Tamil Nadu assembly on Monday adopted a resolution urging the Union government to drop the proposal of CUET (Central Universities Common Entrance Test), which was unanimously supported by all parties except the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Chief minister M K Stalin tabled the resolution in the state assembly, days after he had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi describing the move to bring CUET to central universities as ‘regressive’ and ‘undesirable’.
In the resolution, the assembly stated that it feels that any entrance exam that is based on the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus would not provide an equal opportunity to all students as they have studied in varied state board syllabi across the country.
In the Tamil Nadu context, the resolution said that this is likely to drastically reduce the number of students from the state in various central universities and their affiliated colleges. Comparing the CUET to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the state said these exams sidelined the marginalised students already.
“There is no doubt that this CUET, like NEET, will sideline the diverse school education system across the country, grossly undermine the relevance of overall development-oriented long-form learning in schools and make students rely upon coaching centres for improving their entrance examination scores,” the resolution stated.
{{/usCountry}}“There is no doubt that this CUET, like NEET, will sideline the diverse school education system across the country, grossly undermine the relevance of overall development-oriented long-form learning in schools and make students rely upon coaching centres for improving their entrance examination scores,” the resolution stated.
{{/usCountry}}“In order to exercise the rights of state governments, this assembly emphasises the Union government withdraw the proposal of conducting the Common University Entrance Test (CUET).”
Stalin said that enforcing such an entrance examination along with regular schooling will lead to mental stress for the students. “The people of Tamil Nadu also fear that this will only favour further mushrooming of coaching centres,” the chief minister said.
BJP MLAs walked out in protest against the resolution, but the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which leads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu, supported the call for scrapping CUET, similar to their stance on NEET.
BJP’s legislative leader Nainar Nagendran said that the state government is creating an illusion that the Union government is against students. “That (resolution) is unnecessary,” said Nagendran.
“The Central government is only working towards uplifting our students. The state government should understand that.”
The University Grants Commission announced that from the academic year 2022-2023, admissions to various courses in all central universities would be done only through CUET, to be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). It had further said that the marks secured by students in CUET may also be taken into account at state, private and deemed universities for their admission process if they wanted to.