After a day of hectic parleys in India’s national capital, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the city of Chennai on Wednesday to better acquaint herself with southern India, which has become a focus for growing U.S. trade and investment.
Although her one-day visit to Tamil Nadu, the first ever there by a serving U.S. Secretary of State, included meetings with school students, Ms. Clinton probably did not get to discuss a unique feature of Tamil Nadu under the new Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa: school without textbooks.
This may sound like an innovative departure from the rote learning common in many Indian schools, but actually, it’s the result of the recent regime change in elections that led Ms. Jayalalithaa and her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to oust the incumbents and form a government in May.
Soon after taking office, Ms. Jayalalithaa’s government scrapped plans to introduce the new “uniform school education system” developed by her predecessor, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M. Karunanidhi, according to education experts and reports in the Indian news media. The new system, under which a single board would oversee school curriculum and testing, replacing four different examination systems, was supposed to be implemented from the current academic year beginning June 1.
However, Ms. Jayalalithaa decided to delay the new system and stick with the old school curriculum, saying that there were problems with the textbooks. India Today reported that, among other things, she was unhappy that they contained a poem written by the former chief minister’s daughter. Educational experts also told India Real Time that the new chief minister felt that the textbooks, which The Hindu says contain descriptions of Mr. Karunanidhi’s achievements batting for the promotion of Tamil language as well as some writing by him, eulogized her predecessor.
As a result, children in Tamil Nadu started the school year two weeks late, in the middle of June. And when classes finally did begin, it was without school books.
Last month, the state government filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging a June order by the Madras High Court that would have forced the government to implement the uniform school system and use the textbooks developed for it. The Supreme Court ordered that the new system be implemented for first grade, or kids aged seven, and sixth grade, for kids aged 12, and formed a panel of experts to examine the curriculum for other classes. But this week, the Madras High Court passed an order requiring the state to begin distribution of the textbooks to all classes starting Friday. The Supreme Court committee is expected to submit its report next week.
The state government spokesman could not be reached for immediate comment. An AIADMK party spokesman also could not be reached for comment.
Education experts in the state say that as the chief minister attempts to seek the court’s help in undoing Mr. Karunanidhi’s legacy on the school curriculum, it is the students who are bearing the brunt.
Valli Arunachalam, principal of Chennai-based Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan School said that instead of discontinuing textbooks, the government should allow the books to be used while the school board works on deleting the controversial segments of the syllabus and replacing them with more neutral content.
“The state government has said schools will engage children in activity-based learning without textbooks till the court sorts out the issue,” she said. “It is a waste of time.”
S. Swaminathan, principal of the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College in Chennai, said the government should not use the education system to “settle political scores.”
He said around 100 million textbooks worth two billion rupees ($44 million) hve been printed for the uniform school system, most of which are presently in storage.
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