Samacheer Kalvi textbooks being printed for the coming academic year
will conform to the same superior quality printing of last year's class I
and VI books, according to Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation.
The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Madras High Court judgment striking down ultra vires the amendment to the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act to defer implementation of the ‘Samacheer system'.
The
special leave petition directed against the High Court judgment dated
July 18 is likely to the mentioned for early hearing on Thursday.
On
behalf of students and parents, caveats had also been filed to oppose
the stay sought by the State and they will be heard on that day.
The
SLP said, “The High Court failed to appreciate that the Amendment Act
is a valid legislation empowering the executive government to decide
when to implement the uniform syllabus after overhauling the syllabus
thoroughly and all steps are taken to comply with the directions of the
judicial verdict. As such it is a well recognised legislative tool which
ought not to have been lightly interfered with and interdicted, that
too without any finding of transgression of constitutional guarantees
and/or nullifying judicial pronouncement.”
The SLP
pointed out that in the present system there was no scope for creative
learning and extra textual learning as recommended by the National
Curriculum Framework, 2005 and as a consequence, the competence of the
students in the State would not be at par with students of other parts
of the country while facing national-level examinations for higher
education.
Further, the State Common Board of School
Education constituted under the Tamil Nadu Act was not designated to be
the Academic Authority according to Section 29 of the Central Act and
therefore, there was no competent professional body for prescribing the
common syllabus and prescription of textbooks.
The
SLP said, “Since the Uniform System of Education involves more than
prescription of common syllabus and textbooks, several aspects like
qualification of teachers, infrastructure facilities, examinations, code
of conduct for teachers, conduct rules for students etc., required a
comprehensive study in the interest of students. The State, therefore,
felt that it was impossible to implement the Uniform Education System
this year as envisaged in Section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Act and took a
policy decision to review the syllabus under the Uniform System of
Education as framed.”
The SLP raised important
questions of law, viz, “whether the impugned order is liable to be set
aside for holding that the impugned Amending Act is an Arbitrary piece
of legislation without appreciating that the provision was only to
ensure implementation of the Uniform System of School Education with a
proper quality syllabus and textbooks and to ensure proper compliance
with the directions of an earlier Division bench decision dated April
30, 2010” and “whether the High Court failed to appreciate that the
impugned legislation was thus enacted with the twin objective, namely,
to ensure full compliance of a judicial verdict and to undertake review
of the syllabus and textbooks which were found wanting in quality and
content?”
The SLP sought quashing of the judgment and an interim stay of its operation.
Keywords: Samacheer Kalvi