AP says no to Sibal’s ‘common curriculum’ | Deccan Chronicle | 2010-06-20

AP says no to Sibal’s ‘common curriculum’ | Deccan Chronicle | 2010-06-20

Hyderabad/New Delhi, June 19: The Andhra Pradesh government has made it clear that it does not endorse nor is it a part of the “common national curriculum” for science and mathematics at the senior secondary level as announced by the Union minister for human resource development, Mr Kapil Sibal, in New Delhi on Saturday.

Reacting to the media reports that the education ministers of all states had endorsed the Centre’s proposal to have a common curriculum on Saturday, the Andhra Pradesh minister for secondary education, Mr D. Manikya Vara Prasada Rao, said, “Neither am I aware of any such meeting nor did I attend it. We have no plans to change the existing Intermediate syllabus in the state. “We cannot take any hasty decision. The issue should be debated on at length among all the stakeholders,” he said.

When it was pointed out to Mr Vara Prasada Rao that a common curriculum will save student from appearing for multiple exams, he said, “Even IIT-JEE and AIEEE are conducted separately though both are for admissions into engineering courses at a national level. Let the Centre first integrate both these exams and then it can think of integrating the syllabus and exams of various states.” “There is no need to change the Intermediate syllabus in the state as it has proved to be of highest standards. A major chunk of seats in IIT, AIEEE and other national-level competitive exams are bagged by students from Andhra Pradesh every year. Almost all the top-10 ranks in IIT-JEE and AIEEE were bagged by our students this year. As far as the Centre’s proposal is concerned, it can only give us a suggestion. It cannot direct us as education is in the concurrent list and any decision has to be taken by the state government alone,” Mr Vara Prasada Rao said.

The common curriculum proposal seems to have not gone down well even with the officials of higher education department. They said the 20 states that endorsed the proposal were smaller states.


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Submitted by GreatMind on Sun, 20/06/2010 - 1:52pm.

Good job, dear minister. You need to stand up for what you believe is correct and fight till the end. Please garner support from all major stakeholders for this and from other states as well if possible. Please do not let go the advantage of AP with this.