No one nation, School board

No one nation, School board

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, July 17, 2020, 11:49 PM IST
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Supreme Court of India | File photo

The Supreme Court on Friday junked a PIL seeking ‘one nation, one board’ for school education with common syllabus, curriculum and standard text books.The PIL had also sought the merger of the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Board (ICSE) into the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to constitute a National Education Council or a National Education Commission.Rejecting the PIL seeking uniformity in school education across the country, Justice D.Y.Chandrachud, who was heading the bench, as also Justices Ms Indu Malhotra and K.M. Joseph said, “We reject the submission for issuing a mandamus for constituting a single Board by merging the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Board into the Central Board of Secondary Education.

”Justice Chandrachud said, “We are affirmatively of the view that it is not within the domain of this court under Article 32 of the Constitution to direct the constitution of a National Education Council or a National Education Commission.”Dealing with the plea for standard text books with chapters on fundamental rights, duties, directive principles and the preamble of the Constitution and making its study compulsory, the court said that introducing a “standard textbook with a chapter on the Constitution is a matter of policy" which the court does not dictate.

The school syllabus, the court said, already contains subjects relating to the knowledge of rights, duties and governance under the Constitution.The court also dumped Delhi-based lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay’s plea that in case his prayers were not acceptable to the court, then in alternative it may direct its registry to send his PIL to the authorities to treat it as a representation. Pointing out that PIL lays no “foundation or justification” for the Court to send the PIL to the authorities to treat it as a representation, the court said that it can’t allow the top court to be used for routing the petition to authorities, so that it can be treated as representation.

“This is nothing but an effort to confer legitimacy on the petitioner’s attempt to enter into an area of educational policy”, Justice Chandrachud said in the order.Contending that the directions he was seeking were founded on Article 21A of the Constitution and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, Upadhyay told the court that the present educational system does not provide equal opportunity to students of all strata of society.

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