‘Tamil Nadu govt took U-turn’: Dharmendra Pradhan hits out at Stalin-led DMK govt amid NEP debate in Parliament

“The Tamil Nadu government had initially agreed to sign the MoU. But now they have changed the stand. Many non-BJP-ruled states, including Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, have signed the agreement,” Pradhan said replying to a question on the PM SHRI scheme.

The state concerned has to sign an MoU with the Central government that it would implement the National Education Policy 2020, the centrally-sponsored scheme which aims to set up “exemplar schools” that will showcase aspects of the NEP.

“They are dishonest and they are ruining the future of the students of Tamil Nadu. They are doing politics,” Pradhan added.

Members of the DMK party in the House raised slogans against the Centre in protest. Speaker Om Birla asked the agitating members to return to their seats to function normally before adjourning the House.

Pradhan vs Stalin over NEP

In August last year, Pradhan wrote that Tamil Nadu had given an undertaking in March indicating the state’s willingness to sign the PM SHRI MoU for the 2024-25 academic year, and a draft MoU was sent by the Ministry of Education to the state.

This was after TN Chief Minister M K Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking the Centre to expedite the release of its share to the state under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.

In his letter, Stalin had written that the Union government is “attempting to link the complete implementation of the NEP in PM SHRI schools as a prerequisite for sanctioning funds under the ongoing SS (Samagra Shiksha) scheme,” and that funds have been released to states that have entered into MoUs with the Centre for PM SHRI.

The DMK government in Tamil Nadu has been opposing the implementation of the NEP. The earlier AIADMK government in the state was against the NEP’s three-language policy. The DMK leaders have opposed the idea of a common education policy for all states. Stalin had said in 2020 that the NEP gives more priority to Sanskrit than Tamil and other languages. The state follows a two-language policy.