From this year class 10 students’ public exam marksheets will include the names of the parents, School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan announced in the Assembly on Thursday.
The Minister said the decision was based on an order from the Chief Minister. The government has also allocated ₹13.50 crore to develop water- and tear-proof mark sheets. Teachers say the decision could check the use of fake certificates for jobs. Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Association president P.K. Ilamaran said in the last 10 years the School Education Department identified at least 25 teachers who used fake class 10 certificates for jobs.
The government earlier experimented with digitising Secondary School Leaving Certificates. Later, the Directorate of Public Instruction introduced a password system for Chief Educational Officers to verify the genuinty of uploaded certificates. The State had as many as 13 lakh government employees. “We suggest that the government issue the certificate as a smart card just like PAN, driving licence or the ration card,” he said.
School infrastructure
Earlier in the debate on demands for school education, Congress MLA S. Vijayadharani wanted the government to dispense with the practice of using teachers for other purposes. She urged the government to upgrade school infrastructure so that teachers would stay in villages instead of commuting long distance.
Mr. Sengottaiyan said teachers deployed for work such as data collection for census were paid for the job. The government had built homes for teachers in the villages, but teachers sent their children to private schools elsewhere and hence chose to live farther from their workplace, he said.
According to the policy note the rise in dropout rate from primary school (0.75%) to secondary school is a a little over two percentage points at 3.25%. Of the ₹34,181.73 crore allocated for 2020-21 for the department, ₹16,717.33 crore has been allocated for secondary and higher secondary education and ₹16,728.09 crore for elementary education.
