Page 32 - EW-August-2024 PDF _Neat

Education News

THEY SAID IT

"This is a budget that will take the coun-
try's villages, poor and farmers on the path
of prosperity. In the last 10 years, 25 crore
people have come out of poverty. This bud-
get is a budget for the continuation of the
empowerment of the newly emerged Neo
Middle Class.”
PM Narendra Modi on the Union Budget 2024-25 (Mint,
July 23)
Justice Murugesan (centre left) with chief minister Stalin
“Coaching has become commerce, a flour-
formulate the SEP. On July 1, the Murugesan Committee
submitted a 550-page report in English and a 600-page ishing industry with high returns... Every
report in Tamil, to the chief minister. time we read a newspaper, the front one or
Major recommendations include that the state govern- two pages are filled with ads from coaching
ment takes appropriate measures to ensure that ‘Educa- centres. Every penny spent on advertise-
tion’ is brought back to List II (the states list) of the Con- ment is coming from the students, every
stitution; that Tamil language should be the medium of new building is coming from the students.”
instruction in anganwadis (mother-child care centres) Jagdeep Dhankhar, Vice President of India, on the
and child development centres; Tamil is the first language death of three students at a coaching centre in Delhi
of education right from primary school to university level; (July 29, Rajya Sabha)
continuation of Tamil Nadu’s dual-language policy of pro-
moting English and Tamil, and abolition of public exami-
nations for classes III, V and VIII. “It's a critical moment. I'm a boy from Bom-
oreover, the Murugesan Committee has proposed bay and it's great to see an Indian woman
Mthat the admission age into class I in Tamil Nadu’s running for the White House. And my wife is
39,300 government and government-aided schools af- African American, so we like the fact that a
filiated with the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Exami- Black and Indian woman is running for the
nations (TNBSE) and nearly 5,000 Matriculation Board White House.”
schools should be five years. This despite the Right of Salman Rushdie, author, endorsing Kamala Harris,
Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, Democratic nominee for the US Presidency (India
2009, prescribing the entry age for class I as six. Today, July 29)
The Justice Murugesan Committee’s recommenda-
tions for the proposed SEP has ignited a lively debate in
academia about its provisions, and whether an SEP at “… Since the government is already slow
variance with NEP 2020 is in the larger interest of chil- walking its promise of more visas to the Chi-
dren in the state (pop.84 million). nese, this moment must trigger action on the
“If Tamil is introduced as the medium of instruction real culprit: woeful Indian education.”
through school all the way to university, it will surely en- Ashoka Mody, former Princeton University professor,
able students from rural backgrounds. However, if the on why India’s economic growth increasingly
DMK government wants education to be brought back in depends on foreign expertise, particularly from China
the States list, it should ensure that the education system (The Hindu, July 30)
won’t be diluted. It should ensure teaching-learning qual-
ity in the state is on a par with national standards,” says “Our employment problem is mainly an
K. Palanivelu, a Chennai-based educationist and former education problem. Substandard schools and
director of the Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation colleges have produced millions of semi-
Research at Anna University. educated, unemployable young people with
This problem of standardisation necessary to enable
mobility of students and later professionals, from Tamil degrees, but no real skills. Overhauling the
Nadu to other states and abroad, worries other knowl- entire education system will take decades.”
edgeable educationists as well. “As many as 72 competi- Swaminathan Aiyar, economist-columnist (The
tive examinations are held every year across the country Economic Times, August 1)

32 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2024