Anandakrishnan called for radical reforms in Tamil Nadu school education for students to enter top institutes like IITs
Chennai city region postmaster general Mervin Alexander (right) releases special postal cover with special cancellation to commemorate 125th birth anniversary of V.L. Ethiraj, founder of Ethiraj college for women on Saturday. IIT-Kanpur chairman
CHENNAI: With fewer students from Tamil Nadu state board cracking JEE (advanced) to get a seat in IITs, chairman of IIT-Kanpur M. Anandakrishnan on Saturday lamented that Tamil Nadu state board students lack fundamental knowledge in key subjects such as Physics, Chemistry and Maths, which makes it difficult for them to enter IITs.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of quasquicentennial function of V.L. Ethiraj, founder of Ethiraj College for women here, Prof Anandakrishnan said that Tamil Nadu state board students don’t study classes 11 and 12 fully to strengthen their fundamentals but they prepare in such a way that they study only important portions, which would fetch them more marks.
“Tamil Nadu students also lack aspiration to get into IITs as they have more private engineering colleges in the state with more seats and they join one of them with much ease. Students expect questions in board exams to be asked from the list of questions printed in the last page of every lesson,” the former Anna University Vice-Chancellor said.
Prof Anandakrishnan called for radical reforms in Tamil Nadu school education system to help students enter top institutes like IITs. “The syllabus must be on the lines of the CBSE so that Tamil Nadu students too crack JEE (advanced) to join IITs.” He exhorted institutions to develop inter-disciplinary curriculum, as toady’s development needed interaction between disciplines.
“An economics student should be able to study Biology and a Maths student must study philosophy, such should be your approach,” he said. Recalling that a committee in which he and former Anna University Vice-Chancellor V.C. Kulandaisamy recommended that a few institutions like Ethiraj College should be upgraded as university, Prof Anandakrishnan said that their recommendations had not materialised.
Releasing the special postal cover with special cancellation commemorating Mr Ethiraj’s quasquicentennial, Chennai city Region Postmaster General Mervin Alexander said India Post released 40 commemorative stamps every year of which 10 pertained to personalities like Ethiraj.
IITs not yardstick to judge kids: Experts
Academicians from Tamil Nadu argue that the state board and matriculation students don’t lack in fundamentals and IITs should not be taken as yardstick to judge students as several CBSE students too prefer several universities other than IITs. Eminent school education expert S.S. Rajagopalan said the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) depended largely on coaching centres and not the school system.
“Our (TN) syllabus is also good as we also produce top class students who work in top companies all across the world. Schools don’t play a significant role in making a student enter IITs, besides IITs have fewer seats. They can admit only fewer students so why do we need to change our syllabus?” he questioned.
Pointing out that Tamil Nadu had 50 top engineering colleges, he said this was why Tamil Nadu students don’t look at IITs. Adding to Dr Rajagopalan’s view, K.R. Nandakumar, secretary of the Tamil Nadu Nursery, Primary, Matriculation, Higher Secondary Schools Association, said CBSE schools tie-up with private IIT coaching centres to train students whereas matriculation schools don’t do it.
“If our matriculation schools too do the same we will have more students entering IITs, so CBSE system has nothing to do with cracking of JEE,” he said.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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