The students of the University of Hyderabad have raised their concerns about the Academic Council’s agenda to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) and allow the National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct entrance exams in the next meeting. The Students' Union has called for a protest on March 26 to demonstrate against the meeting’s agenda.
The 88th Academic Council meeting is scheduled to be held on March 26 on campus and the students are protesting since 2 pm. The Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA) from the University has issued a statement rejecting the agenda, claiming that implementation of the NEP and NTA entrance exams will affect Dalit-Bahujan students immensely. “ASA has been at the forefront in opposing NEP ever since the draft was made public. The NEP doesn’t address the issues of marginalised students. The most important agenda of the NEP is to destroy the reservation policy of the country,” the students said.
NEP argues for a merit-based appointment and merit-based funding which would invalidate the reservation system, said ASA, “The anti-reservation forces of this country, time and again brings the argument of merit to invalidate the reservation system. This reality is contrary, the merit argument is flawed and bogus. Any document that is silent on the issue of reservation or social justice needs to be critically reviewed and in this regard, we reject this document entirely.”
The imposition of Sanskrit is a serious threat, they added in their statement, “NEP is largely exclusionary and in the name of reforms the documentary largely alienates the marginalised sections of the society. It reduces the scope of the mother tongue and ignores vernacular languages. It argues for powerful centralised agencies to promote higher education and homogenise education in India. The National Research Foundation is a serious threat to research scholars and their freedom,” the ASA explained.
Online exams will affect marginalised students effectively and even impact their performance drastically, the students argue. Demanding that the administration review the current mode of online education because it was the cause of the death of Asarelly Harshvardhan, a student. They also demanded that the Council discuss how they can improve healthcare on campus in light of the death of two students.
