Act before its too late

Updated on: Tuesday, January 24, 2012

A recent survey by the Pratham Education Foundation revealed that just 26.1 per cent students in class 3 were able to read a class 1 level text and only 26 per cent cleared the semester examination conducted by Anna University of Technology, Chennai.

The Assessment, Survey, Evaluation and Research (ASER) report arising from the survey could not have been more condemnatory of the prevailing standards.

Educationists feel that the Tamil Nadu government should undertake radical reforms in education if it is to be taken to the next level. Mr P.B. Prince Gajendra Babu, general secretary, State Platform for Common School System, said the state government must appoint one teacher for every class and teachers should not be used for non-teaching activities/.

This, he said, might offer a solution to the problems listed in the report. “State government needs to change its policy and should declare all government schools as neighbourhood schools so that the community runs it”, he added.

Eminent academician S.S. Rajagopalan urged the state government to appoint a committee to study the public education system in detail and make necessary reforms to improve the quality of education.

“Year after year we have been seeing various reports about bad performance of Tamil Nadu students in academics. For how many years is the government going to keep quiet. It has to immediately set up a committee with experts in education to study the situation and recommend reforms. The government should implement the reforms in letter and spirit. Recommendations of several such committees are lying in files for several years”, he said.

Prof C. Pichandi, general secretary of Association of University Teachers (AUT), points out that in higher education, the state government should conduct common entrance test (CET) for professional courses. This will help deserving students join higher education institutions of excellence.

“Today every student who secures a pass in class XII joins an engineering college and he is not able to pass the examination as school education inculcates only rote learning. We need some kind of filtration process to admit deserving students. I think we can also raise the qualifying mark from a mere pass (35 per cent) to 60 per cent for professional courses”, he said.

Pointing out that the government should write to the union government seeking a cap on self-financing engineering and teacher training institutes, Prof. Pichandi said that as the number of colleges increase every year so do the number of students joining these colleges.

“Eight months have passed by since the government assumed charge but it is yet to appoint vice-chancellors for five state run universities. Such is the education scenario in the state. AUT urges
the state government to undertake reforms immediately so that something can be done before the start of the next academic year”, he said.

Act before its too late

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