PREDICTABLY PROPAGATION of hindi and Sanskrit by Hindi zealots of the educationally backward BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh) states with the tacit support of bigwigs of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, has provoked a backlash in anti-Hindi peninsular India.
On September 18, the AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu (currently led by Jayalalithaa proxy O. Paneerselvam) resurrected the dormant Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act, 2006 (introduced by the Karunanidhi-led DMK government which was in power 2006-2011) making Tamil a compulsory language in all schools statewide including primary-secondaries affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) from the next academic year (2015-16). For the first time, all 565 CBSE and 468 CISCE-affiliated schools have been asked to introduce Tamil in class I next year, and ensure that all students up to class X learn the state’s dominant language by 2024-25.
The applicability of the Act to CBSE and CISCE schools comes nine years after it was made compulsory in 2006 for 52,303 government schools and 6,500 unaided private matriculation schools (unique to Tamil Nadu and governed by the Directorate of Matriculation Schools) affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education. Government and matriculation schools were directed to make Tamil language learning mandatory for class I students in 2006 and scale it up to class X by 2015-16.
Hitherto, government schools followed the state’s two-language policy — Tamil and English — introduced in 1967 following the anti-Hindi agitation of 1965, but private matriculation schools offered students the choice of Tamil or Hindi up to middle school and Tamil, Hindi, French or other languages in high school as the elective second language.
Therefore, a letter issued to all 6,500 affiliated schools by the director of matriculation schools on February 10 stating that Tamil will become a compulsory language paper for class X students in the academic year 2015-2016 and asking schools to submit preparedness reports, has evoked strong protest from the Association of Matriculation Higher Secondary Schools which has appealed to the Madras high court for a stay order.
“Although the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act was enacted in June 2006, the state government appointed officials to monitor its implementation only in April 2012. As many schools have yet to start teaching Tamil as a second language, it will be difficult for class X students studying other languages to suddenly shift to Tamil. Moreover, since Tamil Nadu has a two-language policy, students whose mother tongue is not Tamil and those whose parents are on transfer from other states shouldn’t be forced to study Tamil. Imposing Tamil on unaided minority institutions also adversely affects their fundamental rights. Students should have a right to choose their second language,” says K.R. Nandha Kumar, state general secretary, Tamil Nadu Nursery, Primary, Matric and Higher Secondary Schools’ Association.
The latest diktat of the state government to matriculation schools is yet another blow to their autonomy. Five years ago, the Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009 prescribed their tuition fees. The next year, the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act, 2010 mandated the common syllabus prescribed for government schools to the state’s private, financially independent (unaided) 6,500 matriculation schools. All these incursions into the autonomy of matriculation schools have prompted their managements to switch allegiance and/or promote greenfield CISCE/CBSE-affiliated schools.
But the state government’s September 18 order, which makes it obligatory for CBSE and CISCE schools to also teach Tamil as the second language, is being interpreted as a first step of the state government to interfere with schools affiliated with these pan-India boards which were hitherto beyond its academic jurisdiction. “Parents in transferable jobs prefer to admit their children in CBSE schools as it’s tough for children who have studied a different second language in another state to learn Tamil in an intermediate class. Since we follow the three-language policy, Tamil could be introduced as a third language for students who have chosen other second languages,” suggests P.C. Selvarani, principal of the CBSE-affiliated SBOA School and Junior College, Chennai.
Clearly, the Tamil Nadu government needs to re-think its two-language policy, given that in an increasingly borderless world, school and college students move beyond native state boundaries for education and jobs and need to be conversant with several languages. In the circumstances, the Tamil Nadu state government’s diktat of forcing Tamil language learning on all school students is a great leap backward.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)