The Madras High Court on Friday said that making personnel changes in the two committees set up for revising the school curriculum would adversely affect their working and ordered the State government against replacing any of the members of the two panels, including T. Udhayachandran, the School Education Secretary. The government had on June 30 constituted two committees — a 10-member Curriculum Framework Committee and a 13-member High Level Committee.
“As the committees have already started functioning and have to file report/reports at the earliest, to enhance the standard of education in consonance with international standards in the advanced era of technology, in the interest of students, the government shall not either make any changes in the named committee members including the Secretary, School Education Department and other bureaucrats or disturb their functioning, in any manner,” Justice N. Kirubakaran said in the interim order. The court had passed the order on a petition filed by the parent of a Class 10 student.
Children’s future
In his petition, V. Ramalingam of Kancheepuram had argued that the future of his son, a student of the Tamil medium Government Higher Secondary School at Sathurangapattinam, was linked to the revision of the curriculum.
Hence, he prayed against changing any member of the committees tasked with the revision of curriculum. The court agreed with him in its order: “In view of the advent of NEET, the necessity to review the curriculum has become imminent as the syllabus has not been revised for more than 10 years and the students are facing lot of hurdles in pursuing their higher education.”
The petitioner prayed to the Court to monitor the working of the two committees formed under the Government Order of June 30, 2017. The court posted the matter to August 23, asking the Secretary of School Education — the sole respondent — to file an affidavit describing “as to what are the steps taken by him to enhance the quality of education.”
