‘Allow linguistic minorities to pursue education in mother tongue’

The Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists’ Association has urged the government to take steps to safeguard the right to pursue education through mother tongue for linguistic minorities living in the border areas with Kerala in Kanyakumari district.

With a view to protecting the rights of linguistic minorities living in Kanyakumari district, a government order was published in 1965.

As per the GO, the rights of minorities should be safeguarded, the association said. To highlight this demand, over 50 members of the association and Malayala Samaj staged a day-long agitation in front of the Collectorate here on Thursday. Malayalee students in schools in border areas of Kanyakumari district should be allowed to continue their studies in their mother tongue. The Tamil Nadu government should modify its 2006 order to enable the linguistic minority students to study in their mother tongue.

The agitation was presided over by district president Hasan and inaugurated by Muralidharan. Office-bearers of Malayala Samaj spoke.

Earlier, the association, in a petition, said that over 2,200 linguistic minority students, studying from standard VI to IX in 37 government and aided schools in Kanyakumari district bordering Kerala, were forced to write the language examination in Tamil during the annual examination last year. The students, who had studied Malayalam as first language, were denied admission to standard VI to XII in private matriculation, aided and government schools during the current academic year.