Page 20 - EW March 2025

Education News

Hindi-speaking states.” Invest Karnataka 2025,
Although over 80-90 percent of insufficiency of skilled
expenditure on education in all states labour was cited as a
is incurred by the state government, major cause of investor
Tamil Nadu risks losing Central aid reluctance to invest in
useful for educational infrastructure, the state.
teacher training, and digital educa- Reportedly stung
tion initiatives. “This means the state by this feedback and
government will have to bear the full perhaps because of the
cost of modernising its education rising number of un-
system without Central assistance,” employed youth lining
says Chennai-based educationist Dr. up to collect unem-
S. Somasundaram. ployment benefits, in
With the war of words between Polytechnic students: new curriculum February, the state’s
the state’s DMK government and the Department of Techni-
BJP government at the Centre inten- arrangement; infrastructure mainte- cal Education issued a draft revised
sifying, educationists in Tamil Nadu nance — especially of roads and traf- curriculum to be implemented from
are increasingly deploring “politici- fic — is in a shambles and the state’s the new academic year 2025-26 in all
sation of education”. The consensus finances are in disarray because for diploma courses in 107 government,
of opinion is veering towards letting the past two years the government has 43 aided, and 150 private polytechnic
parents in consultation with teachers splurged 25 percent of its revenue in colleges with an aggregate enrolment
choose the languages that children disbursing free-of-charge electricity, of 50,000 students statewide. The
should learn. “The entire education bus rides for women and Rs.3,000 per draft curriculum christened ‘C-25’ and
system of Tamil Nadu shouldn’t be month doles for unemployed youth. In open for public feedback covers new
topsy-turveyed because Stalin wants the state government’s Budget 2025- emerging technologies, including arti-
to win the next assembly election 26 presented on March 7 by Siddara- ficial intelligence, drones, and renew-
to install his son (appointed deputy maiah, Rs.51,034 crore is allocated able energy, among others, and man-
chief minister last year) as the next for freebies, out of a total revenue of dates a compulsory 13-week industry
chief minister,” says a state-board Rs.2.92 lakh crore. internship for all diploma students.
school principal, who preferred to Simultaneously in a state which ccording to a government spokes-
remain anonymous. prides itself as the Silicon Valley Aperson, the revised C-25 curricu-
Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) of India for its high quality human lum has been designed in consultation
resource, education standards are with industry experts and in partner-
KARNATAKA plunging. According to the Annual ship with the National Institute of
Welcome skilling Status of Education Report (ASER) Technical Training and Research
2024 published by the highly-re-
(NITTR), Chennai, one of four NIT-
initiative spected Pratham Education Founda- TRs set up by the Union education
ministry to train polytechnic teach-
tion (estb.1994), which measures the
reading and math capability of prima-
ers. On completion of the three-year
wo years after against all poll- ry school children in rural India, 48 diploma programme, students will
sters’ opinions, the Congress percent of class VII children can’t read have acquired foundational skills
Tparty was swept to power in class II textbooks and 65 percent can’t aligned with the National Skills Quali-
Karnataka with a majority of 135 in solve simple division sums. Moreover, fication Framework (NSQF) Level 3,
the 224-strong legislative assembly, the state’s 436 government colleges and specialised skills in their subject
the state government is floundering in are recklessly certifying thousands specialisation of Level 5 NSQF.
a sea of troubles. Chief minister Sid- of graduates — including 1.32 lakh The polytechnics curriculum was
daramaiah is under investigation for engineers annually — who are mostly last revised in 2020 by the BJP gov-
alleged involvement in a MUDA (My- unsuitable for employment. Karna- ernment — the C-20 curriculum.
sore Urban Development Authority) taka’s percentage of unemployed is However, C-20 drew widespread
scandal for his wife having allegedly 10.65 percent cf. 5 percent in Kerala, criticism from polytechnic college
been preferentially awarded prize real 4.5 percent in Maharashtra, 3 percent managements and faculty for delet-
estate in Mysore; there is a reportedly in Madhya Pradesh, according to the ing core subjects, clubbing theory and
rift between Siddaramaiah and his Mumbai-based Centre for Monitor- practical classes and being unaligned
deputy D.K. Shiva Kumar for breach ing Indian Economy. At the recently with the engineering (BE, Bachelor of
of an alleged top-spot power sharing concluded Global Investors Meet — Engineering) syllabus prescribed by

20 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2025