Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai)

Day by day, Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin is stepping up his war against the BJP/NDA government at the Centre. According to Stalin, the BJP leadership — especially prime minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah — is hell-bent upon imposing Hindi — the lingua franca of the socio-economically backward BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) states and decreed by the Constitution as the official language of India (a proposition vehemently opposed by successive governments of Tamil Nadu since 1965) — upon the state.

In particular, the state’s ruling DMK party voted to power in 2021 is determined to stick with the two-language learning policy in the state’s 37,387 government and aided schools disregarding the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandate of all children countrywide learning three languages, “with at least two being Indian languages”.

NEP 2020 is silent about English, the associate national language linking all state governments and the language of the upper judiciary and business and commerce. DMK and Stalin have interpreted the three-languages learning mandate of NEP 2020 as covert imposition of Hindi on Tamil Nadu and Dravidian states of southern India. Therefore in 2021, the DMK government rejected NEP 2020 in toto and constituted a committee under Justice (Retd.) D. Murugesan to formulate an independent State Education Policy (SEP). The Murugesan Committee’s 600-page SEP, submitted to the TN government is under consideration.

Meanwhile, reacting to a statement of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan that supplementary funds allocated to Tamil Nadu by the Centre will be withheld if the state government doesn’t implement the three-language formula, addressing the Tamil Nadu Parents-Teachers Association’s zonal conference in Veppur, Cuddalore district on February 22, Stalin declared that the DMK government will not implement it, even if offered financial incentives of Rs.10,000 crore.

Several other mandates of the widely acclaimed NEP 2020 have been rejected by the state government. Among them: a proposal to introduce public examinations in classes III, V, and VIII, as well as a common entrance test for admissions to arts and science colleges. The DMK government believes these measures will increase dropout rates and reduce access to socio-economically disadvantaged students. To this add the three-language formula which is being interpreted as covert “Hindi imperialism” challenging Tamil Nadu’s long-standing two-languages policy of Tamil and English.

On the other hand, Pradhan has defended NEP 2020 as a progressive, flexible, and inclusive policy designed to modernise education across India. According to Pradhan, NEP 2020 mandates that children should learn any three languages and doesn’t specify Hindi. BJP leaders believe that Stalin’s anti-Centre/BJP and Tamil pride rhetoric reflects nervousness about the outcome of Tamil Nadu’s assembly election due to be held early next year. 

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to reject NEP 2020 and replace it with SEP 2025 has alarmed some TN educationists who fear “misalignment” between the state and national school curriculums. “With most states implementing NEP 2020 reforms, our students are certain to experience difficulties in writing competitive national exams such as JEE and NEET in which questions and assessments are based on the curriculums of national CBSE and CISCE exam boards,” says former Director of Matriculation Schools, A. Karuppasamy.

This viewpoint is endorsed by Advocate M.J. John Arokia Prabhu, Vice President of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association and head of the legal team of the Delhi-based National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA). “School-leavers will be disadvantaged when competing for admission into higher ed institutions outside Tamil Nadu. If Central universities and institutions align their admissions processes with NEP 2020, TN students will be at a disadvantage when applying for courses outside the state. Moreover, the state’s continuous opposition to children learning Hindi will disadvantage our students seeking government jobs and employment in Hindi-speaking states.”

Although over 80-90 percent of expenditure on education in all states is incurred by the state government, Tamil Nadu risks losing Central aid useful for educational infrastructure, teacher training, and digital education initiatives. “This means the state government will have to bear the full cost of modernising its education system without Central assistance,” says Chennai-based educationist Dr. S. Somasundaram.

With the war of words between the state’s DMK government and the BJP government at the Centre intensifying, educationists in Tamil Nadu are increasingly deploring “politicisation of education”. The consensus of opinion is veering towards letting parents in consultation with teachers choose the languages that children should learn. “The entire education system of Tamil Nadu shouldn’t be topsy-turveyed because Stalin wants to win the next assembly election to install his son (appointed deputy chief minister last year) as the next chief minister,” says a state-board school principal, who preferred to remain anonymous.