The Madras High Court on Friday directed the State government to consider a representation by a Puducherry-based woman lawyer against introduction of public examinations for Class 11 students too and the decision to consider those marks, along with the Class 12 marks, for calculation of overall percentage scored by students in higher secondary.
Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose issued a direction on a public interest litigation petition filed by S. Parimalam, who pointed out that the education pattern of Tamil Nadu was followed in Puducherry too and therefore students in the Union Territory were equally affected because of the introduction of public examins in Class 11.
Syllabus revised
Arguing on behalf of the petitioners, advocate V. Raghavachari said the School Education Department should have revised the syllabus and raised the standards instead of simply taxing the children with one more public examination. Making the children write public examinations continuously for three years from Class 10 to 12 would be too strenuous.
Government pleader T.N. Rajagopalan said the decision had been taken to discourage schools from skipping the Class 11 syllabus.
This led to students finding it difficult to cope with the syllabus when they joined colleges, he said. It was pointed out that the government had issued an order on May 22, 2017 introducing public examinations for Class 11 only after consulting academicians and constituting experts as was evident from the G.O.
