Raise standard of syllabus: DMK

Chennai: The DMK on Tuesday urged the state government to improve the quality of education in state government schools so that students of the state could compete in entrance tests at the national level.

DMK member Austin, who spoke in the debate on demands for grant to education ministry, raised the issue of standard of education and said students from the state are not able to compete in entrance examinations at the national level.

Minister V.C. Shanmugam, intervened and said when the DMK wanted to introduce uniform education, the AIADMK objected to it as it felt that it would bring down the standard of education. “Now, the DMK member himself is admitting that the standard of education has fallen after the samacheer kalvi scheme”, he added.

But, Austin said the problem is not the introduction of samacheer kalvi. He said when the uniform education system was introduced, the AIADMK government did not revise the syllabus and improve the standards. He said the syllabus should be upgraded every five years and especially it should be revised in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

At this point, Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin wanted to know about the measures being taken by the state government to permanently cancel NEET. Health minister C. Vijayabaskar listed the measures taken to cancel NEET and said the state government is firm in cancelling it permanently.

Austin, who continued his speech, said a chair for Tamil is being constituted in Harvard university and Rs 40 crore needed for the purpose is being collected by Tamils living abroad and added that the state government should help the efforts of Tamils.

He also raised the issue of Vice Chancellor nomination and appealed to the government to appoint VCs at the earliest. The state government had merged the Anna Universities in four centres and the name of former Chief Minister Anna had been removed, he said. At this juncture, handlooms minister O.S. Manian said the DMK government removed the name of Anna from the districts along with that of other leaders. But, leader of Opposition, denied the minister's claim and said the decision to remove the names of leaders from districts was taken at an all party meeting due to some issues.