Official State Languages query

[gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu]

> While there is perhaps no law prohibiting having a school to teach any 
> particular language, the question is rather what the medium of 
> instruction is... But possibly 
> this has only to do with government recognition -- which is required in 
> order to get the government to pay the teachers' salaries.

Right, the problem is not of a law prohibiting such schools, but of
official recognition of them. We cant just start schools in an ad hoc
manner, they have to be officially registered as schools. Further,
students have to pass an officially recognised public examination at the
end of the 10th grade, but at present these are held only in the national
and state languages.  Holding them in other languages would require
official recognition of them as mediums of instruction. Even at the level
of the elementary school, my impression is that if a child hypothetically
spent her first 6 years of education in a 'school' where the medium of
instruction is Tulu and then transferred to another school run in an
official langauge, those initial years would not be recognised as formal
schooling and the child would probably be ineligible to enter the new
school in the 7th grade. But I'm not sure about this.

> I am not clear on the details, but my point is that the examples cited 
> evade the major political issues concerned.
> 
I'd like to hear from you about these political issues. I hope eventually 
to work on starting an elementary school in an adivasi language spoken in 
my hometown, but I'm still inexperienced about the issue.

Gail Coelho.