With Supreme Court accepting the proposal mooted by the Centre that Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) students of Class VI, VII and VIII will not have to take examination for Sanskrit in this academic session and they may continue to study German as an optional subject comes as a big relief. Learning a foreign language is always an asset especially with business and livelihood horizons expanding and geographical boundaries are no limits. Sanskrit should be retained but option should be left to students for the language preference on the basis of its utilities and popularities. The existence of the language in the school curriculum is nothing new and foreign languages are there where they are being provided with scholarships and funds for popularising them. With her decision to scrap the ongoing programme of teaching German as a third language option in the KVs across the country,Union HRD Minister has naturally invoked the ire of parents and educationists alike who have dubbed the move as ‘retrograde’. Six years ago, with the Ministry of Human Resource Development policy to allow five foreign languages to be introduced, many KV schools decided to offer the same. It seems that mostly the willingness of the students and the availability of teachers was the driving force behind this move. The KVs offering German as third language were doing so under an MoU signed in September 2011 with the Goethe Institute, which provided training to teachers and library material, and organised all programmes. The recent decision comes following the latest Board Meeting of the KV on 27th October 2014. What stands out is the irresponsible nature shown by the Govt. in making a change so abrupt that forced students to make a mid-term jump from one language to another. Having completed at least one summative and one formative assessment, it is next to impossible for Approx 68,000 students to learn the basics of an alien language before the academic year ends in March, notwithstanding the farce of the schools providing “appropriate and adequate” counselling for the students and parents affected by this mid-term policy change.
