Caste tag for education institutions triggers thought provoking debate An ongoing PIL in the Madras High Court seeking to ban use of caste identities in the names of government and aided educational institutions in Tamil Nadu has triggered a thought-provoking debate. Blaming the caste system for all social evils, the petitioner, advocate S Saravanan sought a direction to State-funded schools and colleges to drop caste identities prefixed or suffixed to their names. The court has issued notices to the Government and adjourned the case to September 10. Many prominent schools and colleges that are either run or funded by the government have caste identities in their names. For instance, in Erode, a government aided college is named Chikkaiah Naicker College. Similarly, the Yadava College in Madurai is an aided college and in Virudhunagar, a school is named SS Subbiah Nadar Government Higher Secondary School. Naicker, Yadava and Nadar are caste names. Coimbatore MP P R Natarajan feels there is no need to prefix or suffix caste name to educational institutions’ names. “This will not help the institutions to achieve their aim of popularising education,” he argues. “Earlier, names of castes were removed from the names of streets and localities. Now, it is the right time to drop caste identities from the name boards of educational institutions. This will protect the minds of school and college students from being corrupted in the name of caste and help inculcate thoughts against caste discrimination among them,” reasons K S Kanagaraj, state president of Students Federation of India. Endorsing him, Students Welfare Association of Parents (SWAP) chairman R Manimohan added that including caste as part of names of colleges or schools will create the feeling that a particular group is given preference over others in that particular institution. However, former Vice Chairman of Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education A Ramasamy says that though the intention behind the demand to drop caste or religious identities from names of educational institutions is laudable, it will not be an easy process. “There would be hurdles as some institutions like Madras Christian College, Banaras Hindu University and Aligarh Muslim University have been functioning for over 100 years. A backward or minority community would have established colleges and schools to promote education in the community and named them after the specific group. We cannot expect them to remove it,” he opines. - S Mannar Mannan | ENS - COIMBATORE
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 07:25:25 +0000
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