Chennai: The Tamilnadu Assembly today adopted a resolution urging the Union government to withdraw the proposal to conduct Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission to courses offered by central universities.
Chief Minister M K Stalin moved the resolution, urging the Central government to withdraw the entrance test. The resolution was moved ‘in order to exercise the rights of the State governments’.
‘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,’ Stalin said.
As per the resolution, the people of Tamilnadu 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,’ it added.
‘The Assembly feels that any entrance examination that is based on the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus will not provide an equal opportunity to all students who have studied in varied state board syllabi across the country,’ it said.
Opposing the resolution, BJP staged a walkout while the others including main opposition party, the AIADMK and ruling DMK’s allies–Congress and the Left parties among others, supported the resolution.
Today’s resolution comes just days after Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to withdraw the proposed Common University Entrance Test for admissions in all Central universities.
In the letter addressed to the Prime Minister, Stalin termed the proposed exam as ‘regressive’ and ‘undesirable’ and called for the withdrawal of the same.