Tamil Nadu - Tiruchi   

“Change in examination system likely”

TIRUCHI: A change in the system of examination is under the Government’s consideration, State Minister for Higher Education K. Ponmudy said on Friday.

“The examination system has become stagnant.” Activity-based learning in schools and the introduction of uniform education in schools will gradually determine reforms in the educational system, the Minister said, delivering his address during the 26th convocation ceremony of the Bharathidasan University.

Dr. Ponmudy favoured Tamil as the medium of instruction reasoning out that it will lead to better understanding of the subjects. Complimenting Vice-Chancellor M. Ponnavaikko for presenting his report in Tamil for the first time in a convocation ceremony, the Minister said: “We are not against English. But to say that English medium is superior to Tamil medium constitutes hypocrisy. English must necessarily be learnt as a language, as a spoken language.” Alongside poor economic conditions, inability to cope up with English is also a cause for students dropping out of education, Dr. Ponmudy observed.

An inter-disciplinary approach in higher education will be really helpful. Specialisation must be from a platform of general understanding of basics. Urging parents to let their children choose careers as per their aptitudes, Dr. Ponmudy wondered how there could be creativity when basic sciences were neglected.

Opportunities for quality higher education have indeed expanded. By introducing shift system and free education schemes, Tamil Nadu has over the past three years enhanced the gross enrolment ratio in higher education to 11 per cent, compared to the national average of seven per cent.

The State was keeping pace to reach the 25 per cent mark advocated by the National Knowledge Commission.

While the Government can take care of quantum of expansion, the onus on making education quality-oriented vests with the teachers.

The very purpose of starting a university for education in Tamil Nadu for the first time in India was to bring in novelties in teaching-learning process.

While colleges produced graduates, only universities could foster research, Dr. Ponmudy said, expressing dismay over the opposition by a section of teaching community to the Government’s plan to transform colleges into unitary universities where there was a high scope for flexibility and independent functioning. Teachers, he insisted, must never feel satisfied with their level of learning.

A realisation that their learning reaches a large section of students must set in.

Breaking convention to make a lengthy speech, Dr. Ponmudy wanted open universities and other universities to enable skilled labourers to obtain formal qualifications with theoretical inputs.

He called upon undergraduate students to make the most of the opportunity provided for them by the Government to obtain a skill-oriented diploma qualification simultaneously from a neighbouring polytechnic college.

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