Centre thrusting its regressive views in education syllabus is causing concern: MK Stalin

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Friday expressed concern over education continuing to remain in the concurrent list and alleged that the central government exercised its powers to "push its regressive views in syllabus."

Bringing education back to the state list will serve as the best solution for this, he said without elaborating. "It's a concern that the Centre is exercising its powers to use education to thrust its regressive views. Bringing education back to the state list will be the best solution to stop this," the chief minister said addressing the south zone vice-chancellors' meet at Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, virtually from here.

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The vice-chancellors, the chief minister said, played a crucial role in shaping the functioning and quality of education. They should strive to foster scientific temper among the students. Reminding that the vice-chancellors have a big responsibility to impart an education that will equip the students for jobs, Stalin emphasised imparting skill-based education and training in the curriculum.

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"This is the reason why I had launched the Naan Mudhalvan (skill development scheme)," he said. The Chief Minister took pride in saying Tamil Nadu's gross enrolment ratio in higher education stood at 51.4 per cent, which is far above the national average of 27.1 per cent. "This is Tamil Nadu's unique achievement. The GER is almost double the national average and in the state, we have a student-teacher ratio of 17:1," he said. The Chief Minister pointed out that there were 1,553 colleges spread across the state. About 52 government and private universities have been ranked among the top 100 varsities in the National Institutional Ranking Framework 2020-21. The state had allotted Rs 5,369 crore in the budget 2021-22 for higher education, he said.