Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, May 2: The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction from the Centre to create a consistent education system, common syllabus, and common curriculum in the mother tongue up to Standard 12.
The petition seeks to uphold and advance the constitutional goals of socialism, secularism, equality of status, equal opportunity, brotherhood, unity, and national integrity.
After taking note of the petitioner’s plea, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla asked responses from the Ministries of Education, Law and Justice, Social Justice, and the Government of NCT Delhi on Monday and set the issue for August 30, 2022.
“The syllabus and curriculum are common for all entrance examinations viz Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), Birla Institute of Technology and Science Admission Test (BITSAT), National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), Management Aptitude Test (MAT), National Eligibility Test (NET), National Defence Academy (NDA), Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CU-CET), Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), All India Law Entrance Test (AILET), Symbiosis Entrance Test (SET), Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY), National Entrance Screening Test (NEST), Probationary Officer (PO), Special Class Railway Apprentice (SCRA), National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), All India Entrance Examination for Design (AIEED), National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA), Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) etc,” the plea stated.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), and State Boards, on the other hand, have completely separate syllabuses and curricula. As a result, pupils are denied equal opportunity in the spirit of Articles 14-16, according to the petition.
The current educational system, according to the petitioner, not only divides society into Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), Below Poverty Line (BPL), Middle Income Group (MIG), High Income Group (HIG), and elite classes, but also works against ‘socialism, secularism, fraternity, unity, and national integrity.’
“Moreover, it does not provide equal opportunity to all students as syllabus-curriculum of CBSE, ICSE and State Board is totally different. Although harmonious-purposive construction of Articles 14, 15, 16, 21, 21A with Articles 38, 39, 46 confirms that education is the most important fundamental right and the state cannot discriminate on the grounds of region, religion, race, caste, class or culture,” he submitted.
