COIMBATORE: Educationists and teachers have raised concerns as students who appeared for the National Achievement Survey (NAS) test held for classes III, V, VIII and X on Friday were asked to mark their caste category on their OMR sheets.
The test was conducted by the NAS cell of CBSE across the State, except in Chennai and a few other districts due to the rains, at select government and private schools. TNIE’s repeated attempts to contact School Education Department Commissioner N Nandakumar and the CBSE Director’s office in New Delhi to respond to the matter were in vain.
The sheets had options for the students to choose whether they belong to SC, ST, OBC or General category. Educationists charged that asking such details from even classes III and V was unacceptable, as most of the students do not even know the caste to which they belong to.
R Ramkumar, general secretary of TN Teachers and School Protection Association said, “Even most of the students in middle standard level do not know their caste. Asking students in class III to fill up their caste category is very objectionable. They do not know the meaning of SC, ST, OBC and General. In application forms, the question is asked for implementing quota norms. But, what is the necessity to ask students to mention it in their answer papers?” Ramkumar said he had not seen the question in the same test since 2017.
When contacted, Chief Education Officer N Geetha said, “As elementary school students do not know about their caste category, teachers deputed for supervision asked them their exact caste, and helped them mark it.”
Geetha said they could not do anything on the matter as the test paper was served from the top. R Sankarasubbu, a senior advocate from the Madras High Court said seeking the detail of caste classification in an answer sheet is unwarranted. He added there was a hidden agenda behind the demand.
Condemning the practice, educationist Prince Gajendrababu said, “We have been objecting against even conducting tests like this as they do not analyse social and cultural pattern of students. They assess them only based on their learning skills. After evaluation, they do nothing from it. Meanwhile, it is very pathetic to ask the students to fill up their caste on OMR sheets.”