Chennai, Dec. 16: The DMK today demanded that the Centre enforce the 27 per cent Other Backward Classes quota in appointing teachers to central institutions of higher learning, including the IITs.

The Telegraph had reported this month that the Indian institutes of technology have been giving the Scheduled Caste/Tribes as well as OBC reservations the go-by in appointing teachers.

A DMK youth conference that ended today noted that the quota was not being implemented in full even in appointments to other central government posts, filled through the Union Public Service Commission.

Chief minister M. Karunanidhi attended the meeting, presided over by the party’s youth wing secretary, M.K. Stalin, which also demanded that the OBC education quota be implemented in the all-India pre-medical, pre-dental and postgraduate medical entrance exams.

The education quota now applies only to central institutes such as the IITs, Indian institutes of management and the AIIMS. The quota, however, has been challenged in court.

The DMK said half the seats in central higher-learning institutes like the IITs should be earmarked for students from the various state school boards.

It said the current entrance examinations at these institutions, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, drew largely from the Central Board of Secondary Education syllabus. This was a huge disadvantage for candidates who studied under the state boards.

This handicap had led to a fall in the number of students from Tamil Nadu getting into the IITs and the AIIMS, the meeting alleged.

It said the Centre should follow Tamil Nadu’s example and introduce a sub-quota for the religious minorities within the OBC quota.

Referring to the stalemate in the Supreme Court on Tamil Nadu’s overall 69 per cent job and education reservation, the conference sought a constitutional amendment to allow the states to fix their own quotas. It said the private sector should introduce job quotas.

The party urged the Centre to speed up the Sethusamudram ship channel project, now under review following Sangh parivar objections to dredging the so-called Ram Setu, a chain of lime shoals.

The conference also requested the Centre to take “appropriate steps” to try and end the discrimination against Malaysian Indians, most of whom are of Tamil origin.

The conference criticised the screen stars who enter politics by floating their own party. Stalin blasted the new “instant parties and instant leaders”, without naming actor Vijayakant’s DMDK or actor Sarath Kumar’s more recent All India Socialist Party.