CHENNAI: Countering the charges of the leaders of political parties in Tamil Nadu regarding the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP), particularly with reference to the three-language policy stressed in the NEP, BJP state president L Murugan on Tuesday said, “Times have changed from 1960s to 2020 and views have also changed. Don’t stall the NEP just by raising the language issue.”
“Knowing fully well that NEP does not impose any language on anyone, everyone expresses their views in tune with the political climate of Tamil Nadu,” said Murugan in a statement here and pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been upholding the glory of Tamil language wherever he goes.
"As such, I appeal to everyone not to stall the NEP just by raising the language issue since this policy aims at improving the future of the youth and also their competitive skills at global level," he added.
Pointing out that at no place, the NEP said Hindi and Sanskrit would be made compulsory, Murugan said, "It is natural that students will tend to show interest in learning an additional language when learning becomes enjoyable."
In Tamil Nadu, there are thousands of CBSE syllabus based schools and matriculation schools that teach many languages already. So, only the students of government schools lose the opportunity to learn one more language. “We alone stand as a stumbling block to the students' willingness to learn another language - Hindi or any other Indian language,” Murugan added.
"When the students of Tamil Nadu take up a third language - say Hindi, Kannada, Telugu or Malayalam, the students in other states may opt for Tamil as the third language. Are we ignoring this opportunity?" Murugan questioned.
The New Education Policy 2020 envisages world-class education to all - from primary school to higher studies and also aims at improving educational institutions. Everyone has welcomed the importance given to teaching through the mother tongue. The NEP is for the whole of the country and not for Tamil Nadu alone, he added.