RSS-BJP’s interest in school education limited to furthering political agenda through curriculum

• BJP-ruled states are worst performing when it comes to key indicators in school education
• No focus on improving condition of government schools, improving quality of teaching, etc

The Aam Aadmi Party strongly condemns the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) attempts at ‘saffronizing’ India’s education curriculum. Indian culture is of composite nature and the multicultural, multilingual identity of our country is being attacked by the Sangh parivaar as it tries to homogenize society by meddling with education. The RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyasthe Nyas, headed by Dina Nath Batra, a former head of Vidya Bharati, the education wing of the RSS has sent some recommendations to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), seeking to modify contents of textbooks. Batra’s recommendations are bizarre and brazenly bigoted, clearly aimed at “cleansing” textbooks of any reference to India’s secular identity, Urdu and Arabic words, non-Hindu works of literature, among other things.

During a press conference on this issue, senior leader of the party and Advisor to Deputy CM on education Atishi Marlena said,

“The RSS-BJP’s interventions and discourse on education starts and ends with religion. Their understanding of education reform is limited to changing India’s history textbooks to suit their narrative. Their interest in school education is to the extent that they can further their political agendas through it. No attention is given to the crumbling education infrastructure of India’s schools and the falling learning levels across the board. The focus is on imposing their worldview on India’s children.”

“BJP-ruled states are performing especially badly when it comes to education, but the BJP does not seem to care about that,” said Marlena. “If the BJP wants to learn how to reform education in their own states, they are welcome to learn from us. But in the name of education reform, if all they are interested in is meddling with the textbooks and changing India’s history, then it is the worst kind of politics.”

BJP is busy trying to distort facts as per there political requirements without thinking about the children’s future and in the process jeopardizing the nation’s future. The harsh reality of education system is India is reflected in annual ASER survey data on learning levels. Percentage of class V Children Cannot read Class 2 level Hindi text – Haryana: 46%, Gujarat: 48%, MP: 70%, Maharashtra: 38%, UP: 77%, National Average: 59%. BJP-ruled states are consistently poor when it comes to education administration. The BJP should first work on such fundamental problems, instead of indulging in politics over education.