CHENNAI: Urging Chief Minister MK Stalin to set the stage for making Tamil Nadu a ‘political society’, Dalit Intellectual Collective (DIC) asked the State government to revive students’ unions and make students party to administrative and academic decision-making process in colleges and universities.
“To have a better ‘political society’, we need to inculcate democratic values and beliefs among the younger generation. Hence, students’ unions have to be revitalised. Indeed, students’ politics should be an integral part of the learning process,” DIC Convenor C Lakshmanan said in a statement.
Also, one of the 13 other appeals that DIC made sought immediate action to provide basic facilities in government schools, colleges, universities, and welfare hostels. “Most of the students joining government institutions are from SC, ST, and backward classes. Most of these institutions (schools, colleges, universities) neither have adequate teacher-student ratio nor basic infrastructure facilities,” DIC said.
Some of the specific demands made include: Collaboration with foreign universities; doubling of post-matric scholarships for SC/ST students in accordance with the price index; and instituting ‘visiting grants’ for college and university teachers to help them visit foreign universities for exposure.
Stating that shift system in arts and science colleges has made day-scholars from economically weaker sections skip morning breakfast or lunch to ensure they reached in time, it sought the extension of the mid-day meal scheme to all government educational institutions.
The DIC, a forum that claims to be engaging in a struggle for rejuvenation of the emancipatory politics, asked the government to set up a state-level committee to formulate common curriculum for natural science, social sciences, and humanities by incorporating latest research and developments in different disciplines.