CHENNAI: The education sector is the bedrock of Tamil Nadu’s success but, without urgent intervention from the state government, it will become further mired in crisis. State universities are flailing as vice chancellor’s posts remain vacant at premier institutions and financial mismanagement and fund crunch are hurting students and faculty.
Academicians and educationists said that at key varsities, such as University of Madras and Bharathiar University, the absence of V-Cs has worsened affairs as the administration is unable to take any policy decisions.
“All 13 state universities are under acute financial constraints which need to be rectified immediately. On priority, the state government, in this budget, should allocate block grants to these varsities as, without aid, the quality of our institutions is getting adversely affected,” said academician S P Thyagarajan.
Academicians said the government should announce specific amounts of block grants for each of the state universities, rather than allocating a lump sum. In the 2023-24 budget, TN allocated Rs 40,299 crore for school education and Rs 6,967 crore for higher education, of which Rs 769 crore was meant for the state universities.
A former Madras University V-C said TN is not providing block grants to the varsities due to the huge backlog of audit objections. “In this budget, the government should come up with a strategy... A special committee should be formed to investigate the audit objections and deal with them on a war footing,” said the former V-C. Madras University recently had its accounts frozen over Income Tax dues, that became applicable as the varsity has not received state funds from 2017 over audit objections.
Despite these issues, the latest All-India Survey on Higher Education report showed that TN has 28,867 PhD enrolments, the highest in India. “We also need more state universities as, in the last five years, not a single institution has come up,” said Sreedhar Venugopal, a research scholar at the University of Madras.
Educationists pointed out that many of TN’s progressive schemes to increase enrolment of girls in higher education and enhance students’ skills are yielding desired results. Still, more must be done to ensure these students receive a quality education.
School education, a vital sector that receives the highest allocation in the state budget, is also suffering, mainly for want of teachers. Academicians said there is an urgent need to fill vacant posts. “Over 7,000 posts of teachers are vacant,” said P Patrick Raymond, secretary of TN Graduate Teachers’ Federation.
Teachers said that several promises made in the last budget remain unfulfilled. Significantly, the government had said Adi Dravidar Welfare and Tribal schools would be brought under the School Education department but this has not been implemented. “All schools are yet to get the smart classrooms as promised,” a government school principal pointed out. Similarly, the government had announced a health check-up for teachers but the order to implement this initiative was only issued on Tuesday.
Major allocations under school education in 2023
Illam Thedi Kalvi scheme, Rs 226 crore
Ennum Ezhuthum Mission, Rs 110 crore
Infrastructure development in schools, Rs 1,156 crore
Creation of model schools,Rs 250 crore
Last year, of the Rs 6,967-cr budget for higher education
Rs 3,883 crore was allocated to Directorate of Collegiate Education
Rs2,173 crore to Directorate of Technical Education
Rs 769 crore to universities
Rs 102 crore to State Council for Higher Education