Ahmedabad: A petition has been filed in the Gujarat High Court seeking to compulsorily include the Gujarati language in schools with respect to the public interest. During the hearing on the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Matribhasha Abhiyan Sanstha, the High Court asked the government why Gujarati is not being taught properly even when the administration is running Gujarati medium schools.
"You are running Gujarati medium schools, then why are you not teaching Gujarati? Schools of the International Board or CBSE Board run on the soil of Gujarat, right? Then how can they change the rules of language teaching? Government should set up a proper mechanism to give NOC to non-Gujarati teaching schools," the high court said.
The court further reprimanded the schools that issue Gujarati Teaching Certificates from other boards or schools in Gujarat." They first need to learn Gujarati. The petitioner submitted that as per the details received, there are 109 schools in the state that do not teach the Gujarati language, while the government has only 23 schools on record that do not teach Gujarati," the court noted.
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It further clarified that several states including Punjab, Telangana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir teach their regional languages to the students. There already are rules in place that make it compulsory to teach the students of classes 1 to 8 in Gujarati language, the court observed. "We need to make a law on this issue, not just issue circulars," the judge said.
The petitioner also highlighted a government circular dated April 13, 2018, asking the government to take action against schools that do not include the Gujarati language in their curriculum.
