Karuna asks Jaya govt to greatness and implement USSE

Chennai, July 20: Counselling the Jayalalithaa Government against moving the Supreme Court on the issue of uniform system of school education introduced by his previous regime, DMK President M Karunanidhi said the government should take immediate steps to implement it keeping the interest of students and anxiety of parents in mind.

"The government should show greatness... keeping in mind the interest of the Tamil Nadu students and understanding their parent's anxiety, it should not move the Supreme Court.

Instead it should ensure that text books were made available by July 22 and the students were able to continue their education," he said in a statement tonight.

Quoting portions of Madras High Court judgement striking down an amendment to the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education (Amendment Act 2011) to put on hold the scheme, Karunanidhi said the court itself had said the scheme was introduced by the erstwhile government for the purpopse of achieving social justice and quality education.

A deep study of the judgement would show why the AIADMK Government brought the amendment to the act, he said.

He said leaders of various political parties, including AIADMK's allies, have asked the government to implement the scheme in the wake of the high court order.

In a blow to the Jayalalithaa government, a bench comprising chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam in their order held that Section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education (Amendment Act 2011) was "unconstitutional" and ultra vires of Article 14 of the Constitution.

Tamil Nadu has over 1.23 crore students in four streams of school education - 45,000 state board schools, 11,000 matriculation schools, 25 oriental schools and 50 Anglo- Indian schools, all with separate syllabus, textbooks and schemes of examinations.

The scheme, aimed at bringing about uniform education, was shelved by Jayalalithaa in one of her first acts of reversing several pet schemes of the Karunanidhi regime.

PTI