Page 40 - EW July 2024

Cover Story

DHARMENDRA PRADHAN'S

SECOND INNINGS PRIORITIES

Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan has begun his
second innings in Shastri Bhavan, Delhi, at an inflection point in
national development when a broad consensus has emerged that
top priority has to be accorded to real education and skilling of
the world's largest population of children and youth

Dilip Thakore

T HE RE-APPOINTMENT OF DHAR- Ramesh Pokhriyal — a failed Hindi language pulp fiction

The very next year after the disastrous incumbency of Dr.
MENDRA PRADHAN who led the
novelist — and immediately after the new National Educa-
ruling BJP’s legislative election
tion Policy (NEP) 2020 based on the Dr. K. Kasturirangan
2024 campaign in the state of Odi-
Commiteee Report that recommended radical restructur-
sha (pop.48 million) and famously
ended the uninterrupted 24-year
rule of the BJD (Biju Janata Dal)
approved by the Union Cabinet in July, Pradhan was pro-
moted to the office of Union minister for education, skill
and Cambridge (UK)-educated Chief ing of Indian education from pre-school to universities was
Minister Naveen Patnaik in the eastern seaboard state, as development and entrepreneurship.
Union Minister for Education doesn’t come as a surprise. Welcoming Pradhan’s appointment as education minis-
An anthropology postgrad of Utkal University and ABVP ter in a detailed cover story (September 2020), your editor
activist student leader in his younger days, Pradhan is de- noted that he was confronted with the challenge of scaling
scribed as “the longest serving Union minister of petro- two mountain peaks simultaneously — repairing huge dam-
leum and natural gas in the history of independent India” age suffered by the education system during 60 weeks of
(2014-19) in his Wiki profile, and is widely credited for Covid pandemic lockdown, and implementing NEP 2020.
master-minding the BJP/NDA 2.0 government’s Ujjwala “Pradhan’s promotion to the Union education ministry is
scheme under which 8 million LPG (liquid petroleum gas likely to prove an arduous mission for this relatively young
cylinders) for home cooking were distributed to women in (52) and energetic minister who earned plaudits in his ca-
targeted BPL (below poverty line) households. This initia- pacity as junior minister of entrepreneurship and skills de-
tive reportedly played a significant role in the BJP/NDA velopment (2017-2019). For the simple reason that human
being returned to power in General Election 2019. capital development, and particularly modernisation of In-

40 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2024