TN to follow uniform school system this year

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa today announced that the government would implement the uniform education system, Samacheer Kalvi, in the state immediately. The announcement follows a Supreme Court decision today asking the state government to implement the system within 10 days.

The state government had approached the Supreme Court challenging a Madras High Court order quashing an amendment it proposed to implement the system, formulated by the earlier Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government, in the current academic year.

The government sought one more year's time to implement the Uniform System of School Education (Amendment) Act, saying the existing system is sub-standard and includes politically motivated contents praising DMK leaders.

A bench of the Supreme Court with three judges, Justices J M Panchal, Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan, rejected the state government's plea to postpone implementation of the system, and asked it to implement the Act immediately.

The High Court, in July this year, quashed an amendment of the system proposed by the new government, directing the government to implement the existing uniform education system this academic year itself, after removing portions from the syllabus if it found sub-standard or politically motivated.

It also asked the state government to distribute textbooks which are already printed under the system to help the teachers in commencing classes.

It was one of the first decisions of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government, under the leadership of J Jayalalithaa, which took charge of the state government in May, 2011, to shelve the uniform syllabus system introduced by its rival, DMK.

At present, Tamil Nadu has around 1.2 crore students in four streams of school education with separate syllabus, textbooks and schemes of examinations. There are around 45,000 state board schools, 11,000 matriculation schools, 25 oriental schools and 50 Anglo-Indian schools in the state.