Gujarati Mandatory in Schools: The Gujarat government is planning to introduce a law to make the Gujarati language mandatory for students of Classes 1 to 8. The announcement by Gujarat government came after the remark from the Gujarat High Court seeking a law to make the Gujarati language compulsory in all schools in order to preserve the mother tongue.
According to the reports, after hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), a bench of Chief Justice Sonia Gokani and Justice Sandeep Bhatt said that there was no legal framework around teaching the Gujarati language in schools, especially in private schools where the medium of the education was English.
The Gujarat High Court urged the Gujarat government to make a law for making the Gujarati language compulsory in the local schools, comparable to what other states have done, the reports added.
How did this all start?
According to reports, earlier in 2018, the government introduced the policy of compulsory teaching the local Gujarati language in the State board schools or in the schools that are affiliated with the Central Boards. However, the Gujarat government in a presentation noted that there are 23 schools that did not teach the Gujarati language, whereas, the 13 schools did not teach the language as a mandatory subject, the reports further added.
At the time of the hearing in the court, the petitioner had noticed that primary schools specifically those affiliated with the CBSE, ICSE and IB boards were not offering the local Gujarati language as a subject in their syllabus in spite of it being a policy in place.
Furthermore, the court had also mentioned that if the schools wanted to operate in the State, the primary schools did not teach the Gujarati language as a subject in their curriculum at the primary level, the reports said.
