The Hindu:
Tamilnadu: Sunday, 23 February 2020.
Information
Commission says it will benefit those writing competitive exams
The
Tamil Nadu Information Commission has directed the Tamil University, Thanjavur,
to translate into Tamil the Physics, Chemistry, History, Geography, Economics
and Mathematics books published by the National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT) in English and Hindi from 6th to 12th Standards.
If
implemented, the order is expected to go a long way in benefiting students from
Tamil medium appearing for the national competitive examinations like the Union
Public Service Commission (UPSC), the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test
(NEET), the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) and the Staff Selection Commission
(SSC) for which question papers are based on NCERT syllabus.
Passing
orders on a petition filed by R. Chander of Chennai, State Information
Commissioner S. Muthuraj directed the varsity to translate the books of six
subjects from 6th to 12th into Tamil and upload the content on its website
under the provisions of Section 4 of the Right to Information Act. The Public
Information Officer was asked to send a compliance report to the Secretary,
Tamil Development Department, and Secretary, School Education Department,
Chennai.
In
his petition, Mr. Chander contended that most of the competitive examinations
for admissions or recruitment conducted by the Centre were based on the NCERT
syllabus of Physics, Chemistry, History, Geography, Economics, Mathematics
subjects from 6th Standard to 12th Standard, for which books were available
only in English and Hindi.
Translation
errors
Students
from Tamil Nadu who completed their school education with Tamil as a medium of
instruction and aspiring to get into Central government jobs or educational
institutions were finding it difficult to study NCERT books as they were not
available in Tamil. Though most of these examinations were conducted in Tamil
as well, students found it difficult to score owing to translation errors in
question papers. He petitioned the Tamil University under the RTI Act to take
steps for translating the NCERT books into Tamil. Since there was no reply from
the Public Information Officer and the First Appellate Authority, he moved the
Commission.
Appearing
for the university, the PIO/Deputy Registrar stated that under Section 2(f) of
the Act, information could be provided as available in the records and that
there was no provision of translating the information and providing the
translated version to the applicant.
After
hearing both sides, Mr. Muthuraj and considering the larger interest of
students who had Tamil as their medium of instruction at school, Mr Muthuraj
said the Preamble of the Act authorised promotion of transparency and
accountability of every public authority.
The
main objective of the Tamil University’ Department of Translation was to
translate Tamil literature into other languages and vice-versa. Hence, the
Department of Translation was accountable to translating the NCERT books under
the Act, Mr. Muthuraj said.