Plea Challenges Govt Order on Tamil Learning in Schools

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court sought a reply from the School Education Department on a petition praying to quash the impugned order of the Director of Matriculation Schools directing to enforce Tamil as the compulsory first language in schools in Kanyakumari district.

R Appu Nadesan, authorised officer of Tamil Nadu Private Matriculation Schools Students’ Parents’ Association, filed a petition stating that Kanyakumari district was annexed to Tamil Nadu in 1956 under the States Re-organisation Act from the erstwhile State of Travancore-Cochin.

However, due to the close cultural and linguistic connections, a significant part of plebeian population still studies and speaks Malayalam. Of the four taluks in Kanyakumari district, Kalkulam and Vilavancode taluks had been declared bilingual and Malayalam had been recognised as a minority language in the State.

While so, in pursuance of a GO issued on April 20, 2012, the Director of Matriculation Schools issued an impugned order to all the matriculation schools across the State on May 30, 2014, stating that the students of Class IX would have to take Tamil as Part I language for the forthcoming class X board exams. The impugned order stated that students studying other languages as their Part I Language would not be permitted to take board exams and were thus forced to take up the language.

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