Bengaluru: Primary and secondary education minister BC Nagesh said the position papers on NEP are only recommendations provided by the state to the Centre and a decision on the issue will be taken by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
Speaking at interaction, the minister answered a question on the demand to withdraw the papers. “This is only a recommendation to the Centre. The position papers were uploaded on the central government’s website and Karnataka put them in the public domain to get suggestions from people. The committees were given full freedom to prepare the report,” he said. Meanwhile, more organisations have started demanding withdrawal of the position papers.
“For those who ask why a textbook revision was done, I recommend they read a report on the quality of textbooks of Karnataka done by NCERT that was published in 2017,” he said. Nagesh said eggs will be provided as part of midday meals to beat malnutrition.
“There is a real demand from many people from the community to upgrade syllabus of madrassas. Attendance in Urdu schools has dropped drastically. Students want to go to general schools and want to learn English, science and maths, which will be helpful. Many people have told me syllabus in madrassas has to be changed…,” the minister said.
On government schools
Nagesh said: “There are 13,800 schools that have less than 25 students. Around 1,800 have under 10 students. The schools will be merged with model schools at hobli level..”