In an embarrassment for the DMK government, former Vice-Chancellor of Saveetha University and Convener of the high-level committee of State Education Policy (SEP) L Jawahar Nesan stepped down from his position alleging “bureaucratic disruptions” and “unruly interference by some senior IAS officers” in the making of the policy. Jawahar has also levelled serious allegations against Chief Minister MK Stalin’s Secretary T Udhayachandran IAS, accusing him of issuing threats and abuses to forcibly follow instructions.
In an official statement issued on May 10, Wednesday, Jawahar alleged that the committee was being surreptitiously influenced to follow in the footsteps of the controversial National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The final policy will therefore be “nothing but the rechristened version” of the NEP, driven by the interests of corporate, market, and “sanathanic forces” and the privatisation and commercialisation of education, he stated. Jawahar is a former Vice Chancellor of Saveetha University.
He further alleged that the committee is floundering as its leadership is working in an undemocratic way. “If this continues, the policy outcome of the high-level committee will largely go against the aspirations of and highest social virtues held by the people of Tamil Nadu,” he said. In the statement, however, he does not mention who specifically were influencing the functioning of the committee.
Jawahar also alleged that the chairman of the committee, retired High Court judge D Murugesan, ignored his complaints even after he expressed his concerns over the “aforesaid exploitative conditions and excesses” in the committee on several occasions. “The developments indicate that the committee's leadership has failed to protect the sovereign functioning of the committee from both bureaucratic interferences and internal disruptions,” he said. When Murugesan did not act upon his complaints, he requested the CM as well to take suitable actions, but did not receive any feedback, he added.
Stating that he has been reduced to a helpless state and he felt that his continued presence in the committee was meaningless, he is relieving himself from his position, Jawahar said. However, he reiterated that he will continue his work to achieve “a just, egalitarian, and secular education policy based on well-grounded humanising ideals, the principles of scientific [and] social virtues and the aspirations of the people of Tamil Nadu.”
The Tamil Nadu government constituted a high-level committee to formulate a distinct education policy for the state in June 2022. Besides Murugesan and Jawahar, professor Ramanujam from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, professors Sultan Ismail and Ramu Seenuvasan, former education specialist at UNICEF Aruna Ratnam, writer S Ramakrishnan, chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, musician TM Krishna, educationist Tulasidas, writer S Madasamy, headmaster R Balu of the Panchayat Union Middle School at Keechankuppam in Nagapattinam district, and Jayasree Damodaran of Agaram Foundation are the other members of the panel.