HRD Ministry is now officially Ministry Of Education after President Ram Nath Kovind's assent

President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday (August 17)  gave his nod to the change in name of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) as Ministry of Education.

It may be recalled that the name change was one among the many recommendations of the draft new National Education Policy (NEP), which was cleared during a meeting of the Union Cabinet in July.

On Monday, a gazette notification was published announcing that President Kovind had given his assent to change the name of HRD ministry to Ministry of Education. The notification added that the heading Ministry of Human Resources Development stands substituted to Ministry of Education.

In 1985, the Ministry of Education was renamed as the HRD ministry when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister. The NEP was introduced in 1986 and was last amended in 1992.

P V Narasimha Rao was appointed the first HRD minister by PM Rajiv Gandhi.

A panel constituted by PM Modi-led government had first proposed that the Centre should change the name of HRD Ministry again to Ministry of Education. The panel was tasked with working on the new NEP and was led by former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan.

In 2018, the idea to change the name of HRD Ministry was also proposed by Ram Bahadur Rai, chairman of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and also chairman of the joint organising committee of the Conference on Academic Leadership on Education for Resurgence.