It's just pass for Malayalam language bill

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Assembly on Tuesday passed the much-awaited Malayalam Language Bill but only after making a crucial change in the name of the bill by omitting the term ‘compulsory’.

Education minister C. Raveendranath said that Malayalam will be introduced in a phased manner of 10 years in schools. Malayalam language will be introduced in first standard in schools which did not teach Malayalam now from the next academic year.

Mr Raveendranath said that a three-pronged strategy would be introduced for making Malayalam compulsory in schools. Schools run by linguistic minorities will continue to have their mother tongue as the medium of instruction. These schools would be asked to introduce Malayalam as an additional language in class 1. For oriental schools where the medium of instruction is Sanskrit or Arabic, Malayalam will be introduced as a subject in standard V. SCERT will prepare separate Malayalam text books for such schools where the government will sanction additional teaching posts.

CBSE and ICSE schools in the state taught Malayalam as a compulsory subject till standard VIII. They have Malayalam as an optional subject in standard IX and X. The state government would print separate Malayalam text books for standard IX and X in CBSE and ICSE schools, said Mr Raveendranath.

Opposition UDF argued that the bill would not stand the scrutiny of the law as it covered CBSE and ICSE schools which were governed by central law. The argument was that the president had not given assent to the Malayalam Language (Extension and Promotion) Bill 2015 as it was against the central act. Law minister A.K. Balan pointed out that education was in the concurrent list. The bill brought out by the UDF in 2015 did not get the assent as it had the clause on official language which was contrary to the Official Language Act, Mr Balan said.