Minister of Education (India) explained

Post:	Minister of Education
Flag:	Flag of India.svg
Flagsize:	110px
Flagcaption:	Flag of India
Insignia:	Ministry of Education India.svg
Insigniasize:	280px
Insigniacaption:	Emblem of India
Incumbent:	Dharmendra Pradhan
Incumbentsince:	7 July 2021
Department:	Ministry of Education
Member Of:	Union Cabinet
Reports To:	President of India Prime Minister of India Parliament of India
Residence:	New Delhi, India
Nominator:	Prime Minister of India
Appointer:	President of India
Appointer Qualified:	on the advice of the Prime Minister
Termlength:	5 year
Formation:	15 August 1947
First:	Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

The Minister of Education, formerly the Minister of Human Resources Development (1985–2020),^[1] is the head of the Ministry of Education and one of the cabinet ministers of the Government of India.

Cabinet Ministers

• Note: MoS, I/C Minister of State (Independent Charge)

	Portrait		Minister	Term of office			Political party	Ministry	Prime Minister
				From	To	Period
Minister of Education
1			Maulana Abul Kalam Azad	15 August 1947	13 May 1952		Indian National Congress	Nehru I	Jawaharlal Nehru
				13 May 1952	17 April 1957			Nehru II
Minister of Education and Scientific Research
(1)			Maulana Abul Kalam Azad	17 April 1957	22 January 1958		Indian National Congress	Nehru III	Jawaharlal Nehru
2			K. L. Shrimali (MoS)	22 February 1958	10 April 1962
Minister of Education
(2)			K. L. Shrimali	10 April 1962	31 August 1963		Indian National Congress	Nehru IV	Jawaharlal Nehru
3			Humayun Kabir	31 August 1963	21 November 1963
4			M. C. Chagla	21 November 1963	27 May 1964
				27 May 1964	9 June 1964			Nanda I	Gulzarilal Nanda
				9 June 1964	11 January 1966			Shastri	Lal Bahadur Shastri
				11 January 1966	24 January 1966			Nanda II	Gulzarilal Nanda
				24 January 1966	13 November 1966			Indira I	Indira Gandhi
5			Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed	14 November 1966	13 March 1967
6			Triguna Sen	16 March 1967	14 February 1969			Indira II
Minister of Education and Youth Services
7			V. K. R. V. Rao	14 February 1969	18 March 1971		Indian National Congress (R)	Indira II	Indira Gandhi
Minister of Education and Culture
8			Siddhartha Shankar Ray	18 March 1971	20 March 1972		Indian National Congress (R)	Indira III	Indira Gandhi
9			Saiyid Nurul Hasan (MoS, I/C)	24 March 1972	24 March 1977
10			Pratap Chandra Chunder	24 March 1977	28 July 1979		Janata Party	Desai	Morarji Desai
11			Karan Singh	28 July 1979	14 January 1980		Indian National Congress (Urs)	Charan Singh	Charan Singh
12			B. Shankaranand	14 January 1980	17 October 1980		Indian National Congress (I)	Indira IV	Indira Gandhi
13			Shankarrao Chavan	17 October 1980	8 August 1981
14			Sheila Kaul (MoS, I/C)	8 August 1981	31 October 1984
				31 October 1984	31 December 1984			Rajiv I	Rajiv Gandhi
Minister of Education
15			K. C. Pant	31 December 1984	25 September 1985		Indian National Congress (I)	Rajiv II	Rajiv Gandhi
Minister of Human Resource Development
16			P. V. Narasimha Rao	25 September 1985	25 June 1988		Indian National Congress (I)	Rajiv II	Rajiv Gandhi
16			P. Shiv Shankar	25 June 1988	2 December 1989
			V. P. Singh (Prime Minister)	2 December 1989	10 November 1990		Janata Dal	V. P. Singh	V. P. Singh
18			Raj Mangal Pande	21 November 1990	21 June 1991		Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)	Chandra Shekhar	Chandra Shekhar
19			Arjun Singh	23 June 1991	24 December 1994		Indian National Congress (I)	Rao	P. V. Narasimha Rao
			P. V. Narasimha Rao (Prime Minister)	24 December 1994	9 February 1995
20			Madhavrao Scindia	9 February 1995	17 January 1996
			P. V. Narasimha Rao (Prime Minister)	17 January 1996	16 May 1996
			Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Prime Minister)	16 May 1996	1 June 1996		Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee I	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
21			S. R. Bommai	5 June 1996	21 April 1997		Janata Dal	Deve Gowda	H. D. Deve Gowda
				21 April 1997	18 March 1998			Gujral	Inder Kumar Gujral
22			Murli Manohar Joshi	19 March 1998	13 October 1999		Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee II	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
				13 October 1999	22 May 2004			Vajpayee III
19			Arjun Singh	23 May 2004	22 May 2009		Indian National Congress	Manmohan I	Manmohan Singh
23			Kapil Sibal	28 May 2009	28 October 2012			Manmohan II
24			M. M. Pallam Raju	28 October 2012	26 May 2014
25			Smriti Irani	27 May 2014	5 July 2016		Bharatiya Janata Party	Modi I	Narendra Modi
26			Prakash Javadekar	5 July 2016	30 May 2019
27			Ramesh Pokhriyal	31 May 2019	29 July 2020			Modi II
Minister of Education
(27)			Ramesh Pokhriyal	29 July 2020	7 July 2021		Bharatiya Janata Party	Modi II	Narendra Modi
28			Dharmendra Pradhan	7 July 2021	Incumbent
								Modi III

Ministers of State

	Portrait		Minister	Term of office			Political party	Ministry	Prime Minister
				From	To	Period
Minister of State for Education and Scientific Research
1			K. L. Shrimali (MoS)	17 April 1957	22 January 1958		Indian National Congress	Nehru III	Jawaharlal Nehru
Minister of State for Education
2			Ramchandra Martand Hajarnavis (Minister of Cultural Affairs)	13 June 1964	29 October 1965		Indian National Congress	Shastri	Lal Bahadur Shastri
3			Sher Singh Kadyan	13 March 1967	14 February 1969			Indira II	Indira Gandhi
4			Bhagwat Jha Azad
Minister of State for Education and Youth Services
5			Bhakt Darshan	18 February 1969	18 March 1971		Indian National Congress (R)	Indira II	Indira Gandhi
Minister of State for Education and Culture
6			Saiyid Nurul Hasan	4 October 1971	24 March 1972		Indian National Congress (R)	Indira III	Indira Gandhi
7			Dhanna Singh Gulshan	14 August 1977	28 July 1979		Janata Party	Desai	Morarji Desai
8			Renuka Devi Barkataki	16 August 1977
9			Rashida Haque Choudhury	30 July 1979	14 January 1980		Janata Party (Secular)	Charan Singh	Charan Singh
10			Sheila Kaul	24 November 1980	8 August 1981		Indian National Congress (I)	Indira IV	Indira Gandhi
Minister of State for Human Resource Development
11			Margaret Alva (Women and Child Development, Youth Affairs and Sports)	25 September 1985	2 December 1989		Indian National Congress (I)	Rajiv II	Rajiv Gandhi
12			Sushila Rohatgi (Education and Culture)		12 May 1986
13			Krishna Sahi (Education and Culture, until 1988; Culture, from 1988)	12 May 1986	2 December 1989
14			Laliteshwar Prasad Shahi (Education and Culture, until 1989; Education, from 1989)	14 February 1988
15			M. G. K. Menon (Education)	20 January 1990	23 April 1990		Janata Dal	V. P. Singh	V. P. Singh
16			Chimanbhai Mehta	23 April 1990	10 November 1990
17			Bhagey Gobardhan	21 November 1990	20 February 1991		Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)	Chandra Shekhar	Chandra Shekhar
18			Mamata Banerjee (Youth Affairs and Sports; Women and Child Development)	21 June 1991	17 January 1993		Indian National Congress (I)	Rao	P. V. Narasimha Rao
19			Mukul Wasnik (Youth Affairs and Sports)	18 January 1993	16 May 1996
20			Basavarajeshwari	19 January 1993	15 September 1995
21			Selja Kumari (Education and Culture)	15 September 1995	16 May 1996
22			Krupasindhu Bhoi (Education)
23			Vimla Verma (Women and Child Development)
24			Kanti Singh	1 June 1996	29 June 1996		Janata Dal	Deve Gowda	H. D. Deve Gowda
25			Muhi Ram Saikia (Education)	29 June 1996	21 April 1997		Asom Gana Parishad
26			R. Dhanuskodi Athithan (Youth Affairs and Sports)				Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar)
(25)			Muhi Ram Saikia (Education)	21 April 1997	19 March 1998		Asom Gana Parishad	Gujral	Inder Kumar Gujral
(26)			R. Dhanuskodi Athithan (Youth Affairs and Sports)	1 May 1997			Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar)
27			Uma Bharti	19 March 1998	13 October 1999		Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee II	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
28			Sumitra Mahajan	13 October 1999	1 July 2002			Vajpayee III
29			Jaisingrao Gaikwad Patil		27 May 2000
30			Syed Shahnawaz Hussain	30 September 2000	8 February 2001
31			Rita Verma	1 September 2001	29 January 2003
32			Jaskaur Meena	29 January 2003	22 May 2004
33			Ashok Kumar Pradhan	29 January 2003	24 May 2003
34			Vallabhbhai Kathiria	30 January 2003	9 January 2004
35			Sanjay Paswan	24 May 2003	22 May 2004
36			Mohammad Ali Ashraf Fatmi (School Education and Literacy)	23 May 2004	22 May 2009		Rashtriya Janata Dal	Manmohan I	Manmohan Singh
(24)			Kanti Singh (Higher Education)	23 May 2004	29 January 2006
37			Daggubati Purandeswari (Higher Education)	29 January 2006	22 May 2009		Indian National Congress
				28 May 2009	28 October 2012			Manmohan II
38			E. Ahamed (School Education and Literacy)	12 July 2011			Indian Union Muslim League
39			Jitin Prasada	28 October 2012	26 May 2014		Indian National Congress
40			Shashi Tharoor
41			Upendra Kushwaha (School Education and Literacy)	9 November 2014	11 December 2018		Rashtriya Lok Samta Party	Modi I	Narendra Modi
42			Ram Shankar Katheria (Higher Education)		5 July 2016		Bharatiya Janata Party
43			Mahendra Nath Pandey (Higher Education)	5 July 2017	3 September 2017
44			Satya Pal Singh (Higher Education)	3 September 2017	30 May 2019
45			Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre	31 May 2019	29 July 2020			Modi II
Minister of State for Education
45			Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre	29 July 2020	7 July 2021		Bharatiya Janata Party	Modi II	Narendra Modi
46			Annpurna Devi (School Education and Literacy)	7 July 2021	9 June 2024
47			Subhas Sarkar (Higher Education)
48			Rajkumar Ranjan Singh (Higher Education)
49			Sukanta Majumder (Higher Education)	10 June 2024	Incumbent			Modi III
50			Jayant Chaudhary (Higher Education)	10 June 2024	Incumbent		Rashtriya Lok Dal

External links

• List of HRD Ministers

Notes and References

1. Web site: HRD Ministry Renamed as Ministry of Education as Modi Cabinet Reverses Change Made by Rajiv Gandhi. News18. 29 July 2020. 29 July 2020.