Prabha Sridevan, J.

1. The "Samacheer Kalvi Thittam", i.e., The Uniform System of School Education Act, 2010 (Act 8 of 2010), hereinafter referred to as the Act, has been enacted to introduce a common syllabus, textbooks and examination system to the four streams of education in the State. According to the State, this will achieve social justice and introduce quality education; and it is for the benefit of the children. According to the writ petitioners, who are Matriculation Schools, this Act is unreasonable and not in the interest of the child. The most important persons, the children, were not there to express their views and so, with their best interests in mind, we have examined this issue.

2. The petitioners in most of the writ petitions are Private Schools Associations from various Districts, while some writ petitions are filed by individuals too. Only the Matriculation Schools contend that they are aggrieved. There is no challenge from the other two streams, viz. the Anglo-Indian Schools and the Oriental Schools. The grievance of the writ petitioners was expressed by learned senior counsel Mr. R. Krishnamoorthy, Mr. N.R. Chandran, Mr. K. Doraisami, Mr. R. Muthukumarasamy Mr. M. Venkatachalapathy and Mr. S. Silambanan. The State was defended by the learned Additional Advocate General, Mr. P. Wilson. In some of the writ petitions, a third party filed impleading petitions supporting the State, which have been ordered.

3. According to the petitioners, the Act interfered with the right of the children to choose the preferred system of education; it interfered with the right of the parents to choose which system of education was suitable for their children; it interfered with a teachers independence, imagination and inventiveness in adapting and adopting teaching methods which were best for her class. Learned senior counsel submitted that the professed object of the Act, which is to ensure social justice, will not be achieved, as "levelling down" the education pattern by making the system uniform cannot achieve social justice. If the State was really interested in achieving social justice, it should uplift the ones who are lagging behind instead of dragging down the ones who are superior. This is exactly what the State will achieve by the Act, and this has also been made clear in the counter affidavit filed by the State, where it is stated that the Act will ensure that the prevailing gaps in quality will be eliminated and there will not be islands of excellence or branded dullards among children, which shows that the islands of excellence will be brought down to a lower level. It was submitted that in the present days of global competition, when the children of the State are grappling to meet those challenges, it is indeed unfortunate that the State has brought such an arbitrary Act, which will in effect blunt the childrens skills, as a result of which they will not be in a position to meet the global challenge. According to them, the Act has made serious inroads in the matter of childrens education. The Act does not even give the schools the option to choose textbooks. The regimentation which the Act seeks to bring in, violates the right of the parent and that of the child, and any attempt on the part of the schools to impart an individualistic type of education will be met with punishment in view of the penal provisions contained in the Act. The provisions of the Act have no nexus to the objects that it sets out to achieve. The State had declared that it will use the National Curriculum Framework-2005 (NCF in short), but many of the provisions of the present Act are contrary to the principles set down in the NCF. The NCF stresses a "decentralised and participatory manner of education", which is exactly opposite to what the State has introduced by the Act. The NCF has suggested that there should be multiple textbooks, the choice of which is left to the teachers, but the Act is contrary to this. According to the