Information on religion, caste and community is not mandatory during school admissions in Tamil Nadu.

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Until now, all school managements, including self-financing institutions, had to update details like religion, caste and community of the students in the Education Management Information System (EMIS).

A senior official from the School Education Department, seeking anonymity, told DT Next that the State government had already issued orders to Directorate of School Education authorities that those who didn’t wish to mention their religion or caste in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) and Transfer Certificate (TC) were permitted to mention “no religion” and ‘no caste’ against those columns in the applications or leave them blank.

“However, it isn’t being followed and we found that several schools insisted that parents mention their religion and caste in various application forms during admissions,” he said, adding, “Even in EMIS, the mandatory conditions of filing religion, caste and community of the student were not removed as per the GO.”

Stating that the order has been issued to all education authorities in each district to instruct all schools to follow the court order from the coming academic year, the official said, “However, if parents wish to mention religion and caste details in forms they can go ahead.”
He also pointed out if the parents, who were eligible to claim concessions or scholarships based on the community, would have to mention the details, they could do so.
Once details of the students are uploaded in EMIS, a unique ID will be provided to the students making it easy to track their performance in various activities.