Minister for Primary and Secondary Education S. Suresh Kumar has written to Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, taking objection to the two-language formula that the State government adopted in its education policy recently. He has argued that this deprives many children from learning their mother tongue Kannada, especially in border districts.
“The Andhra Pradesh government’s decision to convert all government schools into English medium and compel every student to learn Telugu or Urdu as one of the languages has defied the spirit of bonhomie that has always existed between each of our States. This impacts the morale of Kannadigas residing in border areas of Andhra Pradesh who did their schooling in Kannada medium all these years,” Mr. Kumar has said in the letter.
Recounting the long history of camaraderie dating back to Krishnadevaraya’s time and beyond, the Minister reminded the Chief Minister that “umpteen Telugu-medium schools are found in Karnataka as a reason of liberal and all-inclusive administrative mechanism in our State”.
“The decision taken by the government to follow a two-language formula will put the lives of so many Kannada teachers in jeopardy and many children will be deprived of learning their mother tongue, for the simple reason that they are living outside Karnataka,” he said.
He has requested Mr. Reddy to “take necessary action to protect the interests of Kannadigas by continuing the minority language schools, who teach Kannada as a language or as a medium”.
