Hindi should not be imposed on students: Ponmudy

CHENNAI: Reiterating the DMK government's stance on the two-language policy, Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy on Tuesday said a third language should not be imposed on students.

"With already students facing difficulty in studying two languages, another language should not be imposed and it (Hindi) should be left for the student's choice,” the minister said at the 17th Graduation Day at Anna University, Chennai and the Regional Campus, Coimbatore of Anna University for the students, who passed in the year 2021 and 2020.

Stating that the English language is important due to its international presence, Ponmudy said that "two-language policy is enough for us". The minister also claimed that the Centre is spending Rs 643 crore for Sanskrit, but providing only Rs 23 crore for Tamil.

Blaming the Centre's proposal to introduce entrance exams even for BA and BSc courses, the minister said: “Only after scrapping entrance exams for engineering admissions here, more students especially in the rural areas were able to pursue various courses".

Ponmudy said if the Centre impose entrance exams, students' dropouts will increase.

On the State-owned Pudhumai Penn scheme where girl students, who studied from Class 5 to Class 12 in State government schools would be paid a monthly amount of Rs 1,000 till they complete their graduation or diploma, Ponmudy said due to the launch of this scheme, more female students would pursue higher education without financial constraints.

Meanwhile, during the function, a total of 10,067 students, including 3,968 women graduates, received their degree certificates. The number of graduates who have registered for receiving the degree in person is 6,340.

As many as 3,837 received the degrees in undergraduate programmes, 2,503 received degrees in postgraduate programmes and 4 in MS (Research).