Tamil Nadu’s senior educationist Rajagopalan dies at 95

CHENNAI: Senior educationist S S Rajagopalan, who was a member of the Muthukumaran panel formed to set up Samacheer Kalvi (uniform system of school education) in the state under late CM M Karunanidhi cabinet, passed away in a hospital in Chennai late on Tuesday.

He was 95. An English teacher who also taught Math by profession, Rajagopalan began his career in the early 1950s at a govt-aided school in Coimbatore before becoming its headmaster. He moved to Madras after his retirement in 1990 and briefly served as a senate member of Madras University. His body will be handed over to Ramachandra Medical College for medical research.


Throughout his 4-decades-long career, Rajagopalan served as a member of the technical committee of the All India Forum for Right Education, and briefly worked with the State Platform for Common School System (SPCSS-TN) in Tamil Nadu. “He was a staunch advocate of mother tongue as the medium of instruction in govt schools. During his time at the Samacheer Kalvi committee, there was an accusation that the Tamil Nadu syllabus was below par in standards compared to CBSE or other syllabi. Through his year-long research, comparing the syllabi, he established that the content provided in the TN syllabus was in fact more academically fulfilling than others,” SPCSS-TN general secretary P B Prince Gajendra Babu told TOI.

Post his retirement, Rajagopalan also published articles for newspapers and periodicals. Condoling his death, School education minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi posted on X: “The demise of the senior educationist S S Rajagopalan is a great loss to the field of education. Ayya Rajagopalan was one who emphasised that examination does not merely evaluate learning. It also evaluates teaching. While guiding pioneering projects, he never hesitated to critique them, always for the welfare of students. We pay our respects to Ayya.”

Educationists, including TN school education director S Kannappan, condoled his death, calling it a “grave loss” to education.