HYDERABAD: The government’s decision to make Telugu a compulsory subject for Class X in all its schools does not seem to have gone well with not only parents but also students. The government, on June 6, informed district education officers (DEOs) that students must enrol for Telugu, irrespective of the board they belong to, from the 2022-23 academic year. It said the schools that fail to implement this order would be imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000. It could double for a second offence.
Most parents were not aware of this rule. They said Telugu was never taken seriously by schools. Citing lack of understanding of the language in the family, parents felt that a lot of extra effort was needed on this front. The stakeholders were agitated by this order as Class X students enrolled in other boards have hardly studied Telugu. It is learnt that schools from other boards would be writing to the government on the matter.
“Suddenly making Telugu a compulsory subject for Class X exams is a huge task and it is going to be very difficult for students. Giving an additional subject suddenly is a lot of pressure. We have to teach students the basics as Telugu textbooks, the syllabus for class X has not been sent to us,” said a principal of a CBSE school in the city.
Class X students said they had only learnt the basics of the language and got just pass marks. “A bad score in one subject can bring down the CGPA and I am scared that it will happen because of Telugu. Already we need extra tuitions for difficult subjects, now Telugu is an addition,” said Nikhil Shah, a Class X student in an international school.
There are several students of other nationalities studying in international schools who will also have to learn Telugu and write the exams. The principals of international schools said it would have been better if the government had given them a year before making it compulsory. “The pandemic actually pushed the education system back and we could not focus on Telugu subject because of it. I do not know how we will catch up as we have to teach Telugu from scratch. We are already getting a lot of queries from the parents and do not know how to answer them,” said a principal of an international school in the city.
