Dharmendra Pradhan is the new Union Education Minister now. As part of the Cabinet reshuffle, the first in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's second term from May 2019, Mr Pradhan has been appointed the new Union Minister of Education, replacing Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank' who resigned this morning.
Mr Pradhan has been the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. He represents Deogarh in Odisha in Lok Sabha.
Earlier today Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank' resigned from his post of the Union Education Minister citing health reasons. Mr Pokhriyal took charge as the Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister (now Education Minister) in May 2019.
Along with the Union Education Minister, the Minister of State for Education Sanjay Dhotre also resigned earlier today. Mr Dhotre represents the Akola Constituency of Maharashtra.
Dharmendra Pradhan is coming into a ministry that must work on getting the education system, gravely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, back on track. Decisions on several major entrance exams, including the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET 2021) as well as a common test for admission to central universities, are pending. Mr Pradhan will also pick up where Mr Pokhriyal left off with the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The Ministry of Education is divided into two departments - Department of School Education and Literacy and Department of Higher Education.
While the Department of School Education and Literacy deals with primary, secondary and higher secondary education, adult education and literacy, the Department of Higher Education deals with university-level education, technical education, scholarships and other related activities.