Never Said History Will Be Corrected via NEP; All Languages National Languages: Pradhan | Rising India Summit

There is no dispute over the National Education Policy (NEP), but four or five states have political differences on it, said Dharmendra Pradhan, minister for education and skill development and entrepreneurship, on Wednesday. Speaking at Network18’s Rising India 2023 Summit, he also added that he never said history would be corrected through NEP.

“None of the states is opposing NEP implementation in letter and spirit. Then there is the issue of Hindi. Narendra Modi is probably the first prime minister in independent India to say that all Indian languages are national languages,” he said.

Tamil, Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati, Odia, etc, are all national languages, the union minister added. “For the past 75 years in our country, languages have been kept in contradictions. NEP is saying that language should complement the growth of the student,” he said. “We organised the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam for this very reason. We brought Tamil people to the Hindi heartland and promoted the civilisational link between them.”

Today the song Naatu Naatu has become very popular, said the minister. Many of us don’t understand it but we all listen to it, he added.

“I never said that history will be corrected through the National Education Policy,” said Pradhan. “Through NEP, the struggles of many unknown freedom fighters will be brought to the fore. The target is that by December 2024, class 1-12 textbooks will be ready under NEP.”

Education needs to be evolutionary going forward, he said. “ChatGPT has also brought challenges, apprehensions for parents…India’s education needs to fulfill global requirements,” the minister added.