Chennai, Apr 11 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday moved a resolution in the state Assembly seeking removal of the proposal of the University Grants Commission to conduct a Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission to various courses, including undergraduate programmes, in all the universities of the country.

While moving the resolution, Stalin said: "The CUET like NEET will sideline the diverse school education systems across the country and grossly undermine the relevance of overall development-oriented long-term learning in schools. He said that this would make students rely more on coaching institutions to improve their entrance examination scores."

The Chief Minister in the resolution said that the people of Tamil Nadu had felt that the entrance examination would lead to mushrooming of entrance coaching centres and added that this would lead to mental stress among the students as they would have to prepare for the entrance examination along with their regular college studies.

Any entrance examination based on the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus will not provide equal opportunity to students who have studied under various board syllabus across the country, the resolution stated.

It also said that more than 80 per cent of the students in the country are studying for their respective state board exams and added that they are form marginalised people in society.

Stalin, in the resolution, said: "The NCERT based entrance examination would place this deserving majority in a disadvantageous position in securing admission to central universities and that in Tamil Nadu's context this would drastically reduce the number of students from the state joining various central universities as well as the colleges affiliated to them."