NAGERCOIL: Over 2,200 linguistic minority students studying from standard VI to IX in 37 government and government-aided schools in Kanyakumari district bordering Kerala were forced to write language examination in Tamil on Wednesday and Thursday.
The students were shocked to receive the question paper in Tamil instead of their mother tongue in the annual exams, a teacher working in a government-aided school said on condition of anonymity.
A teacher from a government-aided school told The Hindu that the students had Malayalam as their Part I language (mother tongue) in quarterly and half-yearly examinations, but they were given Tamil question papers on Wednesday and Thursday without any prior intimation.
“Only when the sealed question paper covers were opened at the examination centres concerned, we came to know about it,” she said.
Officials in the Education Department said it was a government directive based on the Tamil Learning Act, 2006. When some of the teachers asked the officials, they responded by saying, “Pursue the matter with the Director of School Education.”
When contacted, Thuckalay District Educational Officer J. Arul Manickaraj said they were acting as per the directive of the State government in implementing the Tamil Learning Act, 2006, which made the students from standard 1 to XII to compulsorily study Tamil as Part I language and learning the mother tongue for the linguistic minorities was their optional subject under Part IV.
Chief Educational Officer A.S. Radhakrishnan said the headmasters of the schools concerned were instructed clearly during the beginning of the academic year about it. A separate team was formed to check teaching Tamil as Part I paper in all these schools. The students had to write Tamil as compulsory Part I paper during their SSLC examinations during the next academic year, he added.
Meanwhile, parents of Malayalee students have planned to observe a hunger strike in front of the Government Higher Secondary School in Pulugal on Saturday.
Condemning the act, Vilavancode MLA S. Vijayadharini said in a release that she had already represented the issue with the State Education Minister.
Officials in the Education Department said it was a government directive based on the Tamil Learning Act, 2006
