R ARIVANANTHAM
CHENNAI, SEP 11
Manithaneya Makkal Katchi founder-president Prof M H. Jawahirullah on Thursday urged the Tamil Nadu government to take immediate steps to prevent the closure of Gujarat’s only Tamil higher secondary school in Ahmedabad.
Speaking to navjeevanexpress.com, Prof M H. Jawahirullah said, “Tamils have migrated to Gujarat state before independence in search of jobs and settled in cities like Ahmedabad. Maninagar Assembly constituency in Ahmedabad, which was represented by then CM and present Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has a sizable population of Tamils. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s School Board was running eight Tamil-medium primary schools in the city while Ahmedabad Tamil Welfare Education Trust has been running Ahmedabad Tamil Higher Secondary School for nearly 50 years.”
With the onslaught of grace for English-medium education, the strength of students in AMC School Board-run other language schools, including Tamil-medium, has drastically come down in the last ten years which resulted in the closure of Tamil primary schools over the years. As a result of this strength of students in Ahmedabad Tamil Secondary School has also come down to 35 in the academic year 2020-21. Citing the lower strength of students, Ahmedabad District Education Officer has ordered the school’s closure putting a question mark on the future of poor students. This is a grant-in-aid school, added Professor.
“On the one hand, the Centre has been stressing on the importance of education in one’s Mother Tongue and on the other the state government has ordered the closure of only Tamil school. This has happened even before the implementation of the New Education Policy. We are extremely pained at the worries of Tamil parents as they will not be able to give education to their children despite toiling hard for the development of Gujarat,” regretted the academician.
Tamil Development Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu has set up many Chairs in reputed universities of the world for the promotion of the Classical language Tamils and also funding it.
Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government should immediately take necessary measures to safeguard the educational interest of migrant Tamils all over the country.
Manithaneya Makkal Katchi urges Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswamy to take up the cause of Ahmedabad Tamil Higher Secondary School students with his Gujarat counterpart Vijaybhai Rupani on a war-footing. This will pave for the continuation of education of migrant Tamil workers’ children in Vibrant Gujarat and also the development of Tamil, said Professor.
