The Madras High Court has directed the Puducherry government to consider a plea for establishment of a separate board for school education, more particularly for X and XII standards, in the Union Territory.

"In the light of increasing population and the number of school-going children, it may be in the best interest of the students if a board or individual boards for primary and secondary education or even higher education were constituted. However, that is a decision exclusively within the domain of the executive," the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu said.

The bench permitted the petitioner to send a representation afresh to the Education secretary in Puducherry.

The secretary, it said, will consider the representation in appropriate perspective, particularly considering the many schools which have mushroomed in Puducherry itself and the need for providing a distinct curriculum or even process for students there delinked from what is followed in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.

The bench was disposing of a PIL petition from R Sreedhar on Thursday.

If such representation is made by the petitioner within the next four weeks, the Secretary should furnish a reply within 12 weeks, the bench said and hoped that expeditious and appropriate steps would be taken by the Puducherry government to best serve the interest of the school-going students in its region.