The clothing practices of students have never bothered M Jagadesh Kumar, the newly appointed chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) who was a professor at IIT-Delhi and until recently the vice-chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
In an interview with The Sunday Express, Kumar refused to specifically remark on the escalating controversy over the hijab ban at pre-university colleges in Karnataka but said that there were never any restrictions on students’ clothing while he was heading JNU.
My first priority is going to be the speedy implementation of the new NEP (National Education Policy). I am going to sit together with the officers of UGC and also the officials of the Ministry of Education (MoE) and work out a plan that can be implemented. This has to be done by taking feedback from the stakeholders by sitting across the table and understanding the challenges that our educational institutions are facing and try to figure out solutions collectively.
