Science Insight: Science Forum urges political parties to focus on education and environment sectors in U.T. – Explained

The Puducherry Science Forum (PSF) has urged political parties to prioritise education and environment sectors while drafting the manifesto to contest the April 9 Assembly elections.

In an appeal to all political parties and candidates, the PSF called for their commitment to one overarching principle of democratic decision making and citizen participation in environment policy and a set of priority areas including participatory water management, coastal ecology and land use, urban planning, biodiversity conservation, solid waste management and climate change.

The PSF wanted safe drinking water made available to all as a fundamental right and clear plans formulated with local participation for protection and restoration of natural drainage systems. It also sought strict segregation of sewerage from drinking water and stormwater networks to prevent contamination of waterbodies, and developing an adequate State-wide system for proper sewage disposal, segregation of bio-degradable and non-bio-degradable waste at household-level.

It also recommended designing protocols for e-waste management and recycling, strict enforcement of the ban on single-use plastics and establishing a bio-mining plant at the landfill sites.

According to the PSF, Puducherry has become increasingly vulnerable to a number of threats to its environment and development due to a combination of anthropogenic pressures, unscientific nature of urban planning and development policies and climate change.

It called for a community-managed system based on a scientific survey and mapping of all wetlands of Puducherry, including ‘eris’ (traditional irrigation tanks), lagoons, estuaries, backwaters, marshes, and associated seasonal and perennial waterbodies. The process should incorporate hydrological boundaries, catchment areas, inflow–outflow channels, and buffer zones essential for maintaining ecological integrity.

The PSF also called for fine-tuning the existing draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP), including the missing ecologically-sensitive areas and coastal commons.

Recommending the formulation of an exhaustive inventory of flora and fauna in the four regions of the Union Territory — Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam — the PSF also sought a historical Land Use/ Land Cover (LULC) change analysis and a comparative public evaluation of the Comprehensive Development Plan 2035.

Identifying potential areas for conservation and ecological protection, eliminating poaching of IUCN-listed species and activating the Biodiversity Management Committees and people’s biodiversity registers were also recommended.

The PSF’s Education Working Group also called for a commitment to implement the Right to Education Act “in both letter and spirit”.

Expressing concern over recent changes in school education and higher education, some emerging from the implementation of National Education Policy, the PSF urged parties and candidates to commit to implementing a set of important measures to keep the sector accessible for all.

It recommended that the choice of State Board or CBSE curricula be kept elective for students to reduce the dropout rate and prevent them from being forced to shift to private schools. If needed a Puducherry School State Board must be constituted.

As spelt out in the NEP, the mother-tongue Tamil should be the medium of instruction in all primary schools. At higher levels of education, students should have the options to choose between English and Tamil-medium and therefore both streams should be made available in all schools, the PSF said.

It also recommended examination reforms, including setting question papers in Tamil and English, withdrawing compulsory State-wide examinations in Classes I and III and reducing administrative burden and data-collection tasks for teachers. All teachers should also be provided adequately designed teacher-training programmes, especially in new disciplines like IT and fine arts.

The PSF also highlighted the urgent need to make all educational facilities and their neighbourhoods drugs-free and also to introduce mental health promotion and support programmes in all schools and colleges. Working conditions for teachers in private schools should also ensure the same salaries, working hours, job security and dignity, at least as available in government schools were among the recommendations.