Chennai: Putting an end to the speculations, school education minister KA Sengottaiyan said the plus-1 state board students will study under the old syllabus for the coming academic year (2017-18) as the books are already printed for all classes.
Speaking to the reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with teacher associations here on Tuesday, he said, the government will make several important announcements revamping the education during the school education demands in the Assembly.
The state government was seriously considering updating the syllabus for plus one from next academic year. However, given the time needed to frame the new syllabus and to write books, the department has decided to continue with the old syllabus for this academic year (2017-18) and to bring the new syllabus for the next academic year (2018-19), sources said.
Based on the demands placed by the various associations, the minister has announced that the department will deliver the goods like free uniforms, cycles and laptops directly to the schools from this year.
He also said the department will hear all the associations and will try to resolve their problems in the consultative meeting. Over 100 representatives from 60 teaching and non-teaching associations have participated in the consultative meeting on Tuesday.
The associations have raised several important demands like hiking the scavengers' salary from Rs.3, 000 and wanted office assistants, librarians, watchman to all the government schools.
They also demanded salary on par with the central government teachers for secondary grade teachers.
School education secretary T Udhayachandran, Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan state project director Pooja Kulkarni, school education director R Elangovan, elementary education director S Karmegam and others participated in the meeting.
