Stakeholders give thumbs up for changes in Tamil Nadu school education system

After a series of announcements in the recent past, the minister in a press conference, listed out major changes that will help bring state board syllabus at par with CBSE.

The state-board education system came to be questioned ever since the conversation over National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test began where many educationists openly spoke about the need for change in syllabus. The decision to bring about the changes in a phased manner has received collective appreciation from schools, parents and students.

“We have been making these demands for over four years, where we have made several representations to the government and school education department and we are glad that the announcement has been made finally. The changes will prepare students for the NEET exam and it is good that the students wouldn’t have to go through the changes suddenly,” says Zahir Hussain, treasurer of Tamil Nadu Student Parent Welfare Association, adding, “It will also strengthen the quality of school education in government schools. Now most parents admit their children in private schools citing the facilities for which they demand exorbitant money in various form. They decide the fees structure without involving parents’ associations despite the fact that we are the ones who have pay the fees. Strengthening the system will only make school education accessible.”

Not just the parents but even the teachers’ association is supporting the move. “These changed have come after a series of recommendations from experts and we welcome all the changes. As far as the training of teachers is concerned, we are looking forward to it,” says PK Ilamaran, president of Tamil Nadu Teachers Association.

According to educationist S Somasundaram, the reforms have been introduced after analysing system prevalent in other states. “Earlier, we saw that the schools skipped the class 11 syllabus and directly jump on to class 12 syllabus. This was a huge drawback for students when they went college. Class 11 is all about concepts and 12 about applications. As most students were not taught about the concept in detail, they’d struggle in their first year of college and often failed. The new system will fix all that.”

Most schools too have appreciated the changes. R J Bhuvanesh, CEO of Kaligi Ammal Ranganathan Education Trust says, “It is a welcome move as it will make students understand the concepts better and they will understand the subject better. Till now people were made to mug the portions and replicate in the answer sheets. The chance to write arrear exams will also ease the stress of the students.”. 

Schools plan orientation programmes, some raise caution 

Some schools are even planning to organise orientation programmes for parents and teachers to explain how they are dealing with the changes. “We too will have to overhaul the way we prepare the students for the board exams. We plan to organise orientations for both teachers and students to make them understand the new system,” says Sister Victoria Devasakayam, Principal of St Joseph’s Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Perambur. 

However, some educationist say that they will have to wait and watch the results of the changes. “The success of splitting the 1200 marks equally between 11th and 12th standard is unclear. The intent may have been to ease the pressure on students and give better opportunities to score. 

On the flip side, schools might end up putting even more pressure for the students to perform better in both 11th and 12th. The gap year which children previously enjoyed between 10th and 12th will be gone,” says Pavittra Aroon, educational consultant associated with Auuro Educational Services, further adding, “The announcement of a revamped syllabus is a welcome one. We only hope it doesn’t fail to impress as Samacheer did in 2009. A lot of students in TN even in sub-urban and rural towns are migrating towards CBSE in the quest for a good and value adding education. Hope the new syllabus turns to be equally competent to CBSE and other boards of education.”