Tamil Nadu Chief Minister moves resolution in Assembly seeking withdrawal of CUET

Resolution moved “in order to exercise the rights of the State governments”

Chief Minister M.K.Stalin on Monday moved a resolution in the Legislative Assembly urging the Centre to withdraw the proposal of the University Grants Commission to conduct a Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admissions for various courses including undergraduate programmes in all the central universities in the country.

The resolution was moved “in order to exercise the rights of the State governments”.

Mr. Stalin said, “There is no doubt that the CUET, like the NEET, would sideline the diverse school education systems 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 examinations scores.”

The resolution said the people of Tamil Nadu had felt that the CUET would only favour mushrooming of coaching centres. “It is also felt that enforcing such an entrance examination along with regular school will lead to mental stress among the student community,” the resolution further pointed out.

The Assembly also expressed its stand that “any entrance examination that is based on the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus will not provide an equal opportunity to all students who have studied in varied state boards across the country.”

It also pointed out that more than 80% of students in most States studied the State board syllabus and contended they were from the marginalised sections of the society.

“Hence, the NCERT’s syllabus-based entrance examination would place this deserving majority in a disadvantageous position in securing admission to central universities. The Assembly feels that in Tamil Nadu’s context, this is likely to drastically reduce the number of students from the State joining various central universities and the colleges affiliated to them,” the resolution said.