Education industry should do introspection along with us and bring reforms
Dharmendra Pradhan is a victim of resignation mindset that refuses to see malaise in the society fostered by us. He has become prime sacrifice of our selective outrage based on our own selective standard of ethics. Education minister is the last person to be guilty of paper leak. Our greed for success, higher marks without putting in effort, lethargic stalemate in supporting reforms and violence of words. Paper leaks can happen at every level of examination system and there are hundreds of hands involved. Any individual in the system can leak examination paper as the society puts pressure on them for becoming successful at any cost. Anyone from the coaching class industry, various institutions, parents, or students’ community demand and get papers leaked to satisfy individual needs while ignoring consequences that can hit thousands of others. The question is not about Pradhan’s integrity but of us, each one of us should question the level of our integrity in good values of the society, regardless of age or gender. It is our collective failure that is responsible for examination papers getting leaked. While someone has to take monumental blame and go in disgrace as we watch the spectacle as custodians of values. Give Pradhan his due – his role in implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) is pivotal as well as the focus on the process of “decolonising” education. Reform education sector and bringing a sense of duty as well as ownership to the educators to build a better India should be the task at hand now. Even though, BJP seems to have agreed to Pradhan’s exit because its youth base had joined the agitation, but our humble request is do not make politics out of Pradhan’s resignation and spread chaos. Indian is fragile and cannot afford disruptive chaos on the streets.