Need more women in forces, says Sitharaman

Nirmala Sitharaman calls for substantive changes in school curriculum

Nirmala Sitharaman at the Lady Sivaswami Ayyar Girls’ Higher Secondary School on Friday.

Schools should prepare girl children to take up a career in the Armed Forces, so that more women join the country’s three forces [Army, Navy and Air Force] in the years to come, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

Speaking at the 150th year celebrations of Lady Sivaswami Ayyar Girls’ Higher Secondary school here on Friday, Ms. Sitharaman said, “I want more girls in the Armed Forces. I am going to give you a challenge. Tell me what you are going to do to get more girls to the Rashtriya Military Academy, Short Service Commission, and after that aspire to be part of the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force, and the Indian Navy”. She said the school had faced great challenges in these past 150 years and had provided education to less privileged girls as well.

“Next year, make sure that your girls come and tell me ‘Short Service Commission, I am here’. I would like to see them as fighter pilots; they should be part of my Indian Navy…we should see them. They are all girls but they should be in frontier breaking areas,” the Defence Minister said.

Ms. Sitharaman also said Tamil Nadu’s school curriculum needed to see definitive and substantive changes. “The curriculum needs to be more dynamic. I don’t know why the number of people from Tamil Nadu, who used to crack IAS, IPS, Foreign Service, IIT, IISC exams have come down. Even in governance, we find very few Tamils coming into the system,” she said.

School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan said the government would start distributing laptops and cycles to students from next month.

“From this year, even students from classes XI and XII will be provided with laptops,” he said. The syllabus for class XII students from next year, will also have a number of courses that will make them employable, right after completing their schooling.

The Minister gave away rolling shields to top ranking students and a trophy to the gold medal winner in pole vault at the 1st Khelo India school game.The officials of the school felicitated three of their distinguished alumni - Dr. V. Shanta of the Cancer Institute, actor Lakshmi and singer Vani Jairam.