Marathi must in all schools: CM Fadnavis

Mumbai: The state government will make Marathi compulsory in schools across all boards. The state will also take action against schools that fail to follow the order, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis informed the Legislative Council on Thursday.

The government will make an amendment in the current statute to ensure that Marathi will be made mandatory in Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) schools.

Marathi is presently a compulsory subject up to class 8 in schools run by the CBSE and ICSE.

Mr Fadnavis was replying to a question raised by Shiv Sena legislator Neelam Gorhe over the Marathi language.

“There is a already a provision to teach Marathi in schools. I have noticed that few schools, especially those following the CBSE and ICSE syllabus, have not been following the law. Therefore, an amendment would be brought in the Act,” Mr Fadnavis said.

Ms Gorhe announced that several writers will be protesting at Azad Maidan on Monday to demand making Marathi mandatory in schools attached to non-state education boards.

She added that a delegation of leading linguists will be meeting the chief minister to present their charter of demands relating to Marathi language.

CM backs syllabus change in Assembly

Mumbai: Taking into account the furore caused over the new reading and writing style of Marathi numbers, introduced by the state book publisher Balbharti, the state government on Thursday announced that a committee of experts will be formed to scrutinise the change to avoid any possible loss to students.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday defended the new style in the state Legislative Assembly saying that it has simplified the method.

“However, if required, an expert committee will be formed to analyse the new style. If anything is found wrong, it will be corrected. Our students will not be put to loss due to this,” he said.

Mr Fadnavis said syllabus changes as per learning ability of students. “The teaching system has not changed. It is an unnecessary controversy,” he said.

State book publisher Balbharti recently introduced a new reading and writing style for number names for class 2 in the Marathi medium.

The change made by the State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research (SBTPCR) in the Mathematics textbook has came in for lot of flak from experts and common people.

The new instructions direct teachers to break the pronunciation of numbers between 21 and 99 in Marathi. For example, 77 will now be read as ‘sattar saat’ instead of earlier ‘satyahattar’.

The CM said, “The SBTPCR has an expert committee which decided that curriculum should be made based on the learning abilities of students. The new system is based on that. However, there is a misunderstanding that it will change the method of pronunciation of numbers.”

Meanwhile, Mr Fadnavis said the quotas for economically weaker sections is also applicable to those belonging to the minority communities in the state.