INTRODUCTION

Appointment of the Committee

 3ܐ3  1.1 The National Policy on Education (NPE) was adopted by Parliament in May, 1986. The Policy was followed up by an elaboration through the Programme of Action (POA) which was adopted by Parliament in August, 1986. Para 11.5 of NPE envisages a review of the implementation of various parameters of the Policy every five years. The Central Government had, in May 1990, appointed a Committee to review NPE, 1986 (NPERC), under the chairmanship of Acharya Ramamurti. The Committee submitted its report on 26th December, 1990. The report was tabled in both the Houses of Parliament on 9th January, 1991. The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) in its meeting held on 8-9 March, 1991 examined the procedure to be adopted for consideration of the report of the NPERC and decided that a CABE Committee be constituted by the Chairman, viz., Union Minister of Human Resource Development, to consider the recommendations of the NPERC.

1.2 In pursuance of the above decision, the Chairman of the CABE appointed a Committee on 31st July, 1991, to review the implementation of various parameters of NPE taking into consideration the report of the NPERC and other relevant developments since the Policy was formulated and to recommend modifications to be made in NPE. Following is the composition of the Committee:

Chairman

Shri N. Janardhana Reddy CM & Minister of Education, AP.

Members

Shri Vikram Verma Minister of Education, MP.

Shri Geegong Apang CM & Minister of Education Arunachal Pradesh

Dr. Ram Chandra Purve Minister (SE & PE), Bihar

Shri R.M. Veerappan Minister of Education Tamil Nadu

Shri S.S. Chakraborty Minister (Higher Education) West Bengal

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Shri E.T. Mohammad Basheer Minister of Education, Kerala 33  Dr.(Smt.) Chitra Naik Member (Education) Planning Commission

Prof. G. Ram Reddy Chairman University Grants Commission

Dr. M.S. Adiseshiah Chairman Madras Institute of Development Studies 79, Second Main Road, Gandhi Nagar Adyar, Madras : 600 020

Dr. Radhika Herzberger Director Rishi Valley School PO Madahapalli, Distt. Chittoor Andhra Pradesh

Dr. A.P. Mitra Bhatnagar Fellow New Delhi

Smt. Jaggannathan Krishnammal Secretary Land for Tillers Freedom (LAFTI) Kilvelur : 611 104 Tanjore District, Tamil Nadu

Dr. Ram Dayal Munda Professor or Regional Languages Ranchi University, Ranchi

Shri Habib Tanvir Director, Naya Theatre L-15, DDA Staff Quarters Bar Sarai, New Delhi-110016.

Member-Secretary

Dr. R.V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar Joint Secretary (Planning)

Union Education Secretary (Shri Anil Bordia) Director of NCERT (Dr. K. Gopalan) and Director of NIEPA (Prof. Satya Bhushan), were permanent invitees to the meetings of the Committee. A copy of the order is attached at Appendix-I.

1.3 The Committee invited Dr. D. Swaminadhan, Member, Planning Commission; Ms. Mira Seth, Secretary, Department of

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 3J3  Women and Child Development, GOI; Shri R.K. Sinha, Additional Secretary, Department of Education, GOI; all the Bureau Heads in the Department of Education, GOI; officers of Ministries/Departments of GOI concerned to participate in the discussions.

Meetings of the Committee

1.4 The Committee held four meetings in all as follows:

i) First meeting Delhi -- 27th August, 1991

ii) Second Meeting Hyderabad -- 20-21 September, 1991

iii) Third Meeting Delhi -- 25-26 November, 1991

iv) Fourth Meeting -- Delhi-- 21-22 January, 1992

Methodology and Procedure

1.5 The CABE in its meeting held on 8-9 March, 1991 decided that the comments of State Governments and UT Administrations on of the NPERC should be obtained and furnished to the Comments from fifteen States/UTs were received. The of Education also prepared detailed comments on each the NPERC report. These comments are in three parts: part entitled 'Argument' recapitulated the logic the NPERC recommendations and the responses of the to the logic; the second part presented the total analysis of the recommendations; and the third part outlined the developments since NPE which had a bearing on Policy. Further, the Department of Education presented a report on the status of implementation of NPE entitled "National Policy on Education 1986 Implementation Report." Comments were also obtained from members of the CABE, Ministries/ Departments of GOI and resource organisations concerned. The details of the documents received by the Committee are given in Appendix-II. All these documents were taken into consideration by the Committee.

1.6 The procedure adopted by the Committee was to take up for consideration and detailed discussion each chapter of the NPERC report. Minutes of the discussions were prepared and circulated among the members.

1.7 The Committee was required to submit its report within two months of its first meeting. However, the deliberations of the Committee took longer than expected. We were particular to do full justice to the review of an important national policy. We, therefore, requested the Chairman, CABE, for an extension of the time prescribed for the submission of the report.

1.8 In its third meeting held in New Delhi, the Committee desired that the Member-Secretary should prepare the draft report in the light of the discussions held and circulate the same among the members. The organisation of the report closely corresponds to the report of the NPERC. The Committee considered the draft report in the fourth meeting and approved it on 22nd January, 1992 for submission to CABE. 33  3