CHENNAI: The school education department has granted a one-time exemption for linguistic minority students from writing the Tamil language paper under Section I (compulsory subject) in Class 10 examination in April this year.
In a Government Order issued on Tuesday, the department said the exemption is being granted for this academic year based on the requests made by the institutions run by linguistic minorities since vacancies for Tamil staff are yet to be filled.
The department has also instructed the institutions to fill the vacancies so that Tamil exams can resume from the next academic year. Students from linguistic minority communities, who opted for their mother tongue and were asked to write the Class 10 exams for 600 marks this year onwards, now will skip the Tamil paper and write the exams for a total of 500 marks.