“The current contention of educationists that Tamil Nadu’s state board syllabus is far below that of the central government’s CBSE is likely to be thing of past once the updated syllabus is announced,” said teachers currently participating in the exercise from July last year in Chennai.

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Vellore:

Sources revealed that the updation work involving nearly 1000 teachers drawn from various parts of the state is in all likelihood to end shortly. “We expect the updated syllabus to be announced on or before March 24,” sources said. 

Though it was originally planned to announce the updated syllabus on February 24, the birth anniversary of former chief minister Jayalalithaa, it had to be put off due to various reasons, sources said. The last updation of syllabus was in 2006. 

“The exercise which compares the syllabi of CBSE, state board and NCERT (National Council for Education Research and Training) will result in TN syllabus which will be superior to the present CBSE syllabus,” said Tamil Nadu Vocational Education Teachers Association state general secretary SN Janardhanan, one of the teachers involved.

The exercise follows the state government creating a committee headed by former Anna University VC M Anandakrishnan with education secretary D Udayachandran providing the necessary hands-on work-force, sources revealed. 

“In addition to subject experts, the government is also utilizing the services of an English and Tamil expert so that sentence structure and usage in both languages are on par with the best” he added. The exercise is currently undertaken in 4 different Chennai locations as a single location cannot accommodate 1000 teachers, it was said.