Congress CMs Told to Draft Education Action Plans Against RSS Agenda
Congress leadership has asked Chief Ministers of party-ruled States to prepare education action plans within a month, following a Delhi meeting on resisting the RSS agenda in schools.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met the Chief Ministers and Education Ministers of Congress-ruled States in New Delhi on Tuesday, advising them against implementing the Sangh Parivar's agenda in the education sector and urging student-centric policies instead.
According to party general secretary in-charge of organisation K.C. Venugopal, the discussions centred on countering what he described as the RSS's "divisive agenda" in education and on how Congress-ruled States could emerge as model States in the field. Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi, along with general secretaries and State in-charges, attended the meeting.
The meeting decided to organise State-level education seminars with guidance from reputed education experts and stakeholders. Chief Ministers are to prepare a detailed action plan within a month based on inputs from these seminars, aimed at reforming education and making their States models in the sector. A national-level seminar with experts will also be held to work out how these plans will be rolled out.
Venugopal said Chief Ministers would make presentations on how the RSS's "poisonous agenda" is polluting young minds through the education system, and on the appointment of RSS-backed Vice-Chancellors to advance it.
The Congress has consistently argued that the National Education Policy, implemented in 2020, amounts to centralisation, commercialisation and communalisation of education. The Congress government in Karnataka had set up a panel to study the NEP and explore replacing it with the State's own policy.
The newly sworn-in government in Keralam has faced controversy over implementing central schemes such as PM SHRI (Prime Minister's Schools for Rising India). Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan drew criticism after saying the State had no provision to withdraw from its agreement with the Union government on implementing the scheme. He said in June that only the Union government could withdraw after a month's notice, and that there was no provision to keep implementation in abeyance either, since Kerala became a party to it once the agreement was signed.