Plea moved to introduce spoken English in govt schools

A division bench comprising Justice S Manimkumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad before whom a plea moved in this regard came up for hearing on Monday, directed the government counsel to get instructions from the authorities concerned and posted the plea for further hearing to after a week.

The bench also directed the government advocate to submit details like the number of government-run, aided and unaided schools, which offers English as a medium of study.

The petitioner, M Appavu, former DMK legislator from Radhapuram assembly constituency and a retired school teacher, had submitted that the failure of the government-run, aided and unaided Tamil medium schools to impart spoken English has largely disadvantaged the students from Tamil medium schools in a competitive scenario.

He further submitted that as of now students of government schools who compete in various all India examinations for entry into professional courses must struggle both financially and mentally to augment their English-speaking skills by joining coaching centres, which offer English speaking courts at high costs. 

But if communication skill in English is given right from primary level, the students in Tamil medium government schools would not lose out while competing with Matriculation and CBSE school students, he said.

Appavu in his plea also noted that owing to this, a dire need has risen to offer emphasis to spoken English in all Tamil medium schools from primary to secondary levels by introducing spoken English as a compulsory subject.

His plea also pointed out that in Tamil Nadu there are 37,211 government schools, 12,419 private schools and 8,403 aided-schools in which a total 1.25 crore students are studying.