Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has urged the chief ministers of 12 states to put up a united effort to restore the primacy of state governments in administering the education sector as envisaged in the Constitution.
As per a press release issued by the Department of Information and Public Relations on Monday, Stalin wrote a letter to the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharshtra, Odisha, Punjab, Telangana, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Goa on October 1.
In his letter, the Tamil Nadu chief minister enclosed a report submitted by Justice AK Rajan Committee that studied the effect of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) based admission on socially backward students in the past few years.
"Based on the recommendation of the Committee, the Tamil Nadu State Assembly has recently passed an Act called 'Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Courses Act, 2021'. I am enclosing a copy of the same also for your perusal," he stated.
He further criticised the union government and alleged that their move to introduce NEET goes against the spirit of federalism and violates the constitutional balance of power by curbing the rights of the state governments to decide on the method of admission in the medical institutions founded, established and run by them.
"In this regard, we consider that the state governments need to assert their constitutional right and position in deciding the method of admission to their higher educational institutions," he stated.
Stalin requested the chief ministers to extend their support to restore the primacy of state governments overs the education sector to ensure that the students of the respective states, hailing from rural areas and marginalised sections of the society are not put to hardship in obtaining admissions to higher educational institutions.
The release further informed that Stalin has also instructed the team of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MPs to directly hand over the translated report of justice AK Rajan Committee to brief the efforts taken by the government of Tamil Nadu so far in this regard and seek the support of the respective states.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor