Chennai, Sep 15 (PTI) An education rights body in Tamil Nadu has urged the Centre’s High-Powered Task Force (HPTF) to dissolve the NTA and abolish all centralised tests for undergraduate admissions, the organisation said on Tuesday.
In a memorandum titled “Suggesstions to the HPTF on Examinations”, the State Platform for Common School System – Tamil Nadu (SPCSS-TN) raised strong objections to the current examination framework.
SPCSS-TN general secretary P B Prince Gajendra Babu said the National Testing Agency (NTA) has been unable to conduct a single test without receiving complaints.
The organisation demanded that admission to undergraduate degree programmes be based on marks secured by students in their respective board examinations. It suggested that the normalisation method utilised by the Tamil Nadu government for professional courses, which it called a “time-tested and transparent process,” be adopted for filling all-India quota seats.
The SPCSS-TN claimed that the national eligibility criteria for undergraduate admissions appeared designed to undermine India’s federal structure. It also noted that the NTA, being a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, is not a competent academic body to evaluate students.
A separate testing agency outsources testing aspects, leading to complete commercial market control over the admission process, the memorandum stated.
To highlight concerns over exclusionary exams, it cited Dr B R Ambedkar’s remarks from 1927.
“Examination is something quite different from education, but in the name of raising the standard of education, they are making the examination so impossible and so severe that the backward communities which have hitherto not had the chance of entering the portals of university are absolutely kept out,” Babu said.
The organisation further argued that separating the responsibility of education from evaluation removes accountability from educational institutions.
SPCSS-TN appealed to both the Union and state governments to strengthen government-funded educational institutions and fulfil the constitutional mandate under Article 41, arguing that education from school to university must be a fundamental right. PTI JR ROH
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