CHENNAI: As the State government is all set to introduce common syllabus in universities from the coming academic year, the State Council for Higher Education, which developed the curriculum, is expecting the move to promote standardisation and uniformity in higher education.

The Higher Education Department strongly believes that the move to introduce a common syllabus would help in addressing issues of inequality in access to education.

Senior officials stated that the goal was to ensure students were exposed to a same set of skills. “Implementation of a common curriculum in the Higher Educational Institutions comes following requests from various sections claiming that rural students were lagging their urban counterparts,” they added.

A senior official told DT Next that if all HEIs in the State followed a common syllabus, it would help students whose parents were in transferable jobs, as they could pickup where they left. “They could also use the same study materials when they transfer to the new institutions,” he added. “No student will miss learning things specific to the State’s culture in the common syllabus. The competition for marks and grades will be given an equal chance.”

Concurring with this was a senior official from the DOTE, who said, “Apart from theory classes, practical sessions will be common to all. Colleges located afar will have to equip themselves on par with the institutions in the city,” he stated and added that the DOTE official said that some of the technical institutions were not updating their syllabus as per the industrial requirements. “This big gap will be eliminated with the common syllabus.” However, technical institutions can change about 25% in the common syllabus according to their local needs.

An official from the Directorate of Collegiate Education pointed out that most companies and organisations prefer students from city colleges. With the introduction of common syllabus, this perception will change and help rural students.