CHENNAI: State Education Policy high-level committee member and convener professor L Jawahar Nesan on Wednesday resigned from the post stating he was unable to perform his job due to interference from senior IAS officers in the government. He specifically accused senior IAS officer T Udhayachandran, secretary to the chief minister, of abusing and threatening him into accepting his conditions in formulating the State Education Policy (SEP).
Stating that his complaints to the chairman of the committee as well as the chief minister went unheard, Nesan warned that the committee is steering towards formulating a State Education Policy along the lines of the National Education Policy. “The policy will be just another version of the National Education Policy, which has the interests of the corporates, commercial entities and Sanatana forces,” he said in a press release. He also added that he is afraid that the policy will be against the preferences and high values of Tamil society.
“The committee is not able to function due to the abuse of power and inappropriate interference of a few senior IAS officers. Due to this, the opposition to continuing my duty as a member and a convenor of the committee has been increasing. While I tried to continue my work despite this, Udhayachandran threatened and abused me with anger. When I appealed to the chairman about the abuse of authority over the past few months, he didn’t react and brushed it off. He didn’t ask my views on the matter and also didn’t provide any guidance as to how I should proceed,” he further said.
Stating that his letter to the CM also went unanswered, he said that he realised it doesn’t make any sense to continue as part of the committee. “It saddens me that I have to resign from this historic opportunity. As a citizen of this country, I will continue to contribute to the formulation of the State Education Policy,” he said. The Tamil Nadu government in June last year formed a 13-member panel, headed by Justice D Murugesan, to frame the state education policy within a year. TNIE couldn’t reach Udhayachandran for comments.