Page 40 - Education World September 2021

Cover Story

CAN THIS MAN REVIVE INDIA’S

SHATTERED EDUCATION SYSTEM?

Newly appointed education minister Dharmendra Pradhan
is confronted with the challenge of scaling two mountains
simultaneously — repairing huge damage suffered by the
education system during 60 weeks of pandemic lockdown,
and implementing NEP 2020

Dilip Thakore

W ITH GENERAL ELECTION 2021-22 on the low base of the pandemic year, will at best

restore the status quo ante of 2019-20, while inflation and
2024 looming on the dis-
unemployment are indicating upward trajectories.
tant horizon and the leg-
These ominous auguries explain the night-of-the-long-
islative assembly election
of Uttar Pradesh, India’s
knives Union cabinet reshuffle of July 7 in which prime
most populous state (240
ministers of the seven-year BJP/NDA government and re-
million) that sends 80
MPs to the Lok Sabha, the minister Narendra Modi axed some of the most senior
placed them with new, younger cabinet members. Among
lower house of Parliament, scheduled for February next the casualties were Union health minister Harsh Vardhan,
year, there is a hint of desperation within the top leader- information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadek-
ship of the Bharatiya Janata Party which dominates the ar, information technology and law minister Ravi Shankar
BJP/NDA government at the Centre. Prasad, and most notably, education minister Dr. Ramesh
Although the malignant challenge of the novel Coronavi- Pokhriyal, a Hindi language pulp fiction writer and hindu-
rus which migrated to India from the neighbouring People’s tva revivalist who presided over masterly inactivity during
Republic of China in early 2020, forced a lockdown of busi- his two-year stint in Shastri Bhavan, Delhi, headquarters of
ness and industry and wreaked havoc on the economy, has the Union education ministry.
been substantially met with a national vaccination cam- The new incumbent of Shastri Bhavan is Dharmendra
paign, the fast-mutating virus is still infecting citizens, tak- Pradhan, hitherto Union minister of petroleum and natu-
ing lives and destroying livelihoods. The economic turn- ral gas where he earned good notices for resisting intense
around that the country requires is nowhere in sight and the public pressure to reduce petrol and diesel prices which
predicted rate of economic growth at 9-10 percent in fiscal are among the highest worldwide, and implemented the

40 EDUCATIONWORLD SEPTEMBER 2021