MADURAI: Condemning the three-language formula, Madurai Lok Sabha MP Su Venkatesan termed it as merely the imposition of Sanskrit and Hindi while its claim of promoting the state language is a deception. He highlighted the disproportionately high number of Sanskrit teachers and meagre number of teachers for Tamil in schools funded under PM-SHRI scheme to back up his claim.
Venkatesan’s remarks in a tweet were in response to a reply he received from the Union Ministry of Education about the schools covered by PM-SHRI scheme and the language-wise details of non-Hindi teachers appointed in these schools.
The reply shows 6,102 Sanskrit teachers and 1,994 Urdu teachers have been appointed to 14,500 schools funded by the scheme, whereas 9,152 teachers have been appointed for teaching non-Hindi native languages.Only 12 teachers were appointed to teach Tamil, a language spoken by 70 million people.
“The high number of Sanskrit teachers is shocking. The fact that 6,102 teachers have been appointed for Sanskrit — a language spoken by the fewest number of people among those listed in the Eighth Schedule (specifically 24,821 individuals, or just 0.002 percent of the population) — clearly exposes priority for Sanskrit,” the MP stated. He further pointed out that the Union Ministry had earlier claimed that Tamil might be introduced as a third language in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.
“However, there are 1,211 Sanskrit teachers in Madhya Pradesh - a figure that exceeds the total number of schools there (944 PM-SHRI schools). This means that more than one Sanskrit teacher has been appointed per school,” he said. The schools covered include those of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS).