted that after many months of declaration of NEP 2020, he has not received any complaint on the implementation of reservation in educational institutions. He said in his recent statement that the government will take strong action on receiving any complaint regarding it. So with proper implementation of reservation policies, NEP 2020 has explored many new ways to inculcate educational empowerment in marginalised communities in India. Hopefully, after its implementation, India's subaltern will truly get a voice.

Source: News18 India