The Hindu : Telugu made compulsory subject in schools

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Telugu made compulsory subject in schools

By Our Special Correspondent

Hyderabad June 30. The Government today made it clear that it would allow exemption from Telugu as a compulsory subject for all classes up to Class X only in "rarest of rare cases.''

Announcing this at a press conference on Monday, the Minister for Primary Education, Mandava Venkateswara Rao, said an exemption, if any, would be student-wise and not school-wise as had been done so far "by mistake.'' If a student from another State joined the course in Andhra Pradesh in the middle of year due to transfer of parent(s), he/she might be given an exemption.

Mr. Venkateswara Rao, flanked by the department's Principal Secretary, I. V. Subba Rao, and the Director for School Education, Manmohan Singh, explained that the intention in making Telugu mandatory was to give the mother tongue its due place and implement it as the first official language in letter and spirit. The Government would implement Urdu as the second official language giving it its due weight in the administration. But, Telugu would be a must even in Urdu medium schools under the three-language formula adopted for schools -- Telugu, Hindi and English.

The Minister said the present schedule after the GO would be such that the students "shall'' study three languages up to Class X immediately effective in schools opened this year.

The schedule would be implemented from this academic year for Class VI, from the next academic year for Class VII, from 2005-06 for Class VIII, from 2006-07 for Class IX and from 2007-08 for Class X.

As per the schedule, for Telugu medium schools, Telugu would be the first language for Classes I to X, Hindi second language for Classes VI to X and English the third language for Classes V to X. In the case of English medium schools, Telugu would be the first language from Class I to X if the mother tongue of the student was Telugu or English and it would be again Telugu if the mother tongue was other than Telugu or English.

For the same group of schools, the second language for Classes from VI to X would be Hindi in the case of students who would have taken Telugu as the first language and Telugu to those who had taken languages other than Telugu as the first language. The third language for these schools would be English for Classes I to X.

For schools run on medium of instruction other than Telugu and English, the first language for Classes I to X would be ''the language of the medium of intruction concerned''. The second language would be Telugu for Classes VI to X and English the third language for Classes V to X.

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