Linguistic minority students in Rajasthan have been deprived of education in their mother tongue, with the books in Urdu, Sindhi and Punjabi not being supplied to over 20,000 government schools and the teachers not being appointed in the current academic session. A recent decision of the State government in this regard has led to resentment among the students.
In a clarification on the staffing pattern, the Directorate of Elementary Education earlier this month ordered withdrawal of teachers of more than one “third language” from the schools. This has effectively resulted in the teaching of only Sanskrit as the third language, to the exclusion of all others.
Though Minister of State for Education Govind Singh Dotasra has since affirmed that the education in mother tongue would be imparted to all students, the September 2 order has so far not been cancelled. The children belonging to linguistic minority communities are forced to opt for Sanskrit in the three-language formula of schooling.
The “Shala Darpan” web portal of the Education department, on which the government schools usually upload their demands and activities, does not give an option for supply of books in any language other than Sanskrit. In the online classes started during the COVID-19 pandemic, the students are unable to understand the lessons in the absence of books.
Though the academic session started in July, the Directorate of Education has only last week issued the orders prescribing books for the linguistic minority students in the upper primary classes. While the Urdu books will be obtained from the National Council for Educational Research & Training (NCERT), the books in Sindhi and Punjabi will be brought from Maharashtra and Punjab, respectively.
Rajasthan Urdu Shikshak Sangh president Ameen Kayamkhani said here on Wednesday the rules framed in 2004 had provided for appointment of a third language teacher on the availability of a minimum of 10 students in a class. “After the initial appointments by the District Education Officers, this provision has been gradually diluted. It is not implemented any more,” he said.
While pointing out that the linguistic minority children comprised about 10% of the students in government schools, Mr. Kayamkhani said the Urdu education had been “practically abolished” from first to fifth classes and was being gradually finished in VI to X classes. Several schools situated in the minority-dominated areas force their students to study only Sanskrit as the third language.
In a particular instance of the Government Girls’ Secondary School at Bhatta Basti in Jaipur, all the 497 students coming from Urdu-speaking families are compelled to study Sanskrit. Students and their parents have staged demonstrations at several places across the State, while affirming that this was an infringement of the provisions of the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education Act, 2009.
