This story is from August 3, 2017

Kerala government to appoint officer to study issues of linguistic minorities

State government will appoint a senior IAS officer to study the issues of Tamil and Kannada linguistic minorities.
Kerala government to appoint officer to study issues of linguistic minorities
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: State government will appoint a senior IAS officer to study the issues of Tamil and Kannada linguistic minorities. This decision was taken by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan after he met the state-level linguistic minority committee on Tuesday. Kerala has a significant Tamil population in Idukki and Palakkad districts and many Kannadingas reside in Kasaragod.

Yet another decision taken was to allow linguistic minority students to write exams in their own languages at the Plus Two level. This has been conveyed to the education department. At present, students from these linguistic minorities can write exams in their own language up to Class X and question papers are provided in these languages.
In response to the complaints raised by MLAs, the chief minister assured that the difficulties faced by linguistic minorities, to obtain a caste certificate from the revenue department, would be sorted out.
Vijayan asserted that the Malayalam Language (teaching) Act, which made Malayalam mandatory in all schools of Kerala, will be implemented after protecting interests of linguistic minorities. The medium of instruction won't change at schools located in linguistic minority regions.
However, students will have to study Malayalam as a second language from Class I this year onwards. Vijayan made it clear that students, presently studying in higher classes, will not have to study Malayalam. "Since they are born and brought up in Kerala, learning Malayalam would be in the interest of their future," he said.
Besides senior officials, power minister MM Mani, MLAs S Rajendran, K Krishnankutty, K Kunhiraman and NA Nellikkunnu attended the meeting.
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