All set for high-level meet on reservation

Education politics of India is expected to form core of next week’s meeting , reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Apr 7, 2007, 24:29:06 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Education politics of India is expected to form core of next week’s state education ministers' meeting with the Centre likely to spell out its plan on 27 per cent OBC quota, Right to Education Bill, future of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and expansion of higher education.

HRD minister Arjun Singh had called the meeting to discuss pivotal state central relations in education and ways to foster educational growth in India. The Centre will urge the state to improve resources in wake of the government’s decision to reduce its share for SSA from 75 per cent to 50 per cent.

“Most states have already urged the HRD minister to restore the earlier ratio as generating 25 per cent additional funds for SSA would be difficult,” an official said, giving example of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal as crying foul over the resource crunch.

Ministry officials say the meeting will be utilised to take stock of implementation of 93rd Constitutional Amendment enabling states to implement 27 per cent OBC quota in admissions. Although most states have brought in laws to enforce the Constitutional provision, some are yet to initiate action, an official said. “We would also like to learn about the state government’s plan regarding expansion of higher education to fulfil the quota mandate,” a ministry official said.

Like SSA, the states want the Centre to provide funds for implementing the Right to Education Bill. Rejecting the model Right to Education Bill of the HRD ministry and its formula of incentives to state for implementing the proposed law, the states have urged the Centre to bear the responsibility entirely. The ministry would be coming up with a new proposal on Right to Education at the meeting, officials said.

HRD ministry will also like to allay fears of the state governments on imparting sex education. Many states like Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Maharashtra has refused to include sex education in the course curriculum as desired by the HRD ministry.

The ministry has insisted that there is nothing offensive in the curriculum and the state governments are at the liberty to adopt Adolescence Education curriculum as per their needs.

Ministry officials admit that the meeting will witness the state government’s own political agendas on education.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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