Mumbai : The government is planning to conduct Marathi foundation courses in non-Marathi schools to increase the percentage of minorities in the government services Minister for Minority Affairs Eknath Khadse said on Friday.
“It has been observed that the minority students fail MPSC exams as they are weak in Marathi. Hence we have decided to take the step,” Khadse said at a press conference. He also announced that the government would start teaching Urdu in Marathi schools as a part of schemes to bring the minorities to the social main stream.
“Muslim students don’t go to the Marathi schools near their homes because Urdu is not taught at these schools. When we realised this, we had a meeting with schools Education Minister Vinod Tawde and it was decided that Urdu would be included in syllabus after fifth standard as an optional subject,” Khadse said.
The Marathi foundation course would be started at the minority schools for the 8th, 9th and the 10th standards. The courses would be of 9 months duration and would be conducted between July and March, the minister said.
The minister, while answering other queries, said that 2472 educational institutes have been granted permission as linguistic and social minority institutions. But, most of these institutions are found to have given admissions to students from other communities in large numbers. Such institutions are required to admit 70% student from the minority community in whose name the institute has been granted permission. “All such institutions would be soon be inspected and taken action against,” the minister said.
All the minority education institutes have been asked to register themselves as the minority institute on the government website. But, only 456 institutes have registered themselves, the minister said.
