National Consultation convened by the CBCI Office for Education and Culture and held on the 9th September 2016 at Navinta House, New Delhi regarding the Draft National Education Policy 2016
The inaugural session started with a prayer invoking the help of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta after which the Archbishop of Delhi, His Grace Anil J.T. Couto and His Excellency Bishop Joshua Mar Ignathios, the Chairman of the CBCI Office for Education and Culture were welcomed and felicitated. The programme of the day was inaugurated by lighting of the lamp by the two Bishops and representatives from the participants. The participants were the South Asia / National / Provincial Education Co-ordinators of Religious Orders, the Regional Education Secretaries of the various Ecclesiastical Regions of the Catholic Church in India and representatives from All India Association of Catholic Schools, Xavier Board of Higher Education in India, Consortium of Christian Minority Higher Education Institutions, All India Association of Christian Higher Education Institutions, Conference of Religious - India and United Christian Forum. In all there were 95 participants. All the above mentioned participants were most cordially welcomed for the National Consultation by His Grace Archbishop Anil J.T. Couto, following which His Excellency Bishop Joshua Mar Ignathios, the Chairman of the CBCI Office for Education and Culture gave his introductory message outlining the purpose of this consultation viz. to understand the intricacies and implications contained in the draft NEP brought out by the TSR Subramanian Committee and subsequently by the MHRD and to respond to the proper Government office the concerns regarding the same and to propose a way forward to counter the challenges that would emerge hereafter when the Government goes forward to bring out the final draft of the new NEP if any and eventually when the National Education Policy itself would come out.
The very first session that followed was a panel discussion moderated by Rev. Fr. Sunny Jacob SJ, the Secretary, JEA, South Asia. After the initial comments by Fr. Sunny Jacob regarding the possible dangers and hidden agenda regarding the draft NEP, the first speaker Rev. Fr. (Dr) G Pushparaj SJ went through the content of the draft NEP pointing out the various concerns contained therein especially the way the historical introduction did not even acknowledge valuable educational contribution by the Christian Missionaries, the blatant neglect of the interests of the Minority, the dalits and the weaker section, the poor and the tribals and those in rural areas. He highlighted also the sinister designs contained in the
draft through the early segregation of students, the detention policy, the language policy, the introduction of Yoga, the way higher education was being commercialised and made inaccessible for the poor and the marginalised etc. He also mentioned about the response and proactive steps taken by the Consortium of Christian Minority Higher Education Institutions and others in this regard. The next speaker was Rev. Fr. (Dr) Xavier Alphonse SJ who spoke about the 3 powers viz. The Institutional, the Gospel and the Ecumenical power which are our strength and our real pride is in educating the poor. We are not on a confrontational but dialogue mode and for us the real meaning of quality education is education that empowers the poor and in this regard the present draft NEP was an ideological assault. Mentioning the responses, he mentioned that we need to flood with responses and drafts the MHRD in the true democratic spirit so that a committee of Educationists under the leadership of an Educationalist should review the draft. Any national Act of Governance in education has to be opposed and we ourselves should examine as to what are we doing now with a well articulated and correctly stated National Education Policy of the Catholic Church 2007 that we have and we should be ready with an alternative national Education Policy. This first Panel session was concluded after a few clarifications and rejoinders from the participants and with closing remarks from the moderator.
The second session was once again a presentation by Fr. Joseph Manipadam SDB, the national Secretary for the CBCI Office for Education and Culture, in which he just ran through the draft NEP pointing out only those areas that goes against the interest of the Minority and the Church’s Education apostolate for the poor and marginalised and the interests of the students, teachers and those in rural and tribal areas etc. His presentation contained also two visual clippings: First was the last intervention of the late Mr. P.A. Sangma M.P. in the parliament where he spoke against the current political scenario that is shy of acknowledging the contribution that the Christian institutions are making in the country especially through their educational institutions and requested the Government to protect the interests of the Minority in this country. The second was a 29 minutes intervention made by the CPM General Secretary and M.P., Mr. Sitaram Yechury in the parliament precisely about the draft National Education Policy in which he effectively points out that the draft was basically intended to Centralize, to Commercialize and to Communalize. He also pointed out the neglect of the poor, the perpetuation of caste system, regressive rather than progressive nature and the sinister Hindutva designs of the RSS so evident in this draft policy. He lamented the fact that this policy would be a very unworthy and self destructive policy that we would be handing over for our very forward looking and talented generation next for years to come.
During the second part of this session, His Excellency Bishop Joshua Mar Ignathios, the Chairman for the CBCI Office for Education and Culture presented the CBCI Response to the MHRD on the draft National Education Policy. He pointed out that our response first of all highlighted the 12 non negotiable aspects of the Constitution that the government should keep in mind; secondly formulated a preamble for the NEP instead of the historical introduction which the MHRD had wrongly called a preamble; pointed out the fallacies about the historical introduction which was highly selective. The second part of the CBCI response pointed out what was good about the draft provided it was corrected in certain aspects. Then our response goes on to tell the government in no uncertain terms what was really not palatable and required redrafting. The concluding part of the CBCI response points out emphatically the dark side of the draft NEP brought out by the MHRD and it goes against our values and principles.
During the post lunch session Fr. Joseph Manipadam SDB, the National Secretary, CBCI Office for Education and Culture, presented a brief report of activities of the CBCI Office for Education and Culture and went on to deal at length about the efforts being made of the Office to ensure the implementation of the “All India Catholic Education Policy 2007” and briefly showed how a very methodical implementation of the policy can be done and how the Catholic educational institutions all over the country are in the process of doing an evaluation of the implementation of the Catholic Education policy. He then went on to show the graphic analysis of the three regions that have completed the evaluation process viz. Tamil Nadu Region, Karnataka Region and Gujarat which is part of the Western Region. The graphic analysis would show how many schools in each diocese of each region have participated in this evaluation process and how effective each region has been in implementing the ten salient features of the Catholic Education Policy. He also mentioned that once all the 14 regions of the Church finish the process of this evaluation through a self study report and verification, a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of the Catholic Education Policy and its implementation can be compiled to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the promulgation of the CBCI Policy on education which can be made available to the Church authorities to get a concrete idea of the effectiveness of the teaching ministry of the Church in India. Next the Regional Secretaries of each of the three regions that completed the task were handed over the Certificates for all the schools that participated in the evaluation. Very special “Pride of the Catholic Church” Certificates were issued for those colleges and schools that were implementing the catholic Education Policy in a very commendable way.
The very last session of the day was to consider and collate a way forward to work in a very united manner to carry out this important teaching mission of the Church through our various education institutions especially in facing the emerging challenges put forward as a result of the draft NEP that has been announced by the MHRD. Several suggestions were placed in front of the group by the participants.