Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Wednesday urged Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to remove the mandatory. criteria of knowledge of Hindi for the recruitment of non-teaching posts in National Institutes of Technology (NITs).
In a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Stalin said the inclusion of a test on Hindi by the National Testing Agency for in the common examination to be conducted for filling non-teaching vacancies in nine NITs undermined “the linguistic equality” and blatantly disregarded diversity. He said imposing of Hindi deprived the opportunities for youth from Tamil Nadu and other non Hindi-speaking States.
Madurai MP Su. Venkatesan from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had raised the issue by writing a letter to Mr. Pradhan on Wednesday, questioning the need for mandating the knowledge of Hindi and requesting his intervention to remove the same.
Last Thursday, the National Testing Agency (NTA) issued a public notice regarding the conduct of common recruitment examination for filling the vacancies for non-teaching posts in eight cadres in nine NITs in the country. The syllabus for the examination included the testing of English and Hindi. “In addition to the testing of candidate’s understanding of the English and Hindi Languages, Vocabulary, Grammar, Sentence Structure, Synonyms, Antonyms and its correct usage etc. would also be tested,” the syllabus mentioned.
According to Mr. Venkatesan, the weightage given to the “Test of English and Hindi” was 20 % for some cadres and 30 % for some other cadres. He contended that such a significant weightage would play a crucial role in the selection and adversely affect the candidates from non Hindi-speaking States while benefiting those from Hindi-speaking States.
