Gandhinagar: Four years after it was mooted, the State Government has now made teaching Gujarati language compulsory in all the schools irrespective of the education board they may be affiliated to.
The State Assembly on Tuesday unanimously passed “The Gujarat compulsory teaching and learning of Gujarati language bill, 2023” according to which all students from class 1 to 8 will be taught Gujaratilanguage as an additional language compulsory and this is proposed to be implemented from the academic year 2023-24.
Earlier, the State Government had announced Gujarati teaching would be mandatory from class 3 but with an amendment it would now be from class 1.
Students with domicile outside Gujarat will be granted exemption by the schools concerned. Announcing the decision, Minister of State for Education Kuber Dindhor stated that provisions had also been made in the bill to penalise schools up to Rs 2 lakh and even cancellation of affiliation if they violated the law. He said compulsory teaching of Gujarati languagewould help preserve the "culture and pride" of the State.
The minister informed that any school which didn’t follow the law for a month would be penalised Rs.50,000. “If it continues for a second month for a second time, the penalty will be Rs 1 lakh. For a third offence, the penalty will be Rs 2 lakh,” he said.
If a school continues to violate the law for a year the government will direct the board or institution to disaffiliate the school.
Any officer not below the rank of deputy director of office of directorate of primary education may recover such penalty, the bill states.
Opposition Congress leader Shailesh Parmar wondered that it took four years for the government to bring the bill, while it was supposed to be introduced in 2018.
