Chennai: With more than 80% of work still left in the revision of syllabus and textbooks, the transfer of T. Udhayachandran, Secretary (Curriculum – School Education) has raised several eyebrows as the transfer allegedly goes against the Madras High Court’s order.
The syllabus revision has come to a crucial stage where it will revise the textbooks for class 10 and 12 in the current academic year. Of 12 classes, the new syllabus was introduced for only four classes and the remaining eight classes will get the revised textbooks in the next two academic years.
“Mr.Udhayachandran was doing the syllabus revision and textbook writing with a lot of passion. He was personally involved in all stages. The sudden change will definitely affect the morale of the experts and teachers who are writing the books,” a professor involving in the writing of textbooks told this paper.
The new textbooks have several new features other than lessons. It gives the students a window to learn outside the textbooks and information about career choices and competitive exam. It also technologically embedded with QR codes was given to the complex ideas.
Sources said that every day more than 1.5 lakh children are downloading video lessons through QR codes which enabled the children to learn from outside the classrooms.
Soon after taking over as school education secretary, Mr.Udhayachandran made a slew of announcements to reform the school education which was pending for a long time. But within months, there were reports that he would be transferred following differences with the school education minister K.A. Sengottaiyan.
However, the Madras High Court in its August 12, 2017 order has restrained the government from making any changes to the two committees constituted to revamp the state board curriculum and syllabus.
Instead of transferring him, the state government appointed him as secretary - curriculum and Pradeep Yadav, a principal secretary was appointed as school education secretary.
Mr.Udhayachandran was instrumental in bringing out quality textbooks for state board students as he assembled a team of experts in all subjects to write textbooks and was personally monitoring the textbooks writing work.
When DC enquired whether the curriculum committee has finished its work, M.Ananthakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University and chairman of curriculum framework committee said, “The curriculum committee is still working and the textbooks have to come out.”
“The school education secretary was transferred when the curriculum work still under progress which is against the court order. It is clearly making out the case for contempt of court,” says advocate Radhakrishnan who argued behalf of the petitioner in the case. They are also planning to move contempt of court petition.
When DC enquired about the possible reasons for his transfer, sources in the school education pointed out a recent case filed against the Sura Books Publishing Company for violating the copyrights by State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT). “The private publishing company has copied the entire class 11 physics book cover to cover. It even carried some of the mistakes in the books. Mr.Udhayachandran insisted on filing a complaint against the publishing house which has not gone down well with the government,” sources claimed.
P.B. Prince Gajendrababu argued that it was not only a violation of court order, but an officer with a passion for school education was disturbed. “What is the necessity to transfer him to archaeology department when he was involving in a crucial work that will shape the future of this country?” he asked.
