Drop my poem but implement USE: M Karunanidhi

CHENNAI: Taking exception to the AIADMK government's decision to put on hold the implemention of Uniform School Education System (USE), DMK president M Karunanidhi on Friday said, "If the decision was prompted by the presence of my poem in the textbooks meant for USE classes, then there is nothing wrong in implementing the system after deleting my poem."
In a statement here, the former chief minister gave a detailed account of how the USE came into being and efforts taken in that connection. "If the present government opposes the USE just because it was introduced by the DMK regime, I can understand that," he said and added that his poem hailing Classical Tamil could be removed from the USE textbooks and the system introduced.USE was introduced with an objective to provide uniform education to all sections of society and was implemented after getting recommendations from an expert committee. Books too have been printed at a cost of Rs 200 crore. "The government should take a fresh call on whether all those textbooks deserve to be scrapped as printing new ones would result in fresh expenditure of Rs 200 crore," Karunanidhi said.