Improving the infrastructure in government-run educational institutions, increasing post-matric scholarships and revitalising students’ unions in universities and colleges were some of the key suggestions sent to the Chief Minister by Dalit Intellectual Collective on the interventions needed to enhance the quality of schools and higher education in the State.
Addressing the media on Wednesday, C. Lakshmanan, a faculty at the Madras Institute of Development Studies and convener of the collective, said many government-run institutions, particularly the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare schools and hostels, lacked basic infrastructure, including toilets and water.
Highlighting that the post-matric scholarship amount given to students had not been revised for 10 years, the collective said it must be doubled and periodically revised in accordance with changes in the Consumer Price Index.
Mr. Lakshmanan said while one of the key recommendations of the Thorat Committee, formed years ago to study discrimination in educational campuses, was to strengthen students’ unions, almost all State-run universities and colleges did not have strong student bodies.
Suggestions of the collective included the constitution of Pandithar Iyothee Thaasar and Periyar Chairs in higher education institutions for interdisciplinary studies on social transformation.
The collective highlighted that although the overall Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in Tamil Nadu was high, it was relatively much lesser for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Schedule Tribe (ST) students.
“Since the 1% reservation for ST students is implemented at the department-level in institutions, they lose out on opportunities since the total number of seats is often much lesser than 100, and therefore, not a single seat gets allocated to them. The government should either apply the reservation at the institution-level or ensure that at least one seat goes to an ST student in each department,” Mr. Lakshmanan said.
The collective also demanded the formation of a State-level committee to revise the syllabus for higher education institutions, since it has not been done in many institutions for years.
Other suggestions included the extension of breakfast and mid-day meal scheme to higher education institutions, fellowship programmes for students to do research abroad, and visiting grants for teachers of colleges and universities to visit foreign universities.
