New guidelines for events at government schools, says CM Stalin after row over pseudoscience event

CHENNAI: Seeking to control the damage caused to his government’s image by a video of a self-proclaimed spiritual person preaching pseudoscience and irrational beliefs among government school students in the city, Chief Minister MK Stalin on Friday said detailed guidelines would soon be issued for conducting programmes in government schools.

Stalin also added that detailed guidelines would soon be issued for conducting programs in the state schools.

Waking up to a social media storm caused by the video, Chief Minister Stalin, who is currently busy wooing investment to Tamil Nadu, said, “Ideas promoting individual progress, ethics based life and social development must be inculcated in the students. I have consistently emphasised the importance of education and the need to foster scientific thinking in many events over the last three years. Science is the way to progress.”

“I have issued orders to formulate new guidelines for regulating the various programs conducted in the state schools so that our children, who are the future of Tamil Nadu, would receive progressive, scientific ideas and values of life,” said Stalin, in a message posted on his ‘X’ page, apparently, avoiding a direct reference to the Ashok Nagar government school faux pas.

“The teachers themselves can bring out the best ideas needed to face future challenges with confidence and sharpen knowledge. Measures would be taken by the school education department to provide necessary innovative training and social education using subject experts and scholars,” the CM assured, and added that the high-quality textbooks contain the best scientific ideas that students needed to learn.

It has been reliably learnt that the state school education department has ordered a probe into the Ashok Nagar school event.

State school education minister Mahesh Poyyamozhi, who was in the eye of the storm, attended an event in the same school this morning and cautioned the teachers to be wary of the kind of persons they bring to the school to address the students.

The minister also advised the students to rationally scrutinise the statements made by everyone, including him, as was told by Periyar, and not blindly embrace all ideas spoken to them.

He also lauded the Tamil teacher who questioned the irrational views uttered by the spiritual speaker in the school a few days ago.

Meanwhile, microblogging site ‘X’ was flooded with messages targeting the minister.

A hashtag #Resign_AnbilMahesh was trending on microblogging site ‘X’ with a good number of otherwise DMK sympathizers also contributing to keep the hashtag trending in the backdrop of the Ashok Nagar school faux pas.

That the government school incident has hit headlines a day after state sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin called the state school syllabus the “best one promoting independent and rational thinking” also enabled the critics to question the synergy or lack of it in the government policy making.