A group of 19 school students from Tenkasi district — Avvaiyar Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Pavoorchatram, and Government High School, Mela Sengottai — on Thursday met School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi in Chennai and submitted a list of suggestions for eradicating caste and caste-based discrimination, especially in educational institutions.
They later met K. Chandru, retired Judge of the Madras High Court, who is heading the committee constituted by the Tamil Nadu government to recommend measures to prevent caste-based discrimination and violence among students in educational institutions, and submitted their suggestions to him.
They had formulated these suggestions based on a conference organised in Tenkasi district earlier this month by the State Platform for Common School System-Tamil Nadu (SPCSS-TN), a non-governmental organisation, involving school students and teachers.
The suggestions included creating awareness among parents and teachers through meetings in schools that promoting caste differences was a punishable crime. The children suggested caste eradication as part of school syllabus in accordance with the learning ability of students in each class, inclusion of important books like the Light of Asia, and the works of B. R. Ambedkar and ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy in school libraries. Other suggestions included making students, parents and teachers take a pledge for caste eradications, singing songs against caste in all schools, and regular monitoring by the Minister and senior officials on caste eradication measures being implemented in schools. They appealed to the Minister to implement these measures on a pilot basis in Tenkasi district.
P. B. Prince Gajendra Babu, general secretary, SPCSS-TN, said the students had formulated these suggestions as an outcome of the discussions in the conference. They expressed interest to present them to the Minister in person and the Minister readily agreed to meet them.
