HRD Ministry Renamed as Ministry of Education as Modi Cabinet Reverses Change Made by Rajiv Gandhi

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development (HRD) has been renamed as the Ministry of Education following an approval from the Union Cabinet.

The name change was a key recommendation of the draft New Education Policy, which has also been cleared in Wednesday's Cabinet meeting. The HRD ministry name was adopted in 1985, during the tenure of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as it was changed from ministry of education.

A group of experts, led by former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan, had first proposed the name of the ministry should be changed again. This was also the demand of RSS affiliates who have previously stated that former PM Rajiv Gandhi had changed the name of the education ministry to HRD ministry in September 1985 under the advice of some “people who may have misled him”.

Sources said the change in the name of the ministry has been proposed in order to focus on education and learning.

The new National Education Policy (NEP) will replace the existing National Policy on Education which was first formulated in 1986 and last modified in 1992.

The New Education Policy includes extension of Right to Education Act 2009 to cover children of ages 3 to 18 and also seeks to reduce content load in school education curriculum.

According to the draft policy, there will be no hard separation of learning areas like science and humanities in terms of curricular. There will also not be any separation between co-curricular and extra-curricular areas and all subjects, including arts, music, crafts, sports, yoga, community service, etc. will be curricular.