Terming as “worrisome” the Union government imposing “regressive principles” in the syllabus, making use of education coming under the concurrent list of the Constitution, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday pitched the need for the subject to be brought back to the state list to prevent such moves.
Addressing a conference of vice-chancellors of universities from southern states, Stalin also told heads of the varsities to keep in mind that people want the institutions to follow the education policy of the respective state, in an indirect retort to Governor R N Ravi, who, in January, sought to know why students from Tamil Nadu are being deprived of learning Hindi.
“Vice-chancellors play an important role in the functioning of universities and setting standards for the institution. You should function in a way that scientific thoughts are inculcated in the minds of students. It is deplorable that the Union government makes use of education being in the concurrent list to push regressive principles,” Stalin said. “Moving education back to the state list will only be the apt solution to stop this.”
This is not the first time that Stalin has demanded that states be given more rights by the Union Government; on February 28, he had sought the support of parties like Congress in amending the Constitution to ensure a “greater say” for states.
The DMK government has proposed a State Education Policy as it feels the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 does not “augur well” for states like Tamil Nadu. DMK interprets the third language formula proposed in the NEP as “indirect imposition of Hindi” on non-Hindi speaking states.
Talking about higher education in Tamil Nadu, Stalin said 19 universities from the state have found a place in the national ranking of institutions while 33 colleges are in the list of the first 100. It is a matter of pride that Loyola College in Chennai ranks the third in the country, he said.
“While the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in the country is just 27.1 per cent, it is 51.4 per cent in Tamil Nadu. This is an achievement. Tamil Nadu currently has 1,553 colleges; 52 government and private universities and 1,096 technical institutes that pave the way for the state’s continued growth in the education sector. After we came to power, our government has allotted Rs 5,369 crore for the higher education department. Our focus will be to take higher education to every nook and corner of the state in the next 10 years,” Stalin said, asking the VCs to ensure students are trained with future employment in mind.
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