Indian Education Minister Resigns Amid Protests Over Exam Paper Leaks

Over its 12 years in power, the NDA government has had four Education Ministers — only one of whom served for more than three years. That was Dharmendra Pradhan, who resigned on Saturday (July 25) after more than a month of protests over multiple exam paper leaks. Pradhan served a tenure of around five years. His predecessors had much shorter tenures — Smriti Irani was in office for around two years; Prakash Javadekar served for two years and 10 months until the end of the first Narendra Modi government; and Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ served around two years until mid-2021. During his lengthy stint in office, Pradhan defended the National Education Policy (NEP), backed mother-tongue and multilingual education, and pushed the PM-SHRI scheme and related reform agenda. But the stint also saw repeated blows to public confidence in national examinations, with the ministry facing scrutiny over paper leak allegations, cancellation and reworking of tests, and opposition criticism over the handling of the National Testing Agency and recruitment exams. His predecessor’s tenures were not free of controversy either. Here’s a look at the tenure of the three previous education ministers, and how they ended. Smriti Irani: In office from May 26, 2014 to July 5, 2016 In May 2014, Smriti Irani was appointed as the Minister for Human Resource Development (as the Education Ministry was known then). One of Irani’s defining moments in the role was when she oversaw the rollback of Delhi University’s (DU) Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP). Officially, the University Grants Commission (with the backing of the HRD Ministry), argued that DU had introduced the FYUP earlier in 2013 without complying with the UGC Act or Delhi University Act. This rollback was also helped by protests by both student and teacher groups across DU due to the lack of adequate infrastructure or clarity on the execution of this programme. During her time as minister, she also initiated the drafting of the National Education Policy (NEP) and launched the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). Her term, however, was also rife with controversy. In 2016, Irani faced backlash in Parliament over the JNU sedition row and the HRD Ministry’s handling of the campus protests and arrest of JNU’s student union president, Kanhaiya Kumar. She was also the subject of scrutiny in the Rohith Vemula suicide case of January 2016. In July 2016, after two years in the post, Irani was moved to the Textiles Ministry. Prakash Javadekar: In office from July 5, 2016 to May 30, 2019 After Irani’s move to Textiles, Prakash Javadekar took over HRD. In 2017, Javadekar spearheaded the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) Act which declared IIMs as ‘Institutions of National Importance’. This Act granted IIMs the freedom from repetitively seeking ministry clearances for matters like fee structures and the creation of new posts. This Act granted them previously unseen autonomy, since IIMs traditionally operated under an MoU with the HRD Ministry. His tenure also witnessed the creation of the National Testing Agency (NTA) aimed at centralising examinations. The NTA — which is now under fire — functions as an independent and autonomous organisation and shifted exams to an online format. It in his tenure that Right to Education Act was amended to scrap the ‘No-Detention Policy’ that had prohibited failing children in classes 5 and 8. Under the amendment, it was left to states to decide whether to continue the policy. In 2018, the HRD Ministry faced discontent over the leaking of the 2018 CBSE Board Exam paper. The selection of the then yet-to-be-established Jio Institute among India’s six Institutions of Eminence also sparked a row. Javadekar served till 2019, transitioning to the Environment and Information & Broadcasting portfolios when the second BJP term under Narendra Modi began. In July 2021, he resigned from the Union Cabinet ahead of a major reshuffle. Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’: In office from May 30, 2019 to July 7, 2021 The biggest highlight of Ramesh Pokhriyal’s term was the announcement of the new NEP, for which the bulk of the work was completed during his predecessor Javadekar’s time. The framework to reform school and higher education in India was approved on July 29, 2020. However, since the announcement, the on-ground implementation of the policy had been slow during his time in office, The Indian Express had reported at the time. During his time at the Education Ministry, appointments to crucial posts had virtually come to a standstill. Almost half of the 40 central universities, including the prestigious JNU, BHU, Delhi University, and Hyderabad University, had been without vice-chancellors (V-Cs) for months. Similarly, five IITs (in Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Delhi, Indore, Mandi) did not have full-time directors. He tested positive for Covid-19 in May 2021 and later spent almost a month in AIIMS, Delhi due to post-Covid complications. He resigned amid ill health on July 7, 2021, becoming one of the first prominent faces to be dropped from the Council of Ministers in Modi’s second term that began in 2019.